Ullastrell

The bakery opposite Sant Esteve church sells out of almond carquinyolis by eleven o’clock most Saturdays. That’s the first clue you’ve arrived somewhere that doesn’t court visitors. The second is the absence of a cash machine. In Ullastrell, population 2,000 and rising only on market day, locals still settle their bread bill with notes kept in kitchen drawers, and tourists are expected to do the same.

Perched at 342 m on the last ridge before the Vallès plain drops towards the Penedès wine country, the village is a 45-minute bolt from Barcelona airport yet feels decades away from the coast. There is no sea view, no promenade, no smell of sunscreen. Instead you get dry-stone walls scratching lines between vineyard plots, the clack of cicadas in Aleppo pines, and a horizon sliced by the saw-tooth silhouette of Montserrat whenever the tramuntana wind scrubs the sky clean.

Stone, Clay and the Smell of Thyme

The old quarter fits inside a single photo. Sant Esteve, a Romanesque core dressed up with later Gothic and Baroque additions, anchors a knot of lanes just wide enough for a tractor and its trailer of grapes at harvest. Walk five minutes in any direction and the tarmac turns to packed clay; houses give way to masías, the classic Catalan farmsteads built from honey-coloured stone and roofed with curved Roman tiles. Most are private – expect dogs to announce your presence – but the public footpaths skirt their gardens politely, giving you licence to stare at the dovecotes and arched doorways without trespassing.

Spring brings the best show: almond blossom first, then peach, then a haze of wild rosemary and thyme that smells like a posh gin when the sun hits it. Autumn trades bloom for bronze, the vines flushing red before the leaves drop. Summer is hot, shade patchy; if you insist on July, start walking at seven and be back in the bar by eleven. Winter can knife through a fleece at midday, yet the light is sharp enough to make the distant Pyrenees look close enough to touch.

A Circular Coffee and Three Churches

Serious hikers treat Ullastrell as a way-marker on the 140 km GR-172 that loops through the Vallès. Everyone else is content with the 8 km Camí de la Serra, a way-marked circuit that leaves the church plaza, climbs through pines to the abandoned ermita de Sant Jaume, then drops back past two more chapels now converted into weekend homes. Allow two hours, plus thirty minutes for the coffee you will inevitably order at Taiet d’Ullastrell on return.

The restaurant is the only one guaranteed open on Sunday. Its €18 menú del día won’t win stars, but the grilled chicken, chips and industrial ice-cream keep British children quiet while parents eavesdrop on Catalan families debating the price of olives. Book; otherwise you’ll be driving ten minutes to Terrassa for a burger.

If you need something stronger, Celler Masroig in neighbouring Masquefa offers weekday tastings of DO Penedès reds, but you’ll need a car and a designated driver. Ullastrell itself has no winery, only vines. The last commercial press closed in 1983; the building is now somebody’s airy loft conversion.

Bring Euros and a Paper Map

Practicalities first: no railway line ever climbed this high. From Barcelona airport take the A-2 west, peel off at Martorell, then follow the BV-1201 for twelve kilometres of switchbacks. The road is single-track in places; pull-ins are frequent and locals drive faster than looks sensible. Sat-nav loses the plot after the third hair-pin; download an offline map before you leave the hire-car desk.

Parking on Carrer Major is free and rarely full except during the August fiesta. Ignore the dusty coach bay at the top – it’s reserved for school trips come to sketch the church tower. There is no hotel. Closest beds are at Hotel Terrassa Park (three-star, pool, 12 km) or the rural B&B Masia Can Parellada (eight kilometres down the hill, breakfast included, dogs welcome). Self-catering apartments appear on Airbnb sporadically; check cancellation policies because owners sometimes delist at short notice if a cousin needs the keys.

Cash is king. The nearest ATM is in Terrassa, a twenty-minute descent that feels longer when you realise the bakery only takes Spanish cards. Fill your wallet at the airport; you’ll need change for bread, coffee and the honesty box at the tiny interpretation centre where a retired teacher sells local history pamphlets for €2 a pop.

Fireworks, Sardanas and a Donkey Blessing

Ullastrell’s year pivots on two weekends. The Festa Major, late August, fills the plaça with sardana dancers, a foam party for teenagers and a communal paella that uses two metres of diameter and three bags of bomba rice. Visitors are welcome but seats are not reserved; bring your own bowl and be prepared to defend your place in the queue with fluent Catalan.

Mid-January belongs to Sant Antoni, the winter fire festival. Bonfires crackle outside the church at dawn, and a bemused donkey receives a priest’s blessing while children wave greenery they’ve yanked from parental gardens. British photographers arrive expecting something medieval; they leave with memory cards full of smartphone snapshots and the realisation that Catalan tradition adapts happily to Gore-Tex and Instagram.

Between these peaks the calendar thins to monthly walks led by the town hall. Routes change according to who feels like guiding; sign-up sheets appear on the noticeboard outside the ajuntament. Bring stout shoes and a phrasebook – explanations are delivered exclusively in Catalan, though gestures translate well enough when the topic is “where to spot wild boar without being gored”.

When to Cut Your Losses

Let’s be blunt: if your dream Spanish break involves sandcastles and sangria on tap, stay on the coast. Ullastrell shuts early, offers no nightlife beyond the bar’s television blasting Moto GP, and the swimming option is a muddy reservoir ten minutes down the track. Rain arrives without warning in April and October; the clay paths turn slick and the smell of wet thyme can feel less poetic when you’re sliding on your backside.

Yet for anyone who measures holiday success in empty lanes, bakery-fresh carquinyolis and a church bell that still marks the hours rather than the tourist tempo, the village delivers. Come with a car, a pocket of euros and modest expectations. Leave before the bakery runs out of biscuits and you’ll understand why Barcelona’s weekenders keep the secret to themselves.