Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Sant Joan les Fonts

What to see and do in Sant Joan les Fonts (Garrotxa, Girona): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 2 Monuments · 2 Historical milestones

How far each place is from the centre of Sant Joan les Fonts

Monastery of Sant Joan les Fonts 1.1 km
Santa Eulàlia de Begudà 3.4 km

Towns near Sant Joan les Fonts

What to see in Castellfollit de la Roca 3.4 km · 4 places
What to see in Olot 3.9 km · 23 places
What to see in Montagut i Oix 7.2 km · 8 places
What to see in La Vall de Bianya 7.3 km · 17 places
What to see in Sant Jaume de Llierca 7.9 km · 2 places
What to see in Les Preses 8.5 km · 2 places
What to see in Riudaura 8.8 km · 2 places
What to see in Santa Pau 8.9 km · 16 places

Spain › Catalonia › Girona › Garrotxa › Sant Joan les Fonts

What to see and do in Sant Joan les Fonts

Sant Joan les Fonts
Village
Sant Joan les Fonts is a municipality with a papermaking tradition beside the Fluvià river, near Olot, in the Garrotxa comarca, which until 1949 was called Begudá and forms part of the Garrotxa Volcanic Zone natural park. The Fluvià, which runs through the territory, has historically been the driving force of its industrial development, between the Malflorat range and rugged ranges to the south, with ancient volcanoes. It has 3,167 inhabitants. The first settlement dates back to the 9th century; the earthquakes of 1427 and 1428 brought down much of its buildings, and the cholera epidemic of 1854 struck the population again. It preserves the monastery of Sant Joan les Fonts, a former priory declared a national monument whose Romanesque church has three naves, and a medieval bridge of volcanic stone over the Fluvià.
Monastery of Sant Joan les Fonts
Monument
Monastery located beside a bend of the Fluvià river, in the town of Sant Joan les Fonts (la Garrotxa), documented since 958 and consecrated in 1117. The viscounts of Besalú Udalard Bernat and his wife Ermessenda ceded it in 1079 to the monastery of Sant Víctor de Marseille, which founded a Benedictine priory there; in 1424 it passed under the dependence of Sant Pere de Besalú, and in 1592 it joined Sant Pere de Camprodon, on which it depended until Mendizábal's disentailment. It was declared a national monument in 1981, and in 2013 the presbytery was stabilised and the original medieval pavement was excavated. It is a building with three naves without a transept and three apses, one of them demolished in the 18th century to build the sacristy; noteworthy are the pointed barrel vault of the central nave, with Corinthian capitals, and a large hemispherical baptismal font decorated with scenes such as the death of Saint John the Baptist.
Santa Eulàlia de Begudà
Monument
The church of Santa Eulàlia de Begudà is the centre of the village of Begudà, a hamlet of the municipality of Sant Joan les Fonts, on the right bank of the Turonell stream and surrounded by a few scattered houses and farmhouses. It is already documented in 1034, in the will of a certain Duran, who bequeathed to his son the church with its tithes and first fruits. From the end of the 11th century it belonged to the monastery of Sant Joan les Fonts, although jurisdiction was shared with the viscounts of Bas. The original church was demolished in the early 12th century and the new temple was consecrated in 1118 by Bishop Berenguer Dalmau. Originally it was a single-nave building covered by a pointed barrel vault with a semicircular apse, a simple structure that was profoundly altered when the temple was enlarged in later periods.
The consecration of the monastery of Sant Joan les Fonts
Historical milestone
Bishop Arnulf of Girona consecrated the monastic church dedicated to Sant Esteve beside the falls of the Fluvià; the monastery ordered the settlement of the place until the earthquakes of 1427 and 1428 brought it down.
The renaming of Begudà
Historical milestone
The municipality created in 1811 under the name of Begudà came to be called officially Sant Joan les Fonts and moved the town hall to the factory center, which already concentrated the population and the paper industries.