Santa Maria de Martorelles

The church bell strikes seven and the only other sound is a tractor turning earth in the neighbouring vineyard. Twenty-five kilometres away, Barcelona’s evening rush is building to a roar, yet here in Santa Maria de Martorelles the air smells of pine resin and newly cut alfalfa. At 180 m above sea level the village sits just high enough for the sea breeze to skim over the coastal plain and carry away both heat and traffic fumes. Locals claim—and meteorologists quietly confirm—that summer nights are two degrees cooler than on the coast, which explains why so many Barcelonans keep keys to family houses here.

Stone, Clay and Tile

No one would call the place dramatic. The parish church of Santa Maria, first recorded in 1151, is a modest rectangle of honey-coloured stone patched with brickwork from later centuries. What makes it worth a pause is the continuity: the same bell that called farmers in from the fields during the Middle Ages still tolls for Sunday mass, and the font in the porch has refreshed baptisms since the days when Catalonia was a collection of border counties answerable to no king. Walk fifty metres down Carrer Major and you pass three-storey farmhouses built on the Roman grid—ground floor for animals, first floor for grain, top floor for people—now converted into weekend homes whose shutters open to reveal English-language newspapers and espresso machines. planning rules forbid flashy refurbs, so satellite dishes are hidden behind terracotta tiles and swimming pools must sit below wall height, invisible from the lane.

Outside the nucleus the landscape opens into a patchwork of dry-stone terraces held together by lichen-covered walls. Carob and olive trees survive on the poorest slopes, while the richer valley bottoms switch between vegetables in winter and vines in summer. The local cooperative, founded 1958, still accepts grapes delivered in trailers towed by 1990s Renaults; members receive a printed statement each October showing litres produced and cents per litre credited against their account. Visitors can buy the resulting white—labelled simply Vallès—from a vending machine in the yard: bring a one-euro coin and an empty bottle.

Paths that Link rather than Lead

Footpaths here were designed for work, not recreation. The track heading north-east toward the Vallmora stream follows the line of a medieval irrigation ditch; farmers once walked it at dawn to open sluice gates in strict rotation. Today the same route makes an undemanding ninety-minute circuit, shaded by Aleppo pines and loud with cicadas by late June. Midway you pass a stone hut with a tin roof where a laminated map explains, in Catalan and surprisingly good English, how charcoal burners stacked timber here for weeks to produce the carbó that fuelled Barcelona’s first factories. The return leg climbs gently through holm-oak scrub; look back and the whole coastal corridor opens up, motorway included, a reminder of how thin the green buffer has become.

Mountain bikers use the wider farm tracks to string together loops of 15–25 km. Gradient seldom exceeds six per cent, but the surface switches without warning from packed clay to fist-sized gravel—hire bikes with wider tyres than the standard city hybrid. Road cyclists, meanwhile, head south on the BV-5001 toward Montmeló and the motor-racing circuit: at 7 a.m. on Sundays the tarmac is empty save for club riders in matching Lycra timing efforts between roundabouts.

Eating by Season, Not by Menu

There is no restaurant in the village itself. What you get instead is permission to eat like a resident. On weekday mornings the bakery window in the adjoining square of Martorelles town—three minutes by car—sells coca de vidre, a paper-thin pastry topped with pine nuts and sugar that shatters like caramel. Buy two pieces and the assistant slips in a wedge of pa de pagès still warm from the deck oven. That, plus tomatoes from the Saturday market in Mollet, olive oil from the cooperative and a slab of local fuet sausage, becomes lunch on the terrace. Evening meals require a short drive. Can Raigier in Martorelles does grilled rabbit and chips for €12; they’ll split portions for children without being asked. Oxygen Restaurant, five minutes further toward the coast, has air-con and a bilingual waiter who will talk you through a wine list strong on Penedès reds without sounding like a sommelier. The fixed-price weekday lunch (three courses, water, wine, €16.50) finishes at 4 p.m. sharp—arrive late and the kitchen is already mopped.

If you stay self-catering, remember the Spanish shopping timetable: supermarkets close at 2 p.m. on Saturday and do not reopen until Monday. Stock up on milk and croissants before Friday night or you will be driving to the 24-hour garage on the C-17, a bleak experience made worse by the Sunday drivers heading home to Barcelona.

When the Village Comes off Mute

August Festa Major transforms the place. Residents who left for city jobs return with children and cousins; the population triples overnight. Brass bands rehearse in the school playground, paper streamers criss-cross the lanes and someone’s uncle wheels out a sound system that would suit a stadium. Events start with a cercavila parade at 7 p.m. and finish with cremat—rum-flamed coffee—served from a cauldron at 2 a.m. Outsiders are welcome but the programme is printed only in Catalan; ask at the town hall kiosk for the English crib sheet, usually available from a teenager happy to practise exam English. Book accommodation early: every spare room is let by May, and campsite space in the municipal field fills with Dutch caravans whose owners discovered the village while waiting for Barcelona FC tickets.

January brings the quieter, stranger festival of Sant Antoni. On the eve of 17 January neighbours build a pyramid of vine prunings in the church square; at dusk the bonfire is lit and the local priest blesses dogs, hamsters and the occasional snake. The smoke drifts toward the pine woods, carrying the scent of resin and country winter. Dress warmly: the altitude means frost is common and the celebration is entirely outdoors.

Getting Here, Getting In, Getting Out

Santa Maria de Martorelles has no railway; the bus from Barcelona’s Plaça de Catalunya runs twice daily and not at all on Sunday. Hire a car at the airport—compact automatics sell out first—and allow 35 minutes via the C-58 and C-33. The final three kilometres narrow to a single-track lane; pull in at the passing places because locals drive faster than looks sensible. Parking inside the village is free but unmarked; if the church square is full, continue 200 m to the cemetery—no one minds respectful visitors.

Mobile coverage is patchy in the narrow streets; download offline maps before arrival. Most cottages include Wi-Fi, though the signal drops every time the valley farmer starts his irrigation pump. Treat the interruption as a reminder to look up: the night sky here still shows the Milky Way, something the coastal towns lost long ago.

Leave before 8 a.m. on checkout day and you can be in central Barcelona in time for breakfast on the Ramblas, wondering if the previous evening’s silence was imagined. It wasn’t; it’s simply on loan, repaid in full each time the city swells and contracts like a lung.