Fogars de Montclús

The road from Sant Celoni climbs 386 metres in twelve kilometres. Each hairpin reveals another slice of Montseny forest until, suddenly, stone farmhouses appear between pines like they've grown there. This is Fogars de Montclús—not a village in the British sense of clustered cottages around a green, but a scattering of homes across 48 square kilometres of Catalan hillside where barely 500 people share space with wild boar, genets and enough oak to fuel every fireplace in Hertfordshire.

What Passes for a Centre

Forget market squares and medieval quarters. Fogars has three distinct nuclis—El Grau, Les Palmeres and Montclús itself—connected by winding concrete threads rather than pavements. The nearest thing to a hub is the church of Sant Martí, Romanesque bones dressed in later centuries, perched above El Grau with views that on crisp winter days stretch past the coastal plain to a silver sliver of Mediterranean. Arrive expecting a pint and a paper: you'll find silence, a noticeboard advertising mushroom-foraging walks, and a vending machine dispensing holy water. The sole grocery opens 9–1, shuts for siesta, then reappears 5–7. Miss both windows and it's a 20-minute drive back to Sant Celoni for milk.

Dispersed living means each farmhouse commands its own ridge or valley pocket. Can Coll, Can Montclús and Cal Ferrer stand as thick-winded stone statements—stone roofs weighted against the tramuntana wind, wooden balconies for drying corn, doors wide enough to admit a mule. They're private, so admire from the lane; trespassing isn't a cultural quirk here, it's simply rude.

Walking Without the Crowds

Montseny became Spain's first natural park back in 1978 and weekend Barcelonians colonise its southern trailheads. Drive north from Fogars instead and you'll share beech-lined paths only with Catalan families who greet strangers with a polite bon dia then leave you to the silence. Waymarking is sporadic—stone cairns, occasional yellow flashes—so pick up the free map at the ajuntament or risk contouring the wrong valley until dusk.

An easy starter is the 8-kilometre loop linking El Grau to the abandoned hamlet of Font de l'Avellanar. Gradient never tops 200 metres, the track is drivable gravel, and halfway round an stone trough delivers icy water that tastes of iron. Add another hour by continuing to the Mirador de les Agudes for 360-degree views: south-east to the sea, north-west to the 1,706-metre Turó de l'Home, often still streaked with May snow.

Harder legs can join the long-distance GR-5, which slashes across the park from the French border to the Mediterranean. Stage into the next valley at Gualba and someone from your hotel will collect you for the price of a beer—arranged the night before, naturally, because mobile reception vanishes the moment you dip below the ridge.

Eating When There's Nobody Around

Rural Catalonia doesn't do all-day kitchens. If you want lunch beyond supermarket crisps, plan like a local: book ahead, arrive between 1 and 3, and expect the place to shut afterward while the owner sleeps off the vi de la casa. Avet Blau Hostal grills half-chickens over vine cuttings until the skin crackles like quality pork crackling; chips arrive in a separate bowl because sharing is assumed. Three courses plus wine hover around €22—cash only, cards laughed at.

Vegetarians survive but don't flourish. Cal Rei's menú del día offers roasted red peppers stuffed with spinach and pine nuts, yet the chef still looks faintly betrayed when you refuse the lamb. Puddings are reassuringly stodgy: crema catalana thick enough to stand a spoon in, or chocolate tart under a mountain of nata that would give a Devon cream tea an inferiority complex.

Evenings shrink to a single option. La Font de Cal Guardia stays open until 11 if you reserve, serving mountain stews heavy with white beans and butifarra sausage. Afterwards the village belongs to owls and the occasional Guardia Civil patrol; bring a bottle and a pack of cards or prepare for early bed.

When the Weather Turns

Altitude matters. July afternoons might hit 32°C on the coast, but up here thermometers stop at 26° and evenings demand a jumper. Spring brings wild asparagus along verges and the faint risk of late frost even in April. Autumn is mushroom season: locals guard rovelló patches like state secrets, so photograph but don't pick unless invited—fines start at €300.

Winter empties the place. Roads stay open—grit lorries from Sant Celoni work overtime—but overnight snow can isolate individual masías for a day. Charming if you've booked somewhere with a wood-burner; less so if the boiler runs on bottled gas and the delivery van can't manage the last incline. Chain cables live in every car boot for good reason.

Getting There, Getting About

No railway pierces these hills. From the UK it's a two-hour flight to Barcelona, then 70 kilometres north on the AP-7 before the C-35 spits you towards the mountains. Hire-car brakes need to be trustworthy: the final 12 kilometres rise 400 metres through tight S-bends signed at 40 kph that locals treat as a suggestion, not a limit. Girona is marginally nearer but fewer airlines serve it; the trade-off is a gentler approach road.

Buses exist—daily service from Barcelona Estació del Nord to Sant Celoni, then a taxi uphill—but the last return leaves at seven. Miss it and you're paying €60 for a private transfer. Cycling the climb is popular with Catalan club riders; mere mortals can hire hybrids in Sant Celoni and push up in bottom gear while being overtaken by grandmothers on e-bikes.

The Honest Verdict

Fogars de Montclús will never tick the classic Spanish village box: no whitewashed alleys, no flamenco, no evening paseo. What it offers instead is space—forests where footfall is measured in dozens per day, night skies dark enough to embarrass Exmoor, and a pace dictated by daylight and firewood rather than social media. Come prepared for self-reliance, bring phrase-book Spanish (Catalan helps more), and accept that the forest, not humanity, sets the timetable. Manage that and you may find one night on the hillside resets your body clock more effectively than a fortnight on the Costas.