Valls

A City That Builds Castles Without Bricks

The first thing that strikes visitors to Valls is the noise. Not traffic – the population is barely 25,000 – but the rhythmic chanting from Plaça del Blat on Tuesday evenings. "Ara, ara, amunt!" rings out as the Colla Vella dels Xiquets de Valls attempts to stack eight tiers of human bodies into a living tower. There's no ticket office, no souvenir stall, just locals gathering to watch their neighbours risk concussion for civic pride. It's been happening since 1801.

This is Valls in microcosm: a place where cultural traditions aren't preserved for tourists but lived with slightly alarming intensity. Situated 215 metres above sea level in the Alt Camp region, the city sits equidistant between Tarragona's Roman ruins and Lleida's plain. The altitude makes winters sharper than coastal Catalonia – expect frost in January – but summer evenings remain breathable, a blessing when the calçot season kicks off.

The Onion Festival That Isn't Really About Onions

Between January and April, Valls transforms into Catalonia's most aromatic city. Calçots – lengthy spring onions resembling oversized leeks – roast over open fires in restaurant courtyards and farmhouse gardens. The ritual is specific: charred black, wrapped in newspaper to steam, then consumed with romesco sauce while wearing a plastic bib that makes grown adults resemble oversized toddlers.

Yet the food is almost incidental. Calçotadas function as Catalonia's answer to the Sunday roast, multi-generational gatherings where business deals emerge between courses and marriages are negotiated over shared wine jugs. Restaurant Can Vilaró has hosted these feasts since 1946; their weekend slots sell out six weeks ahead, with prices starting at €28 for fifteen calçots, romesco, grilled lamb and unlimited wine. Midweek visits offer the same experience minus the hen-party crowds from Barcelona.

The technique matters. Locals demonstrate the proper grip – calçot held vertical, sauce applied from above, head tilted back to avoid drips. First-timers inevitably fail, emerging with orange-chinned beards that mark them as guiris (foreigners) for the remainder of their visit. Consider it a baptism by fire-roasted vegetable.

Modernist Facades and Medieval Bones

Valls lacks Tarragona's monumental drama, instead revealing itself slowly. The Gothic bulk of Església de Sant Joan dominates the old quarter, its fourteenth-century walls built from honey-coloured stone quarried nearby. Inside, the air carries incense and centuries of candle smoke; opening hours remain erratic, so morning visits prove most reliable.

Wander southeast towards Barri del Carme, where medieval streets narrow to shoulder-width passages. Laundry hangs between balconies; elderly residents shuffle to bakeries that still close for siesta. Suddenly, a salmon-pink modernista facade appears – Casa Fàbregas on Carrer de la Cort – its wrought-iron balconies depicting grapes and wheat sheaves. Another block reveals Casa Duran, all curved lines and ceramic details. These aren't museum pieces but working buildings housing estate agents and dental surgeries.

Plaça del Oli recalls Valls' medieval prosperity when olive oil exports funded church construction. Today's square hosts Tuesday's market: pyramids of tomatoes, strings of blood-red botifarra sausages, teenagers buying mobile-phone covers from Chinese wholesalers. The Museum of Valls, tucked behind the square, dedicates three floors to explaining how this provincial capital industrialised through textiles rather than tourism. Admission costs €4; allow forty minutes to understand why locals remain faintly suspicious of visitors who come only for onions and human towers.

Walking Off the Calories

The city proper occupies barely four square kilometres, but Valls' municipal boundaries stretch across 55 kilometres of olive groves, almond orchards and vineyard-covered hills. The Ruta del Gaià follows the river north-west for 12 kilometres to Pont d'Armentera, passing abandoned watermills and masia farmhouses converted into weekend homes. The path remains largely flat – this isn't Pyrenean hiking – but January walkers should pack layers; morning frost often gives way to 18-degree sunshine by midday.

For shorter exertions, climb to the Santuari de la Mare de Déu del Lledó, twenty minutes uphill from the old quarter. The seventeenth-century chapel rewards effort with views across the Camp de Tarragona: geometric vineyards, distant mountains, the N-240 snaking towards Lleida. Sunday mornings bring local families carrying picnic blankets and enormous sandwiches; the adjacent café serves surprisingly decent coffee for €1.20.

Serious walkers should consider the circular route to Font de Rovió, five kilometres through holm-oak forest to a natural spring where shepherds once watered flocks. The path starts behind the police station – follow Carrer de Gaudí until asphalt becomes dirt track. Spring brings wild rosemary and thyme; autumn offers mushroom-foraging opportunities, though locals guard productive spots with territorial intensity.

Practicalities Without the Brochure Speak

Reus airport, twenty minutes away, receives Ryanair flights from Manchester, Birmingham and Stansted. Pre-booked taxis to Valls cost €35; public transport requires two buses and takes ninety minutes. Barcelona alternatives work fine – frequent coaches connect to Reus, then local bus 50 continues to Valls – but add ninety minutes to journeys.

Accommodation remains limited and honest. Hotel Class Valls offers functional rooms from €65 nightly, though walls prove thin during weekend weddings. The municipal albergue provides dorm beds for €18, perfectly adequate if expectations remain realistic. Restaurants observe Catalan hours: lunch 14:00-15:30, dinner from 21:00. Arriving at 19:30 means hungry wandering until kitchens open.

Car hire transforms Valls from pleasant stop to excellent base. Penedès vineyards lie forty minutes north; Tarragona's beaches reach in thirty. The city itself demands maximum two days – enough for calçots, one castells rehearsal, and sufficient walking to justify third helpings of crema catalana.

Winter visitors should note altitude effects: January temperatures occasionally drop below zero, and the famous calçots remain stubbornly unavailable. Summer brings reliable sunshine but minimal shade; the human-tower schedule shifts to cooler evening slots. Spring and autumn provide the sweet spot – warm days, cool nights, and onions at their peak.

Valls won't change your life. It offers something rarer: a Catalan city functioning exactly as it did before tourism arrived, where traditions continue because locals demand it, not because guidebooks recommend it. Bring an appetite, comfortable shoes, and clothes you don't mind staining orange. The towers will build themselves; your only job is catching calçot drips and applauding when eight levels of humanity defy gravity for precisely seven seconds before collapsing into laughing heaps.