Sant Martí de Centelles

The village bakery opens at seven, but the bread emerges earlier. By half six the loaves are cooling on wicker trays, scenting the single traffic-light junction with crust and yeast. Stand here long enough and someone will greet you in Catalan, switch to Spanish, then try hesitant English when they realise you’re clutching an Ordnance Survey-style map of the Montseny hills. That triple-language welcome is about as touristy as Sant Martí de Centelles gets.

Five thousand people live spread across 47 square kilometres of oak and holm-oak forest, scattered farmhouses and the modest grid of stone houses that passes for a centre. The altitude is 400 metres, just high enough for the air to feel rinsed, yet low enough for figs and almonds to ripen in south-facing gardens. It sits where the Pyrenean foothills shrug themselves awake, forty minutes north of Barcelona’s outer ring-road and light-years away from its stag-party haunts.

A church, a bar and a lot of cows

The 11th-century parish church of Sant Martí squats at the top of a 7% ramp. Its belltower leans two degrees west, the result of a 15th-century earthquake that cracked the foundations and persuaded builders to prop the walls with iron braces still visible inside. Sunday mass is at eleven; visitors are welcome to sit at the back, though the priest will expect you to join in the Catalan responses. The interior is spare – no gold, no frescoes – but the stone floor dips like a saucer where centuries of boots have worn through.

Opposite the church, Bar Centelles does coffee, newspapers and the fixed-price lunch. Three courses, water and wine run to €14.50 Monday to Friday, €17 at weekends. Expect grilled pork shoulder, white beans and a slab of crema catalana thick enough to stand a spoon in. They’ll swap chips for salad if you ask; they won’t do gluten-free pizza. Opening hours are 7 am–5 pm, reopening 8 pm–10.30 pm, except Tuesday when it shuts altogether. Plan accordingly.

Beyond the bar, the urban fabric unravels into lanes wide enough for a tractor and little else. Stone masías – rectangular farmhouses with twin-pitched roofs and wooden galleries – appear every few hundred metres, many still worked by the families who built them. Cows graze right up to garden fences; their bells clank a slow rhythm that replaces any need for meditation apps.

Walking without way-markers

Sant Martí is criss-crossed by the GR-5 long-distance path and a lattice of local footpaths that never quite make it onto Google Maps. The tourist office – a single desk inside the ajuntament open Wednesday mornings only – sells a 1:25,000 map for €6. The most straightforward route heads north from the church, follows the streambed of the Riera de Seva for 45 minutes, then climbs through holm-oak to the ruined hamlet of Els Munts. You’ll meet mountain bikers, mushroom hunters and the occasional shepherd on a mule, but rarely another foreign walker.

Serious hikers can link up with the Montseny Natural Park ten kilometres east. The highest summit, El Turó de l’Home, tops 1,700 metres and can feel Alpine even in May; pack a windproof and expect snow patches after Christmas. A circular drive from Sant Martí via the C-251 and the BV-5114 gives access to three trailheads; the road is twisty but asphalted, and the viewpoint at Collformic delivers a straight-line vista to the Mediterranean on clear days.

When to come, and when to stay away

Spring brings wild asparagus along the verges and daytime temperatures of 18–22 °C. Autumn is mushroom season; the woods smell of damp earth and woodsmoke, and every bar displays a hand-written notice saying “Compramos rovellons” – we buy wild mushrooms, cash on the nail. Both seasons are ideal for cycling the back-roads that roll between cereal fields and pine plantations. Summer, by contrast, is hot (30 °C plus) and surprisingly humid; the village empties as locals head to the Costa Brava, leaving one bar open and a single rural taxi on duty. Winter is crisp, often sunny, but night frost is guaranteed and rural hotels switch off the heating between 11 pm and 6 am to save biomass pellets. If you dislike cold bathrooms, visit April–June or September–October.

Beds, bytes and bureaucracy

Accommodation is limited. Hostal Rural Mas Blanc, three kilometres south-west in an 1840 stone manor, has eight rooms with beams, terracotta floors and Wi-Fi that copes with email but chokes on Netflix. Doubles start at €85 including breakfast; evening meals must be booked before 4 pm. The only alternative is a clutch of self-catering masías on booking sites, most rented by the week and reachable via 2 km of dirt track. Sat-nav co-ordinates are essential; postcodes cover entire valleys.

Cash is king. The nearest ATM is in Centelles, 7 km down the C-17 motorway – a ten-minute drive that feels longer when you meet a combine harvester coming the other way. There is no petrol station in the village; the closest pumps close at 9 pm and all day Sunday. Supermarkets, pharmacies and a Saturday farmers’ market are in Centelles too, so stock up before you ascend.

Public transport exists, but only just. A twice-daily bus from Granollers stops on the main road 1.2 km below the old village, timing its arrival to coincide with nothing in particular. From Barcelona Estació del Nord, the journey takes 75 minutes and costs €6.15 each way; buy your ticket on board and have small change. Trains on the Barcelona–Puigcerdà line stop at Centelles-Puigvedri, 5 km from the village; taxis from the rank are scarce after 8 pm, so pre-book via WhatsApp on +34 650 123 456.

What you won’t find

Nightlife, souvenir shops, yoga retreats or artisan gelato. The village playlist is church bells, dogs and the distant hum of the AP-7 motorway when the wind is right. If you need boutique hotels, Michelin stars or Uber, stay in Vic, twenty minutes west. Sant Martí is for travellers who can entertain themselves with a map, a pair of boots and the smell of wet oak leaves after rain. Come prepared, and the absence of everything else feels like luxury.