Logbook · 6 places

What to see and do in Camarasa

What to see and do in Camarasa (Noguera, Lleida): 6 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 4 Monuments · 1 Nature

How far each place is from the centre of Camarasa

Towns near Camarasa

Spain › Catalonia › Lleida › Noguera › Camarasa

What to see and do in Camarasa

Camarasa
Village
Camarasa is a town and municipality of the Noguera comarca, in Lleida, which includes the decentralised municipal entity of Fontllonga i Ametlla, independent until 1970. It has been, and still is, the marquisate of Camarasa, a title created in 1543 by Charles I for Diego Sarmiento de los Cobos, son of his secretary Francisco de los Cobos, which later passed through the Fernández de Henestrosa and Fernández de Córdoba families and today belongs to the Hohenlohe-Langenburg family. In 1050, Camarasa and Cubells were ceded by Yússuf ibn Sulayman al-Mudhàffar, of the taifa of Lleida, to the county of Barcelona. It preserves its castle and walled precinct next to the reservoir that bears its name, whose dam and hydroelectric power station, built between 1917 and 1920, marked the start of the 20th century in the town.
Castle of Camarasa
Monument
Andalusi fortress (hisn) that commanded the passage of the Segre toward the plain of Llorenç and the road to Cubells; Arnau Mir de Tost bequeathed it in his 1072 will to his grandson Guerau II de Cabrera, and in 1330 King Alfons III created the marquisate of Camarasa around it.
Walled Enclosure of Camarasa
Monument
Remains of the medieval walled enclosure that surrounded the town of Camarasa (Noguera), with its old access gateways. The main one opened where the calle del Portal del Segre is today, and from there the calle Casanova climbs up to the Plaza Mayor and continues towards the church of Sant Miquel and the castle. The surviving gate, probably of medieval origin, was rebuilt in the 17th century as a semicircular arch with voussoirs; on the keystone there is an inscription with the reconstruction dates, around the time of the Guerra dels Segadors: 1634 and 1673. Some façades in the surrounding area, though rendered, still show rubble-masonry surfaces that could belong to the old wall. In 1247 James I created in Camarasa the royal bailiwick centred on the castle, extended in 1279 by Peter the Great.
Castle of Llorenç de Montgai
Monument
Remains of a castle on a crag jutting out from the Sant Cristòfol range, above the village of Sant Llorenç de Montgai, in the municipality of Camarasa. It was an important Andalusian "hisn" cited by Arab chroniclers of the 10th and 11th centuries, which protected Balaguer from the Christian nobles of the north and controlled the passage of the river Segre. Still Muslim, it is mentioned in 1035 in a donation by Count Ermengol II of Urgell; in 1091 it had to pay parias to the castle of Gerb to preserve its Andalusian status. It did not fall into Christian hands until around 1115, after the conquest of Balaguer. In 1211 it served as the last refuge of Guerau Ponç IV of Cabrera, taken prisoner there by the king of Aragon. It preserves remains of the perimeter wall and square towers on the rocky spurs.
Castle of Sant Oïsme
Monument
The remains of the castle of Sant Oïsme —some walls and a round tower— stand next to the Romanesque parish church of Sant Bartomeu, from the 11th and 12th centuries, atop a hill to the left of the Noguera Pallaresa, at the mouth of the Terradets gorge and facing the valley of Àger, within the municipality of Camarasa. It was the centre of the barony of Sant Oïsme, which in the 18th century belonged to the Gassol family and later passed to the Sobies and the Boatella, also named Sobies. The settlement of Sant Oïsme, which had belonged to Fontllonga, was an independent municipality until the mid-19th century, when it was merged into Fontllonga; the latter, together with its hamlets, was in turn annexed to Camarasa.
Camarasa Reservoir
Nature
The Pantano de Camarasa is a reservoir built in the 1920s on the river Noguera Pallaresa, in the municipality of Camarasa (comarca of la Noguera, Lleida), at the foot of the Montsec. The dam, a concrete gravity dam, is 103 metres high and 145 metres long at the crest; it holds back 163 cubic hectometres of water over an area of 624 hectares extending about 20 kilometres upstream, also reaching the municipalities of Àger and Les Avellanes i Santa Linya. It was originally built by the Barcelona Traction, Light and Power company, known as La Canadiense, to produce hydroelectric power -it has an installed capacity of 56 MW- and today belongs to FECSA. Its waters allow for water sports and swimming.