Village
Reus is the capital of the comarca of Baix Camp, in the province of Tarragona, with about 111,600 inhabitants. It is the birthplace of Antoni Gaudí and the cradle of Catalan modernisme, as well as the Catalan capital of vermouth. Its name derives from the Latin Reddis, “crossroads.” The municipal area, flat in relief, has no rivers and is only crossed by ravines such as those of Abeurada, Cinc Ponts and la Boella; the city stands 117 metres above sea level and has its own airport, located between Reus and Constantí. Its first flag, of crimson silk with the coat of arms at the centre, was used from 1774 until 1943, when red became associated with the side defeated in the civil war and was replaced by a white flag bearing the heraldic rose, the city's historic emblem.
Monument
The Casa Rull, now the headquarters of the Reus Cultura Municipal Institute, stands at number 27 Carrer de Sant Joan in Reus. It was designed in 1900 by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, commissioned by Pere Rull i Trilla, a notary of the city. It has been municipal property since 1925 and was declared a Bien de Interés Cultural (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) in 2004. Rectangular in plan, with a ground floor and two upper storeys, it belongs to the neo-medieval Modernista movement with naturalistic decorative elements and allusions to its owner's profession: on the second floor, a large central opening shows the initials P. R. next to a quill. The symmetrical main facade is broken only by a stone balcony with sinuous floral decoration running along part of the first floor.
Monument
Casa Navàs is one of the most notable Modernista buildings in Reus, designed by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner and built between 1901 and 1908 for its owners, Joaquim Navàs Padró and Josepa Blasco Roura, on a corner between the Plaça del Mercadal and Carrer de Jesús. The tower on its corner facade was destroyed in a bombardment by the Italian air force during the Civil War, in 1938, and has since been restored. It is a unique example of Modernisme in Europe for preserving practically all its original elements: lighting, furniture, embroidered tapestries, household linen, damasks on the balconies and silk fabrics on the walls. The ground floor, formerly a textile shop, and the rest of the building can today be visited in full.
Monument
Mas Calbó is a fortified manor house located in the municipality of Reus, in the Baix Camp comarca, next to the Salou road and on the banks of the Mascalvó ravine, from which it takes its name. It is listed as a bien cultural de interés nacional (Catalonia's designation for cultural heritage of national interest). Its earliest documentary references date from 1169, and in 1180 Bishop Bernat Calbó was born there, to whom a chapel inaugurated in 1738 was dedicated. The building, quadrangular in plan with pointed arches, combines Gothic and Renaissance elements: notable features include a Gothic stone doorway on the main facade, lobed windows, a battlemented tower and Renaissance sgraffito with capitals decorated with plant motifs. It suffered devastation during the Reapers' War in the 17th century, and the municipality sold the property in 1850 to finance urban construction.
Monument
The Torre del Cambrer, also known as Castell del Camarer, is a monument in Reus (Baix Camp, Tarragona) protected as a bien cultural de interés nacional (Catalonia's designation for cultural heritage of national interest). Documented since 1171, it was the residence of the town's cambrers, canons of the Seu of Tarragona, and was originally a watchtower on a hill overlooking the roads towards the settlement of Reus. It came to include a barbican, a moat, a prison, a stable and a kitchen, but after the dignity of cambrer was abolished in 1528 it passed to the chapter of canons and gradually fell into decay; in 1623 its partial demolition was ordered. Of the original complex only some pointed arches of the ground and first floors survive, adjoining the Prioral church of Sant Pere. Handed over to the town council in 1949, it was restored from 1975 onward.
Monument
The Museu d'Art i Història de Reus occupies a building constructed as a block of flats by the architect Antoni Sardà, with a monumental three-part facade onto the Plaça de la Llibertat — the central section of eight storeys and the side sections of six — topped on the central section by a pediment with twelve semi-columns with Corinthian capitals. The first municipal museum, opened in 1934 in the Casa Rull, moved to this building, expressly built to house it, on 15 September 1961. Managed by the Reus Municipal Institute of Museums, which also manages the Centre d'Art Cal Massó and the Museu d'Arqueologia Salvador Vilaseca, in 2026 it completed a full renovation of its interior that updated the museum display and incorporated new audiovisual technologies.
Monument
The Institut Pere Mata is the psychiatric hospital of Reus, though it serves a much wider region. It was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner and built between 1897 and 1912 in the architect's characteristic Modernista style, making it one of the major works of European Modernisme. Its name honours the physician from Reus, Pere Mata i Fontanet. The architectural complex is listed as a bien cultural de interés local (Catalonia's designation for cultural heritage of local interest), and in particular the Pavelló dels Distingits has been a bien cultural de interés nacional (Catalonia's designation for cultural heritage of national interest) since 2013. The centre continues to operate as a mental health service provider, with a wide network of public facilities that includes outpatient care for adults and minors as well as hospitalisation resources.
