Village
El Vendrell is the capital of the Baix Penedès comarca, in the province of Tarragona, situated on the Penedès plain alongside the corridor opened by the riera de la Bisbal, 33 kilometres from Tarragona. Its origins go back to the 10th century, with the resettlement of the area and the ceding of land to the monastery of San Cugat; the first documentary mention is from 1037. In 1469 King John II of Aragon summoned from here the cortes that would be held in Monzón. It is the birthplace of the cellist, composer and pacifist Pau Casals, born on 29 December 1876, whose remains rest in the local cemetery. It has 41133 inhabitants.
Monument
The castle of Sant Vicenç de Calders, declared a bien cultural de interés nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection), has completely disappeared; it is believed to have stood in the upper part of the village, where today there is a water tank and remains of wall foundations, and that many houses in the locality were built with its stones, which ruined it completely in the early 18th century. The district, distinct from the nearby castle of Calders, was a possession of the monastery of Sant Cugat del Vallès from the resettlement of the area in the 10th century, although the castle is not documented until the 11th century. In 1047 the abbot of Sant Cugat established some uncultivated lands next to the castle, in a place called vila de Sant Iscle, which was probably the old name of the village later known as Sant Vicenç de Calders.
Monument
The Torre del Telègraf is an optical telegraph tower in el Vendrell (Baix Penedès), declared a bien cultural de interés nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection). It stands on a rock surrounded by a moat cut into the stone and consists of two superimposed sections: a lower, truncated-conical one that serves as a base, and above it the tower proper, of square plan. Unlike other civil towers on the line, it is surrounded by a moat, has a smaller door and windows, and arrow slits on the first floor, which give it a more military appearance. It belonged to the civil optical telegraph line from Madrid to Valencia and Barcelona, whose Catalan branch had been in operation since 1850. It fell out of use after the arrival of the electric telegraph, and the civil towers on the line were dismantled in 1857.
Monument
Circular tower with an interior diameter of 305 centimetres, cracked from top to bottom and only partly preserved, with a ledge at about four metres marking where the door was; the wall, of medium-sized stones 15 by 25 cm, little worked but well aligned and bonded with reddish lime mortar, is dated to around the 11th-12th centuries. It stands on the old road that ran from el Vendrell to Sant Vicenç de Calders, and it is thought that it may have stood at the origin of the centre of el Vendrell, documented perhaps from 1032 and with certainty in 1037, in a concord signed by the abbot of Sant Cugat del Vallès. It was the centre of the barony that the monastery of Sant Cugat held over Bonastre, Albinyana, Santa Oliva, Sant Vicenç de Calders and el Vendrell itself until the abolition of seigneurial jurisdictions.
Monument
The Mas del Bombo, also known as the Mas del Xombo, is an isolated farmhouse in the municipality of el Vendrell, in the Baix Penedès (Tarragona), the county town of which is this locality of more than 41,000 inhabitants. The farmhouse was built adjoining an old circular defensive tower that it still preserves: a cylindrical tower that tapers upward, pierced with windows, resting on a ribbed vault supported by four round arches and reinforced with powerful buttresses. The main façade is reached through a bastion with a lintelled doorway, and the side façade, of three storeys, has a gallery of round arches on the upper floor.
Monument
Square-plan tower with a defensive machicolation, whose first documentary references go back to the 12th century, when it was the residence of King Martin I of Aragon; probably dating from the 15th century with 17th-century alterations, it is the oldest part of a fortified farmhouse near the beach of El Vendrell, whose left wing was built in 1702 and to which sheds for livestock were added at the end of the 19th century. The place of Francàs is documented since the 14th century, when it had seven hearths. Owned by the Maciá family of Vilafranca del Penedès until 1982, when it was bought by a Swiss businessman who, together with the architect Vinyols, undertook its restoration while preserving the building's character; the complex now operates as a hospitality establishment.
Monument
The Corralot d'en Virgili is a rural building of popular architecture located in the municipality of El Vendrell (Tarragona), built between the 16th and 17th centuries. It is protected as a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection).
Monument
Circular tower in el Vendrell, built on the orders of the liberal Military Government after the Carlists entered the town on 4 March 1874, next to the Bisbal stream, which gives its name to the Botafoc housing estate. It is about eight metres high with three levels, a basement and two floors with arrow slits that were used to light the interior, to keep watch unseen and to fire outward; the door, on the second floor, was reached by a wooden ladder that could be withdrawn. The construction date, July 1874, was carved into the wall when it was restored in 1995. There are other similar towers in el Vendrell, such as that of the Puig, from the same period, and that of the Cintoi, less well preserved. It cannot currently be visited, and can only be seen from outside.
Monument
Circular defensive tower of the fort fuseller type, built on top of the Puig del Vendrell to protect the town during the Third Carlist War, around 1874; it is a twin, in construction, of the neighbouring Torre del Botafoc, built in the same fortification campaign. Built of masonry, it stands out for its two levels of arrow slits of notable depth. It was declared a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection) in 1949. It stands on a hill on the outskirts of the village, reached by a path that starts from carrer Josep Tarradellas.
Monument
House linked to the writer, poet and playwright Àngel Guimerà (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, 1845-Barcelona, 1924), known as Cal Ximet, in El Vendrell. Guimerà, one of the great names of the Catalan Renaixença, moved as a child to this town in the province of Tarragona in 1854, when his parents married and settled there; from then on he lived divided between Barcelona and El Vendrell, where he used to take refuge during his free periods. It was his friend from El Vendrell, Jaume Ramon i Vidales, who introduced him to the Catalan language, in which he would later write internationally successful dramas such as Mar i cel or Terra baixa.
Monument
El Portal del Pardo, included in the Inventory of the Architectural Heritage of Catalonia, is the only one of the five gates that gave access to El Vendrell when the town was still walled, in the 16th century; the building that houses it, in civil Gothic style, dates from 1623 and stands at the end of Carrer Major, from where the road to Sant Vicenç set out. It consists of a horizontal block and a tower built over the old round arch of the wall, with a first floor with a balcony and frieze decorated with animals, a second floor with a balcony door, and an attic with three Gothic windows with a basket-handle arch. In the early 21st century it housed the Fundació Apel·les Fenosa.
Monument
The Pau Casals Museum, dedicated to the life and work of the cellist, is located on the Sant Salvador seafront promenade in El Vendrell, and was declared a museum of national interest by the Generalitat of Catalonia in 2020. The building was the summer house that Casals had built in 1908, with works begun in 1910; a year later he was already spending the summer there with his family. The estate, extended with a tennis court, garden and orchard, was renovated in the 1930s, and in 1935 the Concert Hall and the Vigatà Hall were designed. Casals barely enjoyed these renovations, since in 1939 he had to go into exile after the civil war and never returned. The Pau Casals Foundation, created in 1972 by the musician and his wife Marta Montañez, opened the first rooms in 1974 and reopened the whole complex in 2001.
Activity
The Festa Major del Vendrell (Baix Penedès, Tarragona) is celebrated around 26 July, the feast of Santa Anna, patron saint of the town. Among its festive elements is the Víbria del Vendrell, a fire-breathing beast built in 2007 that shoots fire from fourteen points and is carried by young members of the Diablons group, along with the gegants and the human towers of the Nens del Vendrell.
Nature
Baix Penedès coastline around Calafell and el Vendrell, with long beaches.
Monument
The Ciutadella Ibèrica de Calafell, also called Alorda Park, is an archaeological reconstruction of an Iberian settlement in the coastal centre of Calafell, in the municipality of el Vendrell (Baix Penedès, Tarragona). The settlement was founded in the early 6th century BC, reached its greatest splendour in the 3rd century BC and was abandoned at the end of that century, in the context of the Second Punic War; in the 1st century BC a Roman domus was built there. Excavated since 1980 by Joan Santacana and Joan Sanmartí, it was rebuilt between 1992 and 1994 using experimental archaeology, following Nordic models such as the Swedish Eketorp, the first Iberian site to be restored in this way. Visitors can see its houses, walls, towers and silos, with information panels and replicas of the objects found.
Activity
The traditional Sant Jaume fair of el Vendrell.
Activity
Summer festivities in Calafell, a coastal settlement of el Vendrell.
Historical milestone
The place appears documented in 1037 in connection with the irrigation of its lands and in 1183 it received a charter of settlement granted to Bernat de Papiol. That document fixed the boundaries and the burdens of the settlers who occupied the plain.
Historical milestone
Pau Casals i Defilló was born in el Vendrell on 29 December 1876, the son of the parish organist, and died in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on 22 October 1973. A cellist, teacher, conductor and composer, he renewed the technique of the instrument, turning it into a great solo instrument, a change that all cellists would later adopt; his performance of El cant dels ocells became a symbol of peace and freedom, and in particular of Catalan Modernism. He revived Bach's suites for the concert repertoire and, after going into exile in 1939, made his music a public defence of democracy, refusing to play in countries that recognised the Francoist regime. Called by Fritz Kreisler the king of the bow, he was one of the great musicians of the 20th century.
Historical milestone
The comarca division approved by the Generalitat in 1936 separated the Baix Penedès from the Alt Penedès and gave it a capital of its own. The comarca brought together the villages of the coastal plain and of the foot of the Montmell under a single administrative head.
Food and drink
The origin of xató lies in the wine world: when the wine was about to be tasted, the barrel was tapped -aixetonar-, fitting a small spigot that let out the new wine, a moment that marked the start of a celebration with a meal of salted ingredients and seasonal vegetables, the origin of today's dish. Its authorship is disputed among several towns of the Penedès and the Garraf; el Vendrell maintains that it is a sauce of seafaring tradition, prepared by fishermen in their harbour when the wine barrels were tapped during a popular festival. It is a winter salad of escarole, flaked salt cod, tuna and anchovies, dressed with a sauce of almond, hazelnut, ñora pepper, garlic and oil, eaten at collective xatonades.