バリアーネスのおすすめMTBライド

very pretty town

Beautiful medieval monastery from the Cistercian era, still inhabited by nuns.

beginning of a fairly easy curriolet with areas of a lot of rock but a lot of straight stretches

The climb is very steep but the views are worth it

The monastery of Santa María de Vallbona is a female Cistercian abbey founded in the 11th century and built in a mixture of Romanesque and Gothic styles. Together with the Poblet and Santes Creus monasteries, it forms the Cistercian Route.

Rocallaura is a small nucleus of the Sierra del Tallat. It forms part of the municipal term of Vallbona de les Monges, in the Urgell region. The village belonged to the abbesses of Santa Maria de Vallbona, and has a church dedicated to Sant Llorenç. A castle was also erected, now totally gone.

Belonging to the district of Vallbona de les Monges, Montblanquet is a small town in the Sierra del Tallat, on the border between the counties of Conca de Barberà and El Urgell. Among its heritage stands out the church of Sant Andreu de Montblanquet, from the 13th century, with a single nave and Cistercian inspiration. The old washrooms, the communal oven and a couple of fountains are also preserved. In the Plaza Mayor there is a stamp for the Ruta del Cister (a cupboard inside which there is a stamp for the route).

The Tallat sanctuary appears in records as early as the 11th century, where a defense tower was located that took advantage of the magnificent views over the l'Urgell, Sagarra and Conca de Barberà regions. In the middle of the 14th century, a church was established as a result of the popular initiative of the residents of Rocallaura, and in 1475 it is said that a wooden carving of a Virgin Mary appeared to a shepherd. Legend has it that despite repeated attempts to move the carving, it returned to the place where the sanctuary is now, so they decided to leave it here. Then began a period of splendor for the sanctuary, with numerous reforms during the 15th and 16th centuries, some promoted by Fernando el Católico himself, who is said to have spent the night with Queen Isabella la Católica in 1493. By order of the king, it became in the priory of nearby Poblet, and a group of monks from the Cistercian order settled there. With the confiscation of Mendizabal in the first half of the 19th century, the monks abandoned the priory, and after the subsequent looting and destruction of the enclosure, the sanctuary remained abandoned until 1970 when a private association acquired the remains and took charge of their restoration and custody.