El Brull

The church bell strikes noon, yet only two cars pass through El Brull's single junction. At 843 metres, the air carries a nip that coastal Catalonia forgot existed. Swifts dive between stone houses while, somewhere below, a tractor's diesel note bounces off oak-covered slopes. This is not the Spain of souvenir fans and sangria fountains; it's a working scatter of farmsteads that happens to hold a village licence.

Altitude changes everything here. August thermometers can still hit 32 °C on the lower footpaths, but night-time drags the mercury down to 14 °C—perfect sleeping weather if you've rented one of the converted stone barns on the ridge. Come October the beech woods ignite into copper and rust, yet the Mediterranean glints on the horizon, 40 km away as the crow flies. Winter is a different proposition: the GC-530 road from Vic climbs through three micro-climates in 25 minutes, and the final hairpins collect ice faster than the council can salt them. Chains live in car boots from December to February; without them the village becomes a weekend-only destination for the handful of families who stay year-round.

Maps, myths and missing petrol

Sat-nav will insist the drive from Barcelona takes 75 minutes. Double that if you follow the recommended route through the congested C-17 commuter corridor at rush hour. A smarter play is to leave the motorway at Cardedeu, swing through the cork-oak countryside above Centelles and approach from the east; the road is narrower but the views start immediately and you dodge the lorry ballet feeding Vic's factories.

Petrol is the first reality check. The village's only filling station locked its pumps in 2021 and hasn't reopened. The last reliable supply is a Repsol on Vic's ring road—top up there or risk a 40-km round trip for unleaded. Phone reception fades soon after the turn-off; download offline maps before you leave the plain. Google happily underestimates walking times in the Montseny hills: a "45-minute" stroll to the ruined Iberian settlement above the village took me an hour and twenty, and I wasn't dawdling.

The second myth is name confusion. Dozens of Brits still arrive clutching print-outs about El Bulli, the legendary restaurant that closed in 2011. It's 100 km away on the Costa Brava. The only culinary theatre here is the Saturday barbecue at Can Xarina, where Josep grills botifarra sausages over holm-oak embers and serves them with thick chips that taste faintly of the neighbouring farm's truffle soil. A plate costs €11; cutlery is optional and locals eat with their jackets still on.

Stone, silence and the sound of your own breathing

El Brull doesn't do postcard plazas. The centre is a Y-junction beside the eleventh-century church of Sant Martí, its bell tower patched with mismatched stone after lightning, civil war and general neglect. Step inside and the temperature drops five degrees; the interior is plain, the walls whitewashed, the gold leaf kept to a minimum. Mass is sung in Catalan at 11 a.m. on Sundays; visitors are welcome but the priest keeps the homily short because the heating bill is funded by a congregation that barely fills the front pews.

Beyond the junction the village fragments into masías—fortified farmhouses—strung along lanes that become dirt tracks within 200 metres. Many are second homes now, their pastures leased to neighbouring cattlemen who move herds between elevations according to grass growth. Stone walls are thick enough to blunt phone signals further; conversations fade to the creak of leather boots and the soft impact of chestnuts dropping onto moss. This is walking country rather than sightseeing territory. Marked footpaths strike north into the Montseny Natural Park, south toward the Plana de Vic, east to the ruins of a 1930s tuberculosis sanatorium whose empty wards still carry a faint medicinal tang.

The most straightforward hike is the four-kilometre loop to Turó del Castell, a grassy summit where Iberians watched for Romans and Civil War spotters later scanned for Franco's troops. The climb gains 250 metres through beech and red pine; benches at the top align with metal silhouettes that name every peak from the Pyrenees to Montserrat. On a clear winter morning you can pick out the freight ships threading the Med 45 km away; in summer heat haze the horizon dissolves into a silver stripe that could almost be mirage.

Rain, rationing and the art of planning ahead

Weather forecasts come from the Vic plain and need translating. A "slight chance of showers" can morph into two hours of mountain drizzle that soaks footpaths into slick clay. Carry a light shell even in May. Conversely, a predicted storm sometimes evaporates against the ridge, leaving only the smell of wet resin and a rainbow that lands somewhere in the next valley. Either way, water supply is erratic. Drought restrictions hit most years; the village council occasionally shuts taps between midnight and six. Locals keep a five-litre bottle by the kettle; savvy visitors do the same.

Sunday shopping is non-existent. The bakery in the neighbouring hamlet of Montesquiu opens Saturday until 1 p.m.; after that the nearest loaf is 17 km away in Vic. Restaurants follow farmhouse hours: lunch 1–3 p.m., dinner 8–10 p.m., nothing in between. Turning up at 4 p.m. hoping for tapas earns a polite shrug and directions back to the junction where the vending machine outside the town hall dispenses lukewarm cans of Estrella.

What grows, what flows and what you might actually eat

El Brull's larder is the comarca of Osona. Look for mongetes del ganxet, a thin white bean that fetches €8 a kilo at Vic market and tastes like a cross between cannellini and chestnut. Restaurants fold the beans into stews with wild boar or simply dress them with local olive oil and specks of mint. Formatge de tupí is trickier: soft cheese slammed into a clay pot and drowned in marc brandy. The flavour is barnyard meets Christmas pudding; order a tapa first unless you enjoy edible surprises.

Mushrooms appear after September rains. The forest rangers levy on-the-spot fines if you harvest without a €5 daily permit—pay online before you leave home. Chestnuts are free: the lower slopes are criss-crossed with 200-year-old trees dropped by forgotten monks. Arrive in late October with a shopping bag and gloves; the nuts roast nicely in the embers of a barbecue pit at the purpose-built area beside the Carrer de la Font.

Leaving the ridge

By dusk the temperature has slipped another degree. Headlights pick out the first frost on the stone parapet as you drop toward Vic; the Mediterranean reappears as a distant smudge of light pollution that feels oddly irrelevant. El Brull doesn't sell itself. It offers altitude, silence and the certainty that tomorrow's weather will arrive before you do. Pack chains, download maps, fill the tank and expect nothing more. If that sounds like effort, keep driving; the coast is only an hour away.