Village
Aiguamúrcia is the largest municipality in the comarca of Alt Camp, in the province of Tarragona, located in the mountains that separate the Penedès from the Camp de Tarragona, with the town hall seated in the village of Santes Creus, where the monastery of the same name stands, one of the three great Cistercian monasteries of Catalonia. It has 987 inhabitants (INE 2025), spread across several settlements scattered over its territory. Its economy is essentially rural, based on masies (farmhouses) devoted to farming and livestock; the traditional cultivation of the vine was reduced by phylloxera, and today much of the grape harvest is sold to producers in other comarques. Tourism, still limited, is linked almost exclusively to the monastery.
Monument
The Real Monasterio de Santa María de Santes Creus is a Cistercian abbey located in the village of Santes Creus, within the municipality of Aiguamúrcia. Founded in 1160 with a donation of land beside the Gaià river, it is one of the jewels of Catalan medieval art and one of the three great abbeys of the Cistercian Route, together with Poblet and Vallbona, being the only one without monastic life. In the 13th century, under the patronage of Peter III of Aragon, the royal pantheon was built, where James II was also buried, until Peter IV moved the pantheon to Poblet in 1340. The Cistercian community abandoned the building in 1835 with Mendizábal's disentailment, and it was declared a national monument in 1921.
Monument
L'Albà, also known as l'Albà Nou, l'Albà de Baix, Cal Canonjo or Cal Canonge, is a settlement in the municipality of Aiguamúrcia that had its own term until the 19th century, when it was annexed together with Selma and Santes Creus. Near the present-day village, in the old settlement called l'Albà Vell or l'Albà de Dalt, situated atop a hill at 797 metres above sea level, the ruins of the castle are preserved, from the 10th century, along with the remains of the Romanesque chapel of Santa Maria de l'Albà. At the start of the 21st century the term had barely a score of inhabitants divided between l'Albà and the neighbouring settlements of Masbarrat and les Destres.
Monument
Of the castle of Selma, declared a cultural asset of national interest, only scant ruins remain on a hill overlooking the depopulated hamlet of Selma, in the municipality of Aiguamúrcia. Known in old documents as castrum de Ceume, it is already mentioned around the year 977. In 1142 Guillem de Sant Martí ceded the castle to the Templars, an order for which a commander is known from 1225; after the suppression of the Temple, at the start of the 14th century, it passed under the Order of St John of Jerusalem until the abolition of the seigneuries. The settlement that grew in its shadow, once a meeting point for the farmhouses of the neighbouring valleys, was reduced to a handful of houses that are abandoned today.
Monument
The ruins of the castle of Ramonet occupy the top of a hill between Montagut and Pont d'Armentera, in the municipality of Aiguamúrcia, in Alt Camp. The complex, about 30 by 30 metres, preserves at its north-western end a rectangular hall with attached rooms, built with courses of roughly squared ashlars and lime mortar, and on the opposite side, towards the south-east, the remains of a possible tower. The castle originally belonged to the term of Montagut and was owned by the Cervelló family, who ceded it in 1229 to the monastery of Santes Creus; throughout the 13th century the monastery kept extending its rights over the site through successive purchases and donations, until completing its dominion in 1475 with the acquisition of the rights of the baron of Montagut.
Monument
The wayside cross of Aiguamúrcia stands at the western end of the access bridge to Santes Creus, at the crossroads of the paths leading to Tarragona and to Pont d'Armentera, and has traditionally served to guide travellers towards the monastery. It is a monumental stone cross with elements from different periods: a triple stepped octagonal base, a shaft topped by a Gothic knot decorated with crosses and plant motifs -from the late 14th century-, an octagonal body with eight niches holding sculpted figures, and a simple Latin cross crowning the whole. The finial is from the 16th century and the flight of steps from the 17th. In 1936 it was dismantled to save it from destruction, and in 1948 it was re-erected at its current location, its upper part restored.
Activity
The fiesta mayor of Aiguamúrcia is celebrated in the municipality that hosts the Cistercian monastery of Santes Creus, a royal pantheon since 1285 with the tomb of Pedro el Grande (Peter the Great), and which survived the 1835 disentailment because the townspeople installed the town's parish there.
Historical milestone
The Cistercian monastery housed from 1285 the tomb of Pere the Great, in a Roman porphyry bathtub, and afterwards those of Jaume II and Blanche of Anjou. It was the pantheon of the Crown of Aragon before that role passed to Poblet.
Historical milestone
The exclaustration of 1835 emptied the monastery of monks and dispersed its library and a good part of the furnishings. The enclosure survived because the residents occupied the buildings and turned the abbey church into the parish church of the village.