Logbook · 7 places

What to see and do in Estaràs

What to see and do in Estaràs (Segarra, Lleida): 7 places across monuments, nature, activities and curiosities, with a photo and a Google Maps location.

1 Villages · 5 Monuments · 1 Nature

How far each place is from the centre of Estaràs

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What to see in Ribera d'Ondara 7.7 km · 1 place
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Spain › Catalonia › Lleida › Segarra › Estaràs

What to see and do in Estaràs

Estaràs
Village
Estaràs is a municipality in the comarca of la Segarra, in the province of Lleida, with five castles declared bien cultural de interés nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection) scattered across its extensive rural territory: those of Altarriba, Estaràs, Farrán, Mejanell and Vergós Guerrejat. It was formed in the 19th century by the union of several previously independent entities, among them Gàver, already mentioned in 1015 as a border place, which together with Altarriba belonged to the diocese of Vic while the rest depended on that of Urgell. With the creation of the provinces in 1833, the municipality became a provincial border. In the mid-19th century it had barely 39 inhabitants; today it has 161.
Castle of Estaràs
Monument
18th-century manor house built over a 12th-century castle that belonged to the Cervera family until 1246, when it passed to the crown as a dowry; James I acquired it in 1251, and from the 14th century it remained in the hands of the Vilallonga family until the early 20th century.
Castle of Alta-riba
Monument
The castle of Alta-riba is a ruined fortress of Estaràs (Segarra), declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection), raised on the Tossal d'Alta-riba, above the small valley of the Malacara stream, a tributary of the Sió river. Its origins go back to the 11th century, when the county of Berga undertook the reconquest of the Sió valley; in the middle of that century Count Ramon Berenguer I granted the castle, with its tower and the surrounding houses, to a certain Bonfill. In the 12th century the Alta-riba lineage appears, first as castellans and later as lords of the place; in 1238 Berenguera d'Alta-riba sold the castle to the monastery of Santes Creus, which held the lordship until the abolition of lordships in the 19th century. It preserves a circular tower about five metres in diameter, built directly on the rock.
Castle of Ferran
Monument
Castle situated at the top of the settlement of Ferran, in the municipality of Estaràs, declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection). It is known of since the mid-11th century, when the Cervera family held it from the count of Cerdanya; between 1068 and 1095 Hug Dalmau de Cervera and his wife swore fidelity to Count Guillem Ramon I of Cerdanya for this castle and others in the comarca. The Cervera family remained lords of the district in the 12th century, now under the count of Barcelona; in the will of Ramon Berenguer III, dated 1130, the castle appears as a domain of the counts of Barcelona. In the second half of the 13th century it passed to the viscounts of Cardona, until the abolition of jurisdictional lordships. Today only its ruins remain at the top of the village of Ferran.
Castle of Vergós Guerrejat
Monument
Castle documented since 1103 as the castellany of the Vergós family, within the old county of Berga; in the 14th century it passed to the lords of l'Oluja Sobirana, and around the 16th to the Meca family, who transformed the medieval fortress into a great manor house connected inside to the neighbouring parish church of Santa Magdalena. After the last of the Meca line died without children in 1778, the inheritance passed to the marquises of Capmany, and until the mid-19th century only caretakers lived there. In the 1990s it was acquired by a furniture restorer who donated it to the town council, its present owner: in 2017 the tower was restored, having collapsed in 2013 in a storm, and in 2018 a stretch of wall brought down by rain, with a view to making it open to visitors. Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection).
Castle of Mejanell
Monument
11th-century castle, documented since 1098, when it appears mentioned as the castell de Meià in a donation to the canonry of Solsona, and linked since then to the lords of la Manresana, whose domain it was still part of in 1710, when it was owned by Joan de Copons. It belongs to the district of Estaràs by a matter of a few metres. Of the original complex only the tower survives, circular in plan, today attached to a dwelling, with two of its original three floors and more than seven metres in height, set directly on the limestone rock; its door, about four metres above the ground, opens with a voussoired round arch. Beside the tower stands the Romanesque church of Sant Pere de Mejanell, from the 12th century, with a single nave covered by a barrel vault and a semicircular apse.
Source of the Sió River
Nature
The Sió river rises at the spring of Gàver, within the municipality of Estaràs, at 589 metres of altitude, in a comarca of dry Catalonia where the initial flow is very scarce. It runs 77 kilometres until joining the Segre, its collector river, upstream of Balaguer, gaining flow as it crosses the irrigated area of la Noguera. The park located in the settlement of Gàver marks this point of origin.