Village
Ripoll is the capital of the Ripollès district, in the province of Gerona, situated at the confluence of the Ter and Freser rivers, in the Catalan Pre-Pyrenees, with 10,665 inhabitants (INE 2025). It is known as the cradle of Catalonia because, according to tradition, Count Wifredo el Velloso founded Catalonia here when he had the monastery of Santa Maria built, an important medieval cultural centre where numerous manuscripts were produced, including three Bibles now kept in the Vatican Museums. It was also a notable metalworking centre, devoted to forging, nails, weapons and sand-cast foundries, which in the 19th century turned to the textile industry using the waters of the Ter, and later became an important railway junction, of which it retains its heritage.
Monument
The monastery of Santa Maria de Ripoll is a Benedictine abbey founded around the year 880 by Guifré the Hairy, perhaps on an earlier Visigothic temple; it was the pantheon of the counts of Barcelona and of Besalú and, in the Middle Ages, a centre of culture comparable to other great European abbeys such as Saint-Denis or Montecassino. In the 12th century its celebrated portal in the form of a triumphal arch was erected, one of the major works of Catalan Romanesque sculpture, with the Maiestas Domini, the apostolate and scenes from the Old Testament. Fires, plundering and the desecration of tombs during the Civil War left only the basilica and the cloister standing, now reconstructed. It was declared a monumento histórico-artístico (a former Spanish heritage-protection category, in force until 1985) in 1931, and scenes from El Cid (1961) were filmed there.
Monument
The town was walled with river cobbles between the 12th and 14th centuries, and the walls remained standing until the mid-19th century. Several stretches survive scattered around the town: one with battlements next to the Freser river, between the Raval bridge and the Barcelona road bridge; another on Carrer Verdaguer, beneath the sports court of the parish hall; a third, with a circular tower, behind the Budallés house; and a fourth stretch of wall with two rectangular towers between Carrer Trinitat and Carrer Pirineus. On Carrer Nord, beneath the Lara house, in the Sant Pere quarter, there is also a wall that could be part of this same fortification. Declared bien cultural de interés nacional (Catalonia's highest level of cultural heritage protection).
Activity
The Fira de Sant Eudald is held in Ripoll (Ripollès, Girona) in the month of May, coinciding with the festivities of Sant Eudald, during which the gegants (giant figures) of Ripoll also take to the streets. It is considered one of the oldest and best-known fairs in the comarca.
Monument
A parish consecrated in 880 and enlarged ten years later by Bishop Gotmar of Vic; the current building, of basilical plan with three apses, was rebuilt in the 11th century following Lombard forms. It was the church for the faithful who lived next to the monastery of Santa Maria, reusing parts of an earlier pre-Romanesque building. In the 14th century towers and walls linked to the monastery's defences were added to it, and at the end of the 17th, the chapel of the Congregació, blessed in 1704. Sacked during the French invasion, it was repaired in 1860; in 1893 the parish moved to the monastery church and Sant Pere remained as a secondary church, desecrated in 1936 and without worship since then. Today it houses the monastery's Centre d'Interpretació (Interpretation Centre), opened in 2013.
Monument
A former Marian sanctuary atop El Catllar, at 1,118 metres above Ripoll, consecrated on 1 January 1040 by abbot Oliba on a site granted by the count of Cerdanya beneath the ruins of an earlier castle; it lost its parochial function as the area became depopulated and was abandoned after the disentailment of Ripoll monastery in 1835.
Monument
An old castle located in the settlement of Llaés, in the municipality of Ripoll, atop a rocky hill some hundred metres high with views of the Pyrenees and the Montserrat massif; on its site stands today the church of Sant Bartomeu, with the cemetery and the old parade ground between the two buildings. It is documented as 'Castri de Laesse' as early as 919, in the purchase of some lands by abbess Emma, and in 1004 or 1005 count Bernat de Besalú and his wife Toda sold to the monastery half of an allod where it stood. In 1342 abbot Ramon de Bianya bought its jurisdiction from Pere the Ceremonious, following a protest by the abbot of Camprodon. Surviving from the compound are the entrance gateway, with an arch of twelve voussoirs, stretches of wall and a cistern cut into the rock.
Monument
The Castellpalom farmhouse (masia), in the municipal district of Ripoll, is a building declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection). It is a rectangular farmhouse with a ground floor, one upper floor and an attic, and a single-pitched roof; on the north façade it has a porch resting on square pillars, and to the west a small single-storey attached wing. The openings are lintelled, except for two segmental-arched windows in the attic of the south façade; to the east stands a hut with a gabled roof. The earliest records of this castle, called 'castel Palumbi', date from 955, when it belonged to the county of Osona before becoming linked to that of Besalú; from the 14th century onward it is already documented as a farmhouse of the district of Llaés. Today it is a rural guesthouse at 1,000 metres altitude.
Historical milestone
Count Guifré el Pilós repopulated the Ripoll valley and built the Monasterio de Santa Maria, consecrated in 888; the monastery became the pantheon of the Counts of Barcelona and the great cultural center of nascent Catalonia.
Historical milestone
Abbot Oliba consecrated in 1032 the basilica enlarged to five naves and seven apses and promoted the scriptorium that copied and translated Arabic and classical works; the library of Ripoll was one of the largest in 11th-century Europe.
Historical milestone
The Carlist troops stormed and burned on 27 May 1839 much of the town in the First Carlist War; the population fell from some three thousand two hundred inhabitants to around a thousand and the iron industry never recovered.
Historical milestone
The bishop of Vic Josep Morgades promoted the rebuilding of the basilica, ruined after the disentailment, with works directed by Elies Rogent; the restored church was consecrated again in 1893.
Activity
The market of the comarca capital, documented since the Middle Ages, brings together each week in the squares of the center farmers and stockbreeders from the valleys with cheeses, cured sausages, honey, mushrooms and mountain vegetables.