Olot

1. Cor de Maria School
Olot, Catalonia, Spain

2. Town Hall
Major Square
Country Spain
Community Catalonia
Province Girona
County Garrotxa
Area 29.13 km
2
(11.2 sq mi)
Elevation 443 m (1,453 ft)
Population 33 813 inhab. (2012)
Density 1,150.8/km
2
(2,980.7/sq mi)

3. OLOT

4.  Olot is situated on a plain of the high basin of Fluvià river, which
crosses the city from one side to the other.
The city is situated in an area with many inactive volcanoes, lying in
the protected area of the Natural Park the Garrotxa.
The urban area includes three volcanic craters: Montolivet,
Montsacopa and Garrinada.
The Natural Park covers an area of 119 Km² and it includes the
famous beech forest of La Fageda d'en Jordà.

7. The Passeig d’en Blay’s structure was built at the end of XV century,
when the city expanded.
Interesting buildings: Sola Morales house (antique aristocratic house),
the Main Theatre (with more than a hundred years) and the bullring (one
of the oldest in Spain).
Monuments: Reading by Miquel Blay, Origin by Emilia Xargay La Sardana
by Xavier Carbonell.

8. Stone monument by sculptor
Miquel Blay.
Started in 1918 and inaugurated
in 1953.
It represents education.

9. (1750-1763)
neoclassical style with baroque
front and stairs.
Baroque altarpiece inside (17th
C.), by Pau Costa.
Huge canvas by El Greco, Christ
with the Cross, (1605).
The profile of the church and its
bell are emblematic elements of
Olot.

10. St. Rafel Street is one of the
most important streets in the
city centre, where most
commercial activity is
developed. We can find
clothes shops, jewelleries, a
typical baker’s... At one end
the street leads to Clarà Sq.
and at the other end to St.
Esteve's church.

11. Devoted to sculptor Josep
Clarà Ayats, who made a
small size sculpture called
Maternity.
Bigger copies were made
until the sculpture became
a representative image of
Olot.
It Is one of the most
important parks in Olot
whose style is French
baroque.

12. Monastery of the Carmelite order,
(1569-1572), that constitutes the
most important and oldest work of
monumental architecture in Olot. In
the church there is a big nave from a
gothic and late Renaissance