Santa Maria De Corco

The morning bus from Vic lurches upward through switchbacks scented by wet oak leaves and cow manure. By the time it wheezes to a halt on Carrer Major, the air has thinned to 693 m and the temperature has dropped several degrees—enough for a jumper even in late May. Passengers step down into a village that still answers to two names: the official Santa Maria de Corcó, and the stubborn local shorthand L’Esquirol, inherited from an older parish boundary. Both appear on the stone sign by the baker’s, so nobody gets lost, though phone signal vanishes two streets later.

Stone houses shoulder together along lanes just wide enough for a tractor and a muttering dog. Walls are the colour of weathered cheddar, roofs tiled in curved Arab terracotta that clinks like crockery when the wind arrives from the Puigsacalm ridge. The church bell strikes eleven; a woman in gardening clogs emerges with a basket of eggs and sells them to the bar for today’s tortilla. No souvenir stalls, no multilingual menus, not even a cash machine—Corcó assumes you came prepared.

The church that refused to stand still

Parish records say the first stones of Santa Maria were laid around 1160, but the building has been nudged, buttressed and baroque-ified so often that only the squat bell-tower still speaks Romanesque. Inside, a single Gothic window throws cobalt light onto 18th-century plasterwork so exuberant it looks almost embarrassed. Mass is Saturday evening; turn up ten minutes early and you’ll hear the organ being coaxed into life by the same man who tuned it in 1978. Donations for roof repairs sit in an olive-oil tin labelled “Calderers—urgent”. The total collected last year was €3,417, pinned proudly on the noticeboard beside baptism statistics.

Outside, the cobbled placa tilts toward the Ter valley. Sit on the granite bench long enough and someone will ask where you’re walking; reply “nowhere in particular” and you’ll be directed to the mirador behind the cemetery for “the view that costs nothing”. The path is signed in fading spray-paint—three minutes uphill, lungs reminding you this is pre-Pyrenean oxygen.

Forests that remember charcoal burners

Corcó’s real territory begins where the tarmac ends. Oak and beech woods, stitched together by dry-stone walls and the occasional stone hut whose roof collapsed decades ago, roll north toward the high peaks of Les Guilleries. Way-marked routes range from a forty-minute loop to the Font del Ferro spring—iron-rich water that stains everything rust—to a five-hour traverse that gains 600 m and finishes in the next valley with a bus back from Sant Hilari Sacalm.

Spring brings wild garlic and the faint sound of cowbells drifting like wind chimes; autumn smells of mushrooms and wood-smoke, and the forest floor becomes a patchwork of chestnut husks. Winter can deliver snow thick enough to silence the road for half a day; the council keeps a single plough, so if you’re staying, you’re staying. Summer is cooler than Barcelona by eight to ten degrees—walkers start early and retreat to the shade of the bar by two, when the sun turns the stone houses into storage heaters.

Maps are sold at the tobacconist for €6; phone GPS works only on the higher ridges where you finally pick up a signal from Olot. Locals still navigate by collapsed farmsteads: “Turn left at Ca l’Amadeu—there’s only one wall left, you can’t miss it.”

Calories earned and returned

Hunger is taken seriously here. The weekday menú del dia at Restaurant les Marrades runs to three courses, wine and half a litre of water for €14. Expect chickpees with botifarra sausage, followed by rabbit stewed in porch-roof tomatoes, then crema catalana thick enough to hold a spoon upright. They’ll box up leftovers for dogs if you ask—waste offends.

Thursday is market day: one fruit stall, one cheese van, one elderly couple selling honey labelled with mobile numbers that no longer connect. The cheese vendor keeps a laminated certificate proving his goats have brucellosis clearance; buy the semi-cured round rolled in ash—it survives a rucksack better than the oozy fresh stuff.

If you’re self-catering, the bakery opens at seven and sells a flat, brittle biscuit called carquiñoli that doubles as walking fuel. Pair it with the local red from the cooperative in nearby Folgueroles; it costs €3.50 a bottle and tastes of sour cherries and iron, exactly what you want after six hours of uphill.

Getting here without your own wheels

From the UK, fly to Barcelona, then take the Aerobus to Sants station (€5.90, 25 min). Regional trains to Vic leave hourly; journey time 70 min, fare €9.05 if booked online. At Vic bus station—an easy two-minute walk from the railway—Sagalés line 651 departs for Santa Maria de Corcó at 10:15, 13:15 and 19:15 weekdays, fewer at weekends. The ride is 35 min and costs €2.95; buy your ticket from the driver, exact change appreciated. Miss the last bus and a taxi is €35—if you can find one willing to climb.

Driving is simpler: AP-7 north to Vic, then C-153 toward Olot. Leave the car at the free gravel car-park by the football pitch; the old centre is a three-minute walk and tractors have right of way on every corner.

Accommodation is limited. There are two rural houses (masias) within hiking distance: Cal Serni and Cal Pera, both bookable through the Osona tourism site. Expect stone floors, wood-burning stoves and utter silence after 23:00. Mid-week rates start around €70 for two, including sheets but not towels. The nearest hotel is back in Vic—useful if you need Wi-Fi that doesn’t drop when a cloud passes.

When the fiesta drowns the quiet

For fifty-one weeks of the year Corcó murmurs; during Festa Major, late August, it shouts. Brass bands parade at noon, giant papier-mâché figures (gegants) waltz through the streets at toddler-eye level, and sardana circles spin in the placa until the cobbles vibrate. The bars stay open past two; locals who moved to Barcelona decades ago reappear with children who’ve never seen a milking stool. Accommodation within ten kilometres sells out six months ahead—book or avoid.

Equally atmospheric, and easier on sleep, is the winter Tres Tombs parade in January: horses, mules and a single tractor blessed by the priest, then hot chocolate laced with rum for anyone who can prove they’re over sixteen.

Worth knowing before you set off

Cash remains king; the nearest ATM is in Les Masies de Roda, 6 km downhill—cycle or thumb, because buses don’t run on Sunday. Mobile data fades in the upper forests; download offline maps. English is rarely spoken—Catalan dominates, though waiters will meet you halfway if you try Spanish first. Bring a light waterproof even in July: mountain weather arrives fast and the village sits in a cloud funnel between two ridges.

Santa Maria de Corcó will not change your life. It offers no beach, no Michelin stars, no ancient ruins to tick off. What it does provide is a yardstick against which to measure the speed of everywhere else: wood-splitting stacked for next winter, bread that emerges from the oven at the same hour it did in 1950, paths that remember hoof and sandal as clearly as boot and bike. Arrive curious, leave lighter in pocket and lungs, and the memory of that high-altitude hush will follow you all the way back to the airport queue.