The best walks and hikes around Blancafort

The Ermita de Sant Joan is located on a mountain above Mont Blanc. It is partly dilapidated and partly in very good condition and is obviously still in use. The Ermita also has a mirador with a wonderful view of the valley towards Mont Blanc.

From the east side of Plaça Major, the Porta Reial leads into the inner monastery district

The caves of l'Espluga de Francolí are a set of natural cavities formed in the conglomerate rock. Speleological explorations began in 1956, and so far 3,600 meters of galleries have been explored, making them one of the longest caves in the world. The archaeological findings inside show that they have been occupied since the Paleolithic: the last discovery, in 2019, was a Paleolithic sanctuary made up of more than 300 engravings, some of them more than 36,000 years old. The visits are guided and can be booked from https://covesdelespluga.info/

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.

Municipality of the province of Tarragona, in the region of Conca de Barberà. The origin of the town is in the castle that Ponç de Cervera built on top of a nearby mountain in the 11th century. In the middle of the 13th century, the castle became dependent on the monastery of Poblet and the Templars, and in the lower part the encomienda of the Espluga de Francolí was established, under the jurisdiction of the hospital order. In the year 1312, the year of the extinction of the Order of the Temple, the Espluga de Francolí acquires the full señorío. Among the cultural heritage stands out the old hospital of the Order of San Juan, which currently houses the Mosén Ramón Muntanyola library, the Museo de la Vida Rural, the modernist cooperative winery Celler Cooperatiu, the work of Pere Domènech i Roura, or the Fassina Balanyà, former alcohol factory, today converted into one of the twenty-five industrial museums of the System of the National Museum of Science and Technology of Catalonia.

A classic that is worth visiting before starting the port of Coll de l'Arena - Prades at 1034 m