Lluçà

The morning bus from Vic judders to a halt beside a stone cross whose carved letters are so weather-softened that only locals can still read them. No one gets off except you. The driver restarts the engine, the only vehicle on the road disappears round a bend, and silence folds back over the tarmac like a blanket. At 750 m above sea-level the air is thinner, cleaner, and carries the faint smell of wet fern even in July. Welcome to Llucà, a municipality that fits its 300 inhabitants into a scatter of farmsteads so widely spaced that neighbours sometimes phone each other instead of walking over.

Stone, Slate and the Sound of Cows

Llucà is not a postcard cluster of whitewashed cubes. It is a working landscape of seventeenth-century masías built from the same greyish slate they sit on, their wooden balconies painted the colour of oxidised copper. Many still thresh corn in stone circles behind the house; most keep a couple of brown-and-white cows whose bells provide the only percussion for miles. Public buildings are limited to the parish church of Sant Vicenç – Romanesque base, Baroque porch, door locked unless the key-keeper has been forewarned – and a one-room bar in the hamlet of Lluçà-Vell that opens on Friday evenings and fiesta days. Order a café amb llet and you will be charged €1.20; ask for a flat white and the price stays the same, though the barman may raise an eyebrow.

Walking is the obvious occupation, but the terrain rewards curiosity rather than box-ticking. A circular route of 8 km links the church, the abandoned chapel of Sant Miquel de Pineda and the Roman bridge at Puda. The path is way-marked by faded yellow flashes that disappear under summer growth, so download the free map from the county website before leaving Vic. Boots are sensible: after rain the clay sticks like wet biscuit and even tractors skid. Mountain-bikers will find firmer going on the gravel tracks that loop through the holm-oak forest south-west of the village; gradients are gentle, rarely above 6 %, but carry a spare tube – thorns from carob trees have the puncturing power of drawing pins.

Between Plain and Peak

The municipality sits on the hinge where the flat cereal bowl of the Plana de Vic tilts upward into the Pyrenean foothills. That position gives Llucà two climates for the price of one: by 11 a.m. thermals rising off the plain suck cool air through the valleys, so even August afternoons rarely top 28 °C. After sunset the temperature drops sharply; bring a fleece if you plan to stay out past nine. In winter the inversion is equally reliable – bright sun on the slope, cold fog trapped below – which explains why local farmers could historically grow apples on the hills while rice matured near the coast.

Snow arrives late and leaves early. A 10 cm fall is enough to close the BV-5206, the single road that claws up from the C-25 motorway, so January and February visits need flexible timing. On the other hand, wild cherries flower here two weeks later than in Vic, stretching the blossom season to late April and turning the hillsides into a pointillist canvas of white petals and fresh green wheat.

Food that Never Reaches a Menu

There is no restaurant in the parish boundaries. Instead, food comes to you – if you remember to ask. Masia Can Fosses sells raw-milk goat cheese from a fridge in the barn; knock and wait, €8 a kilo. Cal Ton makes its own sobrassada, the soft Mallorcan-style sausage that spreads like pâté; they will slice off €5 worth if you speak a few words of Catalan and promise not to park in the turning circle. The only formal outlet is the Saturday morning market in nearby Olost (15 min drive), where the Pujol family wheel in a portable clay oven and bake coca – a rectangular flatbread topped with roasted red peppers – that is usually warm when you buy it.

Picnic tables are provided beside the fountain at Torrent de la Prunera; water is potable, though it carries enough iron to stain your bottle orange. British visitors nostalgic for pork pies should know that embutidos here are cured but not cooked; take a sharp knife and expect salt, not sage. Vegetarians will do better buying tomatoes and white beans labelled “de la Vall d’en Bas” – the volcanic soil south of here gives them actual flavour, even when raw.

When the Valley Throws a Party

Fiesta major happens on the weekend closest to 22 January, honouring Sant Vicenç. Because half the population is over seventy and night frosts are real, the programme is repeated in late July so returnees from Barcelona can attend. Both versions follow an identical script: Saturday evening sardana in the church square, Sunday morning mass followed by calçotada (long spring onions grilled on a bonfire, wrapped in newspaper and eaten with romesco sauce), Monday tractor parade and kid’s bicycle gymkhana. Visitors are welcome but not announced; if you turn up with your own plate and glass you will be fed and no one will ask where you are from. Fireworks are modest – think supermarket selection box rather than Edinburgh Hogmanay – and finish by 23:00 out of respect for livestock.

Getting Here, Getting Out

Llucà has no railway. The last stop on the R3 line from Barcelona is Vic, 25 km south. From Vic bus station Monbus route 401 departs at 13:05 and 18:30, returns at 07:00 and 16:15, fare €3.40 each way. The timetable is academic on public holidays, when it drops to one midday run or none at all. A taxi from Vic costs €35 fixed; book through Taxi Osona and ask for the English-speaking driver if your Catalan is rusty. Car hire is cheaper for stays longer than a weekend, and essential if you want to combine walking with a dip at the Costa Brava – the beach at Sant Feliu de Guíxols is 70 min downhill, but the last 12 km across the transverse range is a corkscrew that will test right-hand-drive nerve.

Mobile coverage is patchy. Vodafone picks up 4G on the ridge, Orange fades in the hollows; EE roaming partners seem to swap between the two without warning, so pre-load offline maps. The single cash machine is in Olost; most farm sellers prefer notes to Revolut, and none takes cards.

Leaving Without a Fridge Magnet

Tourism in Llucà is still measured in dozens per month, not hundreds per day. There is no gift shop, no fridge magnet, no rack of identical postcards. What you can take away is lighter: the memory of a place where the loudest sound at midday is a hoopoe calling from a walnut tree, and where the landlady handing over cheese will also give you the exact minute of tomorrow’s sunrise because she watched it from the same porch for seventy-two years. Drive back down the switchbacks to the motorway and the plain swallows you whole; within twenty minutes the temperature rises five degrees and the traffic thickens. The silence, for a while, stays in the car.