Monument
The building of the Societat El Círcol, on the Plaça de Prim in Reus, forms part of the urban ensemble it shares with the Teatre Fortuny. It was designed in 1882 by the architect Francesc Blanch i Pons in an eclectic style with neoclassical features, with three storeys above a portico, a continuous balcony with a stone balustrade on the first floor, and cornices decorated with Tuscan elements. Its interior retains a Modernista decoration, largely designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner. The society, founded in 1852, acquired ownership of the building in 1920 and installed heating in 1927; dissolved after the Civil War in 1940, it recovered its premises in 1947.
Activity
Reus's Festa Major in honour of Sant Pere, with a week of popular and cultural events concentrated between 24 and 29 June, the central day being dedicated to the saint. The celebration goes back to the founding of the city, in the 12th century, and gained strength in 1625-1626 with the arrival of a relic of Saint Peter. It brings together traditional elements such as the gegants, the mulassa, the ball de bastons, the nanos, the ball de diables and the Xiquets de Reus, as well as the tronades, salvoes of firecrackers that mark the high points, the last of them when the image of the saint returns to the church on the night of the 29th. It is declared a Festa patrimonial d'interès nacional (a heritage festival declared of national interest by the Generalitat de Catalunya).
Activity
The Festa del Vermut de Reus, officially known as the Vermutada Popular del vermut de Reus, is held in the second half of June in the city, the Catalan capital of this drink. In Reus vermouth is made by two local houses, Yzaguirre and Vermut Miró, and it is also used to prepare the masclet, a combination with the Plim soft drink unique to the city.
Curiosity
A centuries-old tradition that has made Reus the Catalan capital of vermouth, with numerous establishments devoted to this social ritual. The city keeps the memory of this history at the Museu del Vermut, with more than 5,000 objects -bottles, posters, labels and ashtrays- gathered by its owner, Joan Tàpias, and arranged by the main local brands: Miró, Yzaguirre, Iris, de Müller and Martini. The museum occupies an industrial Modernista building by the architect Pere Caselles, erected in 1918 on the site of an old 18th-century house, and includes a bar-restaurant where visitors can taste the vermouth alongside the exhibition, which has free admission.
Historical milestone
The monopoly of the brandy trade turned the city into the second market of Catalonia in the eighteenth century. Its price was fixed here and from that comes the saying Reus, Paris, London, with which the reach of those dealings was summed up.
Historical milestone
The architect Antoni Gaudí was born on 25 June 1852 into a family of coppersmiths with a house and workshop between Reus and Riudoms, which is why both towns claim him as their birthplace; he was baptised in the church of Sant Pere and studied at the Escolapian school. He later moved to Barcelona to study architecture, where his early works were influenced by neo-Gothic, Mudéjar and Baroque styles until he developed his own Modernist style, based on the study of the forms of nature and ruled geometry, and on the revival of mosaic transformed into trencadís. He died in Barcelona on 10 June 1926, leaving unfinished what would become his most famous work, the temple of the Sagrada Família.
Historical milestone
Soldier and politician born in 1814, protagonist of the Revolution of 1868 and head of the Government until his assassination in 1870. He was the one who promoted the arrival of Amadeo of Savoy to the Spanish throne and gives his name to the main square of the city.
Food and drink
The Reus hazelnut is a designation of origin protected since 1997 covering the negreta, paueteta, gironella, morella and culplana varieties, grown in the comarques of the Alt Camp, the Baix Camp, the Conca de Barberà, the Priorat, the Tarragonès and the Terra Alta; its regulatory council is based in Reus. About 9,000 hectares are cultivated, with an annual production of between 5,000 and 6,000 tonnes, and the fruit is sold in the shell, shelled or roasted, in two sizes: very large, 18 millimetres, and large, 16. Roasted, it is used in turrón, sauces and the comarca's traditional pastry-making.
Food and drink
Menjar blanc is a dessert made of almond milk, sugar, cinnamon and starch, served cold and set, which the historian Josep Lladonosa i Giró described as an example of the survival of old cooking adapted to new tastes. In Reus it is made by grinding almonds with water, straining the resulting milk and flavouring it with cinnamon and lemon peel, or traditionally with rosewater, before sweetening it and thickening it with rice starch; shops in the city and throughout the Tarragona area still sell a natural powdered preparation for making it at home. It remains a festive treat for the town's main festival and for Corpus Christi, where pastry shops prepare it following recipes of convent origin.