Tavèrnoles

The church bell strikes noon, and the only other sound is a tractor reversing somewhere below. From Tavernoles' 500-metre ridge, you can see both the folded green hills of inland Catalonia and, on very clear days, a sliver of Mediterranean blue 40 kilometres away. This is a village that doesn't shout about its geography; it just gets on with farming the terraces that have been scratched into these slopes since the Moors left.

At first glance, there's not much here. A stone church with a 16th-century bell tower, 312 residents, one bar, zero cash machines. The BV-5213 access road is so narrow that locals have mirrors mounted on poles to spot approaching traffic. But that's precisely what makes Tavernoles work as a reset button. Barcelona's airport is 75 minutes east, Girona's even closer, yet once you're up here the Costa Brava package strips might as well be in another country.

Stone, Silence and the Sau Reservoir

The village itself clusters around the parish church of Sant Martí, rebuilt piecemeal after an earthquake in 1428 and again during the Civil War. Step inside and you'll find the original Romanesque font still in use for Sunday baptisms, its carved limestone worn smooth by seven centuries of infant kicks. Outside, the terrace drops away to the Sau reservoir, a cobalt finger that floods the valley below. It's tempting to walk down for a swim – don't. The road switchbacks 12 kilometres and drops 400 metres; drive it instead, then brace yourself for the climb back up afterwards.

What Tavernoles does offer is walking that starts literally at the church door. Pick up the free leaflet (English crib available) from the bar and choose your loop. The shortest, 4.3 km, circles past three working masías where dogs bark from behind iron gates and hay bales sit under Catalan vaulting. Add the Roca del Sacrifici spur for an extra twenty minutes and you'll reach a limestone bluff where Roman legions once lit beacon fires. Today it's picnic territory: bring tomatoes, the local fuet sausage and a sense of altitude – buzzards circle beneath you.

Longer routes thread into the Montseny Natural Park proper. The 12-km round to the abandoned hamlet of Els Muntans passes oak woods loud with nightingales in May and crosses a stream where otter prints show in the mud after rain. None of it is strenuous, but the limestone can be slick; boots beat trainers here, especially outside high summer.

What to Eat, Where to Sleep, How to Pay

Accommodation is limited and none of it corporate. The village counts 38 tourist beds in total: four rooms above Can Janot's restaurant, six self-catering cottages scattered among the farms, and a pair of stone villas that sleep ten each. Prices hover around €90 for a double, €180 for a villa, and everything books solid for Easter weekend and the whole of August. If those are full, Vic – 15 minutes down the mountain – has converted monasteries and a Best Western, but you lose the dawn silence.

Food is farm-to-table by default rather than fashion. Can Janot opens Thursday to Sunday and serves a three-course menú del día for €18. Expect roast chicken with romesco (almond-pepper sauce mild enough for British palates), followed by crema catalana that arrives still crackling from the blow-torch. They'll sell you a loaf of yesterday's pa de pagès if you ask before noon; after that it's walk to Vic or do without. Vegetarians survive on coca de recapte – a pepper-and-aubergine flatbread – and the excellent local cheeses. Carnivores should try the butifarra negra in October when pigs are slaughtered; the blood sausage is spiced with cinnamon rather than the cloves used further west.

The practical stuff matters. Fill the hire-car tank and your wallet in Vic before the climb – the village has neither petrol station nor cash machine. Phone signal dies in the lanes between fields, so download offline maps. Supermarkets are a 10-km descent to Vic (Eroski for choice, Caprabo for Sunday opening); the village shop keeps Catalan hours – closed 14:00-17:00 and all day Tuesday. Last orders at the bar are 22:30 sharp; after that the night soundtrack is owls and, in October, the distant pop of wild-boar hunters.

Seasons and Sensibilities

Spring brings colour gradually. Almond blossom appears in February, followed by a wash of yellow broom across the lower slopes. Temperatures sit in the high teens – perfect walking weather – and the reservoir is full from winter rains, its surface reflecting the ridge like black glass. This is when photographers appear at dawn, tripods lined up on the church terrace to catch the mist that pools in the valley below.

Summer is hot but rarely suffocating; altitude knocks three or four degrees off the coast. The local fiesta erupts in mid-August with a foam party in the square and sardanes danced to a live cobla band. Visitors triple the population, accommodation trebles in price, and the bar runs out of Estrella by Sunday night. Book early or come in June instead, when the fireflies appear and the hay smells sweet.

Autumn is the locals' favourite. Oak and beech turn copper on the higher slopes, mushrooms appear along the tracks, and the air smells of wood smoke and wet earth. Calçot season starts in February – giant spring onions charred over vine embers, peeled and dipped in romesco. Tourists are few, prices drop, and you might get a cottage for €70 if you ask nicely in the bar.

Winter brings snow perhaps twice a year. The BV-5213 is gritted but still entertaining; carry chains if you're booked for Christmas. When the white stuff arrives, Sau reservoir becomes a mirror between black pine slopes and the village turns into a postcard – for about six hours. Then the sun comes out, the snow melts, and farmers go back to moving hay under a sharp blue sky.

Leaving Without the Hard Sell

Tavernoles won't change your life. It has no souvenir stalls, no Michelin stars, no ancient mosaics roped off behind glass. What it offers is a lesson in scale: how little you actually need for a decent weekend – a bed, a map, a bar that understands coffee. The risk is that you arrive expecting dramatic views and leave having talked to a shepherd about sheep prices. If that sounds disappointing, stay on the coast. If it sounds like a relief, bring walking boots and a sense of time measured by church bells rather than Wi-Fi bars.