Village
Porqueres is a municipality in the comarca of the Pla de l'Estany, in the province of Girona, situated on the shore of the Estany de Banyoles, on the bank opposite the town that gives the lake its name. It comprises seven settlements, among them Miànegues, Usall, Pujarnol and Merlant, and has 4,811 inhabitants. Its parish church of Santa Maria, a 12th-century Romanesque building, was declared Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 1931. The municipality also preserves Porqueres castle, the dolmen of les Closes and the tower of Pujarnol.
Monument
The church of Santa Maria de Porqueres is a 12th-century Romanesque church standing by the estany de Banyoles, opposite the old castle of Porqueres, in the municipality of Porqueres, in the Pla de l'Estany district, and one of the finest examples of Romanesque architecture in the area. Declared a bien cultural de interés nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection), it has a large rectangular nave covered by a barrel vault resting on transverse arches and a very elongated semicircular apse, with three small apses and two side chapels opened into the thickness of the wall. Light enters through five splayed openings set at different heights in the apse. Nearby stand the rectory, the cemetery and an old comunidor.
Monument
A fortified house standing beside the small rural church of Sant Cebrià de Pujarnol, in Pujarnol, one of the seven villages of the municipality of Porqueres, documented since 1017. It was built from a 12th-century circular tower, originally free-standing, enlarged during the 13th and 14th centuries into its present rectangular plan, with two towers at opposite corners: a square three-storey tower, which served as a keep, and another circular one. It is arranged around an inner courtyard with a vaulted entrance hall; its main façade, facing east, has a flat-lintelled doorway and three windows, while the south façade has a large buttress. It belonged to several noble families until, in the 20th century, it passed to a foundation, and today it operates as an inn.
Monument
The Torre Descalç, or del Calç, stands on the Sant Patllarí ridge, at 276 metres, in the neighbourhood of Descalç, a former local entity now integrated into the municipality of Porqueres, in the Pla de l'Estany, centred around the tower and the church of Sant Maurici de Calç. Until the Nova Planta decree of 1716, it formed part of the viguerie of Besalú and the bailiwick of Pujarnol, and never had its own town council unlike the other entities that made up Porqueres in 1846. It is a fortified 12th-century tower, documented as villa calvis since 1017, of quadrangular plan with a voussoired round-arched doorway, enlarged into a farmhouse between the 17th and 18th centuries. Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection) (BCIN 1300-MH).
Monument
L-shaped farmhouse linked to the Traver family, documented since the 13th century, with a taller central block that was once a defensive tower between the two noble wings; the main doorway bears the family's carved coat of arms. Declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection). The present complex, with round-arched doorways and Gothic windows with ogee arches and tracery, was built in three closely spaced stages between the late 16th century and the early 17th. A member of the family, Joan Traver, defended the Força of Girona during the siege of 1462, and in 1481 King Ferdinand the Catholic granted him a noble title; the lineage also produced four canons of the Seu de Girona.
Monument
Successor to the old castle of Porqueres, documented since 957 with Ademar I as castellan; the lineage took the surname Porqueres in the 11th century and gave rise to the barons of Santa Pau. The current building, remodelled in the 17th century as a three-wing farmhouse, retains medieval walls at its base.
Curiosity
The Bosc de Can Ginebreda is a wooded area of more than seven hectares in Porqueres, covered with oaks, holm oaks, pines, junipers and strawberry trees, which the artist Xicu Cabanyes turned into a sculpture park and personal creation of his own. The pieces, on erotic themes, are scattered in the open air throughout the wood in dialogue with the surrounding landscape, and visitors can wander through it freely, with no set route or fixed paths. The Porqueres town council acquired the wood in 2009, and in 2012 the Associació d'Amics de Can Ginebreda was formed to look after it.
Nature
A natural site of rock formations beside the Estany de Banyoles, linked in popular tradition to the 'goges', the fairies of the lake. According to legend, they had their palaces here among the cracks in the rock, where they held feasts and spun thread all night long without anyone ever managing to see them. The formations are travertines of karstic origin, possibly the most important lake-formed deposit of this kind in Catalonia, formed when the waters of the Estany de Banyoles reached the site; the cracks that allow passage are the result of the fracturing and dissolution of the rock. On the travertine grows a wood of holm oaks and oaks, among them the Gros oak, near the Mas Corralot. It is reached from Banyoles by the road to Olot, past the Pujarnol crossroads.
Village
Mata is a population entity of the municipality of Porqueres, in the Pla de l'Estany (Girona), situated at 130 metres of altitude, in the south of the municipality. It was an independent municipality until 1846, when it was incorporated into Porqueres as part of the 19th-century policies of municipal consolidation; today it has around 2,380 inhabitants. It preserves the church of Sant Andreu de Mata, of Romanesque origin and later remodelled, as well as the station of the former railway line between Girona and Banyoles and the seat of the Porqueres town council. When it was still a separate village, its patron saint's festival was celebrated on Sant Andreu.
Village
Miànigues is a population centre of the municipality of Porqueres, in the comarca of the Pla de l'Estany, province of Girona, where a good part of the municipality's inhabitants are concentrated. In the mid-19th century it had 48 inhabitants, a figure recorded in Pascual Madoz's Diccionario geográfico. Its name has also appeared in the forms Mianegues and Mianegas. In 2022 the singular population entity had 685 registered inhabitants, of whom 470 lived in the centre itself.
Village
Les Pedreres is a population centre of the municipality of Porqueres, in the Pla de l'Estany (Girona), situated in the south of the municipality, next to the centre of Mata. It is recognised as a singular population entity and, according to the 2025 census, has 1,170 inhabitants. At the northern end of the municipality, above the Estany de Banyoles, lies the other notable centre, Usall.
Village
Usall is a population entity of the municipality of Porqueres, in the Pla de l'Estany (Girona), situated above the Estany de Banyoles, at 225 metres of altitude. It was an independent local entity, under the batllia of Banyoles and the lordship of the Monestir de Banyoles, until the abolition of the seigneurial regime in the first third of the 19th century; in 1846 it joined the municipality of Porqueres together with other villages. It now has 93 inhabitants. It preserves the church of Sant Cristòfol, in Romanesque style and joined to the rectory, the masia of Gothic origin of Can Traver, and, near Melianta, the site and intermittent pond of the Clot d'Espolla.
Village
Pujarnol is one of the seven centres of the municipality of Porqueres, in the Pla de l'Estany, situated at the head of the Matamors valley, between the sierras of Sant Patllari and Biert, reached by the road from Banyoles to Rocacorba. Its name comes from Podio Ariulfi or Arnulfi. The centre is formed by the Romanesque church of Sant Cebrià, already mentioned in 1017, the cemetery and the manor house of the Torre de Pujarnol; also preserved within its territory are the Romanesque church of Sant Maurici de Calç and the granite-stone dolmen of les Closes. Further towards the valley of the riera de Campmajor stands the Romanesque hermitage of Sant Patllari, which was the chapel of a castle. In the mid-19th century it had about ninety inhabitants; in 2022 it numbered 142.
Historical milestone
The Isabelline municipal reforms grouped in the 1840s into a single council Porqueres, Pujarnol, Mata, Miànigues, Usall, Merlant and Sant Martí de Campmajor, until then parishes scattered along the western shore of the lake.
Food and drink
The snail is one of the central ingredients of the cooking of the Pla de l'Estany and the Gironès; it is roasted on a tin tray over vine shoots and eaten with allioli or with a picada of nuts.