Plaça Mossèn Jacint Verdaguer

At the end of the 20^th century, the square was widen knocking down the nearby buildings. Nowadays, it is one of the most bustling squares and it holds most of the festivals and fairs.

It is surrounded by the church, the Despatx de l’aigua, the Museu Guilleries and the Tourist Office.

MOSSÈN JACINT VERDAGUER

Mossèn Jacint Verdaguer (a priest) had a lot of contact with Les Guilleries and Montseny. He came here more than once to find inspiration to write in this land. Therefore, you can find some letters and poems about our place. In fact, there is a writing engraved on a stone near Font Vella written by him and some letters he sent to Marià Aguiló, a librarian and erudite Majorcan man, in which Verdaguer explained all his visits to Les Guilleries and to Serrallonga’s house, the bandit.

His literary bases were in the Plain of Vic and the natural region of Les Guilleries. In his texts, he talked about the popular figures from the zone, but mainly about Serrallonga since his interest was based on the Catalan culture and the Catalan popular memory.

The first prose he wrote referred to Les Guilleries was called L’Atlàntida enfonsada. It consists of a description of the landscape beauty from the spot of Collsameda, a viewpoint with spectacular views. You can see the chromatic contrast of the mineral red and the green of the vegetation, the hills like the terroirs of the ants. He also talked twice about Serrallonga: first as a reference to the eastern horizon, and the second time about an important bandit called Joan Sala, alias Serrallonga.

His interest in the search for legends and traditional songs was so great that one day he went on a ten-hour journey to get to Serrallonga’s house, in the township of Querós. His aim was to find the bandit’s song, but he didn’t make it. He had to return there some other times and finally, when he got it, he sent the song to Aguió, Milà and Fontanals, who included it in their song book. The trip through Les Guilleries was the first in Verdaguer’s chronology  .

In 1893-97 he became interested in Les Guilleries, with the well-known climbing to Matagalls on 3^rd September 1899. Verdaguer set off from Viladrau to climb Matagalls mountain, and then he spent the day in Sant Hilari Sacalm. It was then when he had a reconciling and secret interview with Bishop Morgades. He also took advantage of visiting the famous springs in the town:  Font Picant and Font Vella. He expressed all this experience in a book called “Aires del Montseny” (Montseny Airs), in which he used typical vocabulary from this zone referring to the views from the top of Matagalls.

One of his closest friends and who motivated him to go on these excursions was Anton Busquets i Punset, a poet and narrator born in Sant Hilari.

In 1901, Mossèn Jacint Verdaguer went on his last excursion as he died a few months later. This was organised by Anton Busquets i Punset. They started in Sant Celoni and went through  Santa Fe, where they spent the night. On the second day, they went up Matagalls through Sant  Marçal  and Coll Pregon, and they went down through Sant Miquel de Barretons, Sant Segimon, l’Erola and Viladrau. On the third day, they went from Viladrau to Espinelves, Pla de la Creu, Sant Andreu de Bancells, Malafogassa bridge and Vilanova de Sau, where they spent the night. On the fourth day, they visited Sau (Fadrí de Sau’s house, Serrallonga’s deputy). Therefore, they crossed Les Guilleries from south to north and they went from the bottom of Montseny to the bottom of the cliffs of Tavertet.

The aim of this second excursion was to encourage Verdaguer to write about Les Guilleries, as they enjoyed the landscapes in Les Guilleries during all the trip. Both Via and Busquets wrote documents about the trail. They didn’t pass by Mas Serrallonga because of the difficulty of the path, as they used mules and Verdaguer was 56 years old.

Therefore, Les Guilleries was Verdaguer’s first and last excursion.