Cercs

A Valley that Once Ran on Steam

The A-11 switchback drops 300 m in altitude before Cercs appears, a scatter of stone houses and a single brick chimney poking above the pines. At first glance it could be any Catalan upland dormitory town, but the conveyor tower beside the road gives the game away: this place mined coal until 1991. The engine shed is now a museum, the miners’ flats have satellite dishes, and the river Llobregat slides past with no barges to feed. Yet the scent of damp anthracite still drifts from the tips on a wet morning, a reminder that the Pyrenean foothills here were once Spain’s industrial front garden.

British visitors who arrive expecting honey-coloured hamlets find instead a landscape closer to South Yorkshire with sun: terraced houses built for pitmen, a railway viaduct that ends in mid-air, and an interpretive centre where the gift shop sells local beer rather than fridge magnets. It is, deliberately, not pretty. It is honest, and that honesty is what makes the detour worthwhile.

Down the Shaft

The Museu de les Mines opens at ten, closed Mondays. Turn up any other morning and you can usually join the next tour without pre-booking—except during the August fiesta when Spanish families queue for the 11 a.m. English slot. A former miner called Jordi or José Antonio hands out hard hats three sizes too large, then the lift rattles 40 m into the mountain. The temperature drops to 14 °C; even in July you’ll be grateful for a fleece.

Inside, the gallery is not a Disney set. Rusted wagons stand on 60-centimetre track, picks hang where they were left, and a pneumatic drill the size of a labrador lies abandoned mid-shift. The guide explains, in rapid Catalan softened by an English summary, how eight-year-old traperets once opened ventilation doors for a fistful of pesetas. No-one in the group speaks for a full minute afterwards. Back on the surface, a short path loops through the Sant Romà mining colony: identical two-up-two-downs, a school with a 1945 world map still showing the British Empire in red, and a cooperative store now doing duty as a café. The coffee is proper, the sponge—pa de pessic—tastes like lemon-scented Victoria, and there is nowhere else to eat after 4 p.m. except a vending machine that swallows notes but refuses to give change.

Reservoir with a Bell-Tower

Three kilometres north, the road dead-ends at the pantà de la Baells, a 22-kilometre-long reservoir that drowned six villages in 1976. When the water level drops below 30 % capacity—usually late September after a dry summer—the stone bell-tower of Sant Salvador breaks the surface like a Spanish Atlantis. British photographers have been known to check the Catalan water-agency website a week in advance, then drive up from Barcelona for the shot. Most leave with memory cards full of ripples; the tower appears perhaps one autumn in three.

Even without ecclesiastical archaeology, the lake is useful. A paved track skirts the western shore to a picnic site where French families unload folding tables and Portuguese campervans refill water tanks. The water is too cold for idle paddling—reservoir depth exceeds 80 m—but a signed footpath follows the Llobregat upstream through reed beds and poplar plantations. Allow 45 minutes out, 35 back, and carry water: the only fountain is at the car park and summer temperatures can still touch 30 °C despite the 650 m altitude.

Legs, Gears and Empty Roads

Cercs makes no claim to be a hiking capital; that honour belongs to neighbouring Berga, gateway to the Cadí ridge. What the village does offer is empty space. From the church of Sant Martí, a stone stairway climbs past vegetable plots to the Creu de Ferro viewpoint (one hour round trip, 250 m gain). The panorama is workmanlike rather than spectacular: a quilt of pine and holm-oak, the reservoir glinting in one corner, the high Pyrenees floating like a distant white wall. Spring brings thyme and mountain chamomile; autumn smells of damp leaf and mushroom.

Mountain bikers can loop the Camí dels Carlits, a 19-km forest track that drops to the reservoir dam then contours back through robledales. The gradient is gentle until the final 3 km, when the track tilts to 12 % and thighs remember yesterday’s rioja. Road cyclists share the N-260 with timber lorries; early starts are essential. The reward is the climb to Coll de la Bena (1 030 m), six kilometres of switchbacks where the tarmac is smooth and the only spectators are Griffon vultures.

What, Where and How Much

There is no cash machine in Cercs; the nearest is a BP garage on the Berga ring road, ten minutes by car. Tuesday market in Berga is the place to stock up on botifarra sausage and local ganxet beans before self-catering. In Cercs itself, the Bar de la Colònia opens at seven for espresso and pa amb tomàquet; a sandwich the size of a house brick costs €4.50. The museum ticket is €10, €8 for over-65s, and includes the underground tour plus a QR code that unlocks English captions in the colony houses. Waterproofs can be borrowed, but boots cannot—bring trainers you don’t mind muddying.

Evening dining options are thin. Cal Fuster in Berga does a menú miner (grilled lamb, chips, wine, pudding) for €18, served by waiters who understand vegetarian simply means “extra chips”. The local Berga Beer brewery produces an English-style bitter sold in 33-cl bottles at the museum shop; at 4.8 % it slips down easily after the chill of the shaft.

When to Come, When to Stay Away

April–June and mid-September–October give the best compromise: mild days, cool nights, reservoir high enough for reflections, low enough for the tower tease. July and August are hot (33 °C at midday) and the museum’s 11 a.m. tour sells out first; arrive by 9.45 or wait until 1 p.m. Winter is crisp, often snowy above 900 m, and the valley can sit under thermal inversion for days. The road is kept open, but the colony bar shortens its hours and the reservoir track becomes a mud slide.

Accommodation is limited to two rural houses and a clutch of Airbnb flats in former miners’ quarters. Expect stone walls, Wi-Fi that flickers when it rains, and neighbours who watch television at Spanish volume. Book ahead for September weekends when French motorcyclists descend for the Pyrenean hairpins. Otherwise, you can usually find a bed the same week.

A Valley that Refuses to Become a Museum

Cercs will never be charming in the postcard sense; the slag heap still rises behind the football pitch, and the weekly bingo night advertises prizes of ham and washing-up liquid. Yet the village has refused the fate of so many ex-industrial places—boarded windows, ghost streets, a grief that never lifts. Instead, the chimney still stands because locals fought to keep it, the school now teaches robotics alongside Catalan, and the miners’ baths have become a small spa where cyclists soak thighs in 38 °C water drawn from the same seams that once fed the boilers.

Come for the underground chill, the reservoir mirage, the sponge cake that tastes like home. Leave before you start telling people you’ve “discovered” it; Cercs was here long before cheap flights, and the valley has no interest in being anybody’s secret.