Village
L'Espluga de Francolí is a vila in Conca de Barberà, in the province of Tarragona, between the Tallat mountains and the Poblet forest, the gateway to the monastery of the same name. It has 3,863 inhabitants (INE 2025) and preserves a walled enclosure and the modernist cooperative winery. Its name comes from the Latin spelunca, cave, after the cavities in the area, among them that of the Font Major, through which the Francolí river runs underground, discovered in 1853 and open to visits along with the museum installed inside it. The vila grew up around a castle that Ponç de Cervera built in the 11th century, which later came to depend on Poblet and the Templars. It lives off agriculture, vines and cereals, and tourism linked to the monastery.
Monument
The Old Church of Saint Michael is an early Gothic building with Cistercian influences, owing to the proximity of the monasteries of Poblet, Santes Creus and Vallbona de les Monges, in l'Espluga de Francolí, in the Conca de Barberà. It was built between the 13th and 14th centuries, probably on the site of a Romanesque church already mentioned in 1182, and was the only parish of the two jurisdictions into which the town was then divided. It has a nave of three bays with a polygonal apse and radiating chapels, a western facade with a pointed-arch doorway and a square bell tower. It preserves a main altar with an 18th-19th-century image of Saint Michael. In the 19th century a larger church was built in front of it, consecrated in 1871; it lost its parish status, although it remains open for worship.
Monument
Remains of the castle of l'Espluga de Francolí, in the Conca de Barberà, which stood atop the village and came to have six square towers defending a large parade ground. Today only a few traces remain: beside the river, above the Font Baixa, remains of two towers and two stretches of wall are preserved; in Carrer dels Ametllers there is a lintelled doorway half hidden by a reinforcing wall, and in Carrer Castell there are fragments of wall sections. There were probably two castles, one in the upper Espluga and another in the lower, the latter in the hands of the Hospitaller order. It was partly blown up during the Carlist Wars, and after Mendizábal's disentailment it was parcelled out and sold for building houses, its stones being reused in the new church.
Monument
Remains of the medieval walled precinct of l'Espluga de Francolí, in the Conca de Barberà, declared an asset of national cultural interest. Today only a gate and some walls are preserved atop the castle hill; the wall, which stood until 1880, surrounded the two settlements that originally made up the town, l'Espluga Sobirana and l'Espluga Jussana, each with its own precinct until in the 14th century the wall that united them was built, probably during the rule of Guillem de Guimerà. Already in the 16th century its decline and occupation by private individuals is documented, and in the 19th century the last remains of walls and gates were demolished.
Monument
The Celler Cooperatiu de l'Espluga de Francolí, nicknamed “the Cathedral of Wine” by Àngel Guimerà, is a modernist building designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner and built in 1913 by his son Pere Domènech i Roura. It was built to house the Cooperativa de l'Espluga, founded in 1902, and consists of three naves with buttresses, columns and arcades of marked decorative intent. In 1957 Cèsar Martinell i Brunet added a third nave identical to the original two, which earned it the name “celler de baix” or “dels rics” (lower cellar, or the rich people's cellar), in contrast to the “celler de dalt” (upper cellar), with a single nave, which small landowners built in 1932 nearby. Today it also houses the Wine Museum.
Activity
The fiesta mayor of l'Espluga de Francolí is celebrated in a town that is the gateway to the monastery of Poblet, with a walled precinct and a Modernist cooperative winery; on 22 October 2019 a flood of the Francolí caused fatalities, destroyed the municipal campsite and swept away bridges and entire streets.
Nature
A karst cavity carved by an underground river in the conglomerate rock of l'Espluga de Francolí, declared a local cultural heritage asset and one of the seven longest caves in the world formed in this type of rock, with more than 3,590 metres of known passages. It was used up to Roman times and then lay forgotten until 1853, when a local resident rediscovered it while digging a well at his house; speleological exploration, begun in 1956, continued until 1990. Pottery and human remains from the Neolithic and Bronze Age have been found in its galleries and are now on display: since 1994 part of the cave has operated as a cave-museum, unique in the world of its kind, promoted by the patron Lluís Carulla and l'Espluga town council.
Historical milestone
The storm of 22 October 2019 caused the Francolí river and its ravines to overflow, claimed lives, destroyed the municipal campsite and swept away bridges and entire streets. It was the worst flood recorded in the basin in decades. A powerful easterly storm (llevantada) dumped up to 300 litres per square metre in a few hours over the Prades mountains, at the head of the basin, and the flow of the Francolí, which normally does not reach 1 m³/s, exceeded 1,200 m³/s as it passed through l'Espluga, at the Palanca bridge. The water rushed down at high speed, dragging trees and branches that blocked bridges and tearing out riverside vegetation as it passed through Vimbodí, Poblet, l'Espluga, Montblanc and Vilaverd.
Food and drink
Former marc brandy distillery preserved with its stills and its chimney, today open to visitors. It documents a trade that made use of the remains of the grape harvest and that was a habitual complement to the wine-growing economy of the comarca.