Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Fontcoberta

What to see and do in Fontcoberta (Pla de l'Estany, Girona): 7 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 3 Monuments · 1 Nature · 1 Historical milestones · 1 Food and drink

How far each place is from the centre of Fontcoberta

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Spain › Catalonia › Girona › Pla de l'Estany › Fontcoberta

What to see and do in Fontcoberta

Fontcoberta
Village
Fontcoberta is a scattered municipality of 1,483 inhabitants and 17.3 square kilometres, in the north-west of the comarca of the Pla de l'Estany, comprising the settlement of Figueroles, the Fares neighbourhood and the former villages of Melianta and Vilavenut, incorporated into the municipality between 1842 and 1857. Its name, documented in the 12th century as Fonte Coperta, means hidden or sheltered spring. The most important building is the Romanesque church of Sant Feliu, consecrated in 922 and rebuilt in the 12th century, with the presbytery remodelled in the 16th; also preserved are the hermitage of the Mare de Déu de la Font, documented since 1261, and the Alzines Reclamadores, holm oaks of great monumental size.
Medieval Tower of Can Pujol
Monument
Fortified farmhouse documented since 1295, with a 17th-century defensive tower of rectangular plan, three storeys and a machicolation; the village of Fontcoberta took its name from the covered spring that rises within it. Declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection), it preserves a voussoired doorway, remains of plasterwork and an adjoining farmhand's dwelling next to a barn that was once a hayloft. The coat of arms of the Pujol family, owners of the estate, can be seen both on a lintel of the house and on the family tomb located in the centre of the parish church.
Sant Feliu de Fontcoberta
Monument
The church of Sant Feliu de Fontcoberta was consecrated on 12 August 917 by Bishop Guiu of Girona, although nothing remains of that first building: the current structure, included in the Inventory of Architectural Heritage of Catalonia, dates from the late 12th century. It has a rectangular floor plan and a single nave, with a Romanesque façade of Lombard arches and a 16th-century Renaissance portal, and a square bell tower of the same period. In 1762 the Romanesque apse was demolished and the current one built; in the choir, from 1573, there is a keystone with Saint Felix in bas-relief. Its 12th-century Romanesque baptismal font is now kept in the church of Santa Maria de Turers, and the temple holds two Baroque images, a Child Jesus of Prague and a Virgin of the Rosary from 1683.
Mare de Déu de la Font de Fontcoberta
Monument
The hermitage of the Mare de Déu de la Font, in a hollow south of Fontcoberta, next to the neighbourhood of la Farrés, is a small single-nave building with a pointed vault, whose semicircular apse has disappeared, though it can be made out in the surviving foundations; the Romanesque fabric dates from around the 12th century and the building is already mentioned in the 13th. The main door, side-set and round-arched, opens in the south wall; in 1415 the porch already existed, renovated in 1433 to receive the pilgrims who came to be cured with the water of the spring, and in 1517 the Gothic altarpiece was completed, replaced in the 19th century by the current one. In 1453 Queen Maria of Castile signed the statutes of the confraternity of the Virgin, and since the 15th century the aplec (a traditional Catalan gathering, a kind of pilgrimage festival) in her honour has been held here on the third Sunday of March.
Intermittent Pond of la Platja d'Espolla
Nature
The intermittent lake of Fontcoberta, one of the few known habitats of triops, small crustaceans considered living fossils that have barely changed in millions of years.
The consecration of Sant Feliu de Fontcoberta
Historical milestone
The consecration act of the parish church of Fontcoberta, from the year 917, is the oldest document of the municipal area and establishes the existence of an organized peasant community on the plateau separating the Estany de Banyoles from the Fluvià valley.
Girona Apple PGI
Food and drink
The Pla de l'Estany is one of the five comarcas covered by this protected geographical indication, entered in the European register since 2003, which covers Golden, Red Delicious, Gala and Granny Smith apples.