Village
Baix Pallars is a municipality at the southern end of Pallars Sobirà, in Lleida province, formed in 1969 by the merger of Baén, Gerri de la Sal, Moncortés and Peramea, and includes the town of Gerri de la Sal, its capital, known for its old salt-works and its alfolí (salt store). It has 345 inhabitants (INE 2025), and the Noguera Pallaresa river runs through it from north to south, forming the Gerri de la Sal valley before leaving the municipality through the Collegats gorge. Salt extraction at the Gerri salt pans was very lucrative in the past, declined in the 20th century due to competition and suffered damage in the 1982 floods; today, restored, it is one of the main tourist attractions, together with agriculture, livestock farming and forestry.
Monument
Castle of vernacular architecture in large limestone blocks 50-60 cm thick, documented since 908 under the counts of Pallars; in the 13th century it passed to the Vilamur family, in the 15th to the Bellera family, and later to the counts of Pallars, the dukes of Cardona (1487), and the counts of Erill (1632), who held it until the end of the seigneurial regime. Wall remains survive to the south and west atop a rocky promontory, next to the partially preserved Torre de Colomers, at the southern end of the village.
Monument
Medieval defensive tower with a square plan, situated in the highest part of the town of Gerri de la Sal, next to the Capdevila area, near the Font de la Vila, at the end of Carrer La Pau. Its walls, of lightly worked but well-aligned ashlar, allow it to be dated to the 13th century: they measure 7.15 by 7.4 metres in plan and 1.65 metres thick, with a surviving height of about ten metres, equivalent to two or three storeys. The original door, in the north wall, is now blocked up, and another walled-up door and several arrow slits survive. It formed part of the defensive network of Gerri de la Sal, a town that also preserves an 11th-century Romanesque bridge and the ruins of the monastery; its interior is not freely accessible.
Monument
12th-13th-century watchtower situated at the edge of the village of Peramea, diametrically opposite the castle ruins, with which it probably formed a complementary defensive system; known as the Torre de Colomers or de la Guàrdia, today it is fairly deteriorated but can be visited.
Monument
Gerri de la Sal is the capital of the municipality of Baix Pallars, in the south of the Pallars Sobirà, in a widening of the Noguera Pallaresa valley between the Arboló and Collegats gorges. Its name is linked to salt production since the Middle Ages. Of the old monastery of Santa María de Gerri, founded in the early 9th century, only the church survives, consecrated in 1149. The oldest nucleus, already documented in the 12th century as a vila closa (walled town), forms a compact structure of houses whose rear walls served as the town wall, grouped around the Plaça de Sant Feliu. The river is crossed by the medieval bridge of Gerri, from the late 11th or early 12th century, with a single arch, 33 metres long; in the upper part of the village also stands the Torre de la Presó, a medieval building.
Monument
Church of the monastery of Gerri de la Sal, with a basilical plan of three naves without a transept and three semicircular apses, from the 12th century, with a barrel vault reinforced by transverse arches and thirty carved capitals. The monastery was founded in 807 under the dedication of Sant Vicenç, obtained papal protection in 966 under that of Santa Maria, and became the richest in the bishopric of Urgell in the 12th-13th centuries; it declined from the 14th century and was secularized with the 1835 disentailment. The chapter house preserves Baroque wall paintings restored in 2012.
Monument
The Alfolí de la Sal de Gerri is a large rectangular building, 26.46 by 24.85 metres, with three storeys on the main façade and two on the opposite side, built with regular stone ashlar. It belonged to the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Gerri until the secularisation of 1835; earlier, in 1716, Philip V had brought the salt works into the royal patrimony. Today it is municipally owned and, after a recent refurbishment, operates as a museum explaining the valley's salt-production process. It is declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (the highest level of heritage protection in Catalonia).
Monument
Medieval settlement of an almost rectangular layout (about 150 x 70 m) crossed by two parallel arcaded streets giving access to all the houses, designed as a closable precinct with an impassable interior; built of stone, wood, and Arab tile, with wooden balconies and eaves. The castle that once crowned it today preserves only the Torre del Colomer, partly in ruins at the southern end; the municipality was merged into Baix Pallars in 1969 and preserves heraldic shields on its façades.
Activity
The main festival of Baix Pallars.
Historical milestone
The salt pans of Gerri, which came to produce some 1,500 tonnes a year, entered into crisis in the twentieth century in the face of industrial salt. The floods of 1937 and of 1982 destroyed a good part of the evaporation beds and precipitated the closure.
Food and drink
Salt obtained by evaporating the water of a salt spring in the beds of Gerri, historically prized for its fineness. After the industrial abandonment, sectors of the salt pans are being recovered for heritage purposes and artisan production.