Logbook · 5 places

What to see and do in Osor

What to see and do in Osor (Selva, Girona): 5 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 4 Monuments

How far each place is from the centre of Osor

Towns near Osor

Spain › Catalonia › Girona › Selva › Osor

What to see and do in Osor

Osor
Village
Osor is a mountain municipality of the Guilleries, in the north of the Selva, in Girona, with 430 inhabitants (INE 2025) and a mining and livestock tradition, reflected in the name of one of its districts, the Mines d'Osor. Documented since the year 860 as Auzor, in 1067 Count Ramon Berenguer I redeemed its fief from the viscounts of Narbonne. Its town centre was destroyed by earthquakes in the 15th century. The rugged municipal area is surrounded by Guilleries peaks such as Sant Gregori (1,088 m) and Sant Miquel de Solterra (1,204 m), and watered by the Ter, with the Susqueda reservoir, and by the Osor stream, the one with the greatest flow in the comarca. It preserves the church of Sant Pere d'Osor, from the 18th century with Romanesque elements, and the Romanesque monastery of the Mare de Déu del Coll.
Sant Pere d'Osor
Monument
A large church occupying an island of houses on a hill beside the road that crosses Osor, levelled by a terrace over the Noguerola stream. The first mention of the place is from the year 860, when an allod was donated to the monastery of Amer, and the first record of the parish is from 922. The Romanesque temple was rebuilt and consecrated in 1125 by the bishop of Vic Ramon Gaufred; the earthquakes of 1427-1430 damaged it severely, it was rebuilt in the mid-15th century and at the end of the 18th century it was transformed into the current building, with one nave and four chapels on each side, reversing the orientation of the Romanesque church, whose facade, with Lombard arcading, is still preserved on the south side. The square bell tower is topped with battlements from a 19th-century reconstruction.
Mare de Déu del Coll d'Osor
Monument
The sanctuary of the Mare de Déu del Coll stands at 823 metres above sea level, at the pass linking the Sant Benet and Sant Gregori massifs, although since 2024 the temple has administratively belonged to the neighbouring municipality of Susqueda. The first documentary reference dates from 1184-1187, when a Benedictine priory dependent on the abbey of Amer was established there, which was dissolved in 1835 with the disentailment of religious orders. It preserves its Romanesque structure almost intact: a single, slightly trapezoidal nave of about 20 metres, with a semicircular apse, a three-arch graduated portal and a tall bell-gable. The Museu Episcopal de Vic holds a Romanesque carving of the Virgin and a 12th-century altar frontal from the sanctuary, considered a major work of painting of its time.
Tower of Recs
Monument
A sturdy square-plan tower raised after 1439 in the plaça del Verger, in the centre of Osor itself; from the 19th century it was used as a prison, which is why it is also known as the Torre de la Presó. It is a Gothic building declared bien cultural de interés nacional (the highest level of heritage protection in Catalonia), of four storeys, located next to the parish church; it measures about 7 metres on each side and 15 metres high. Its exposed stone walls stand out for their well-cut corners, a trilobed Gothic window, and merlons preserved on the south façade. It was commissioned by Violant de Recs, wife of Ramon de Vilanova, with the permission of the lords of the Vall d'Osor, for which it was necessary to breach the town wall; in 1932 the village's water tank was installed on its first floor, now out of use.
Tower of Sant Joan
Monument
The Torre de Sant Joan stands at the end of a buttress on the left bank of the riera d'Osor, about two kilometres from the village, in a narrow pass that controlled and defended the only access to the town from the east; it may have served as a watchtower and might be the so-called torre dels Recs, documented since 1310. It is a square building of 6.28 by 6.28 metres, with walls 1.10 metres thick and a surviving height of about 8 or 9 metres; it had three floors, of which the ground floor is best preserved, with an entrance door 125 centimetres wide and arrow slits on each façade. By its building technique it is considered a work of the late Romanesque, from between the 12th and 13th centuries. It is declared bien cultural de interés nacional (the highest level of heritage protection in Catalonia).