La Llacuna

The morning flight from Manchester lands at Barcelona-El Prat at 08:15. By 09:45 you're through baggage claim, and ninety minutes later the hire car's temperature gauge drops five degrees as you leave the A-2 at Martorell. The final twelve kilometres to La Llacuna twist through oak forest on a road barely wide enough for two tractors to pass. Your phone loses signal. This is when you realise you've left the Costa behind.

At 615 metres above sea level, La Llacuna sits where the Catalan interior begins its climb towards the Pyrenees. The village proper houses fewer than a thousand souls, though the wider municipality spreads across rolling vineyards and cereal fields that turn golden-brown by late June. There's no train station, no Uber, and only two buses daily from Igualada—which depart at hours apparently chosen to inconvenience everyone. Miss the 14:30 return and you're spending the night.

Saturday Morning Rituals

The bakery on Carrer Major opens at seven. By eight there's a queue of locals clutching fabric bags, debating last night's football while the baker slides trays of carquinyolis—Catalan biscotti—into paper sleeves. Children race round the porticoed square where the weekly market sets up: three stalls selling cured meats, local almonds, and the first Penedès white of the season. It costs €3.50 a glass, crisp enough to make you forget the drive up.

The parish church of Sant Pere dominates the medieval core, its bell tower visible from every approach road. Inside, Romanesque stonework meets Gothic additions in a architectural conversation spanning four centuries. The interior stays cool even when August temperatures hit thirty-five outside; worshippers have always known how to pick a building site. Photography's permitted, though the elderly woman polishing brass candlesticks will watch to ensure you don't use flash. She nods approval if you drop a euro in the box.

Wandering the narrow lanes takes twenty minutes at most, yet reveals details easily missed: stone portals carved with dates from the 1600s, iron balconies where geraniums survive on rainwater alone, the occasional coat of arms hinting at families who've lived here since the Reconquest. House prices remain reasonable—locals blame the lack of broadband and the single ATM that empties every weekend—but this means the centre hasn't been hollowed out by second-home owners. Residents still outnumber holiday lets.

Forest Tracks and Fortified Farms

Three signed walking routes start from the upper car park. The shortest climbs twenty minutes to a ruined watchtower where 360-degree views stretch across vineyards towards Montserrat's serrated profile. On clear winter days you can just make out the Mediterranean glinting sixty kilometres south. The path continues through holm oak and pine, eventually dropping to the C-37 road—handy if you've arranged pickup, otherwise retrace your steps. Spring brings wild rosemary and thyme underfoot; autumn colours last barely three weeks before November mists roll in.

Scattered across the municipality stand fortified farmhouses, masias built tall and square to double as refuges during medieval bandit raids. Some remain family homes; others stand roofless, their stone bones picked clean by weather and time. Masia Cal Mestre, two kilometres west of the village, opens for cheese-making demonstrations most Saturdays—phone ahead as numbers are limited to eight. You'll watch raw goat's milk curdle, then taste the result spread on toast with local honey. The owner speaks rapid Catalan but slows down if you attempt a few phrases; she's patient with linguistically-challenged Brits.

Cyclists find quiet country lanes linking La Llacuna with neighbouring villages—though "quiet" means the occasional tractor rather than Tour-de-France style pelotons. The terrain rolls rather than soars; fit riders manage thirty-kilometre circuits taking in Santa Margarida de Montbui's Romanesque chapel and the micro-village of Rubió, population forty-three. Mountain bikers prefer forest tracks where pine needles soften the surface and wild boar prints cross the trail. Bring your own bike—there's no rental shop here.

What to Eat (and When)

Catalan interior cuisine relies on what grows locally: almonds, olives, grapes, pork. Restaurant Cal Pinxo serves butifarra sausage with white beans at €12; it's milder than chorizo, reassuring for palates unaccustomed to Spanish fire. Vegetarians make do with escalivada—smoky aubergine and peppers dressed with olive oil—though choices thin considerably once you leave Barcelona. Paired with a glass of Penedès white, lunch becomes a masterclass in simple ingredients treated with respect.

Evening meals start late. Kitchens fire up around eight-thirty, by which time British stomachs rumble audibly. The single hotel restaurant stays open latest; otherwise options shrink to the bar on Plaça Major serving tortilla and patatas bravas until eleven. Mondays prove problematic—most kitchens close entirely, forcing hungry visitors to drive twenty-five minutes to Igualada. Stock up at Saturday's market if you're self-catering; the village supermarket carries basics but closes 14:00-17:00 like everything else.

Seasons and Sensibilities

April brings almond blossom and temperatures perfect for walking—eighteen degrees at midday, cool enough for a fleece at dawn. May turns the surrounding fields emerald green before cereal crops ripen; photographers arrive for golden-hour shots of stone barns against young wheat. Summer grows fierce: thirty-plus heat builds by eleven, sending sensible walkers back to shaded plazas for iced coffee. Afternoon siesta isn't tourist folklore—shops roll down shutters because locals genuinely need sleep.

Autumn wine harvest creates brief buzz; tractors hauling grapes to the cooperative form dawn convoys along C-241. November sees the return of thick valley mists that swallow the village until midday; driving becomes an act of faith following cat's-eyes through cloud. Winter brings sharp frosts and occasional snow—roads remain passable but pack chains if you're staying outside the village. The hotel's wood-burner becomes social hub; strangers share carquinyolis and compare weather apps predicting minus-four overnight.

Leaving (and Returning)

Checkout involves handing back a metal key the size of your palm—no keycards here. The drive down feels shorter; you've learned the bends. At Martorell you rejoin twenty-first-century Spain: dual carriageways, billboards, McDonald's. By the time Barcelona's skyline appears, La Llacuna already seems distant, a place where time's measured in church bells rather than smartphone notifications.

You'll tell friends about the silence after dark, the bakery woman's approving nod when you attempted Catalan, the taste of cheese still warm from the vat. Some will Google it immediately; others will smile politely and book Benidorm. Both reactions make perfect sense. La Llacuna doesn't suit everyone—it's too quiet, too stubbornly itself. Which, of course, is precisely the point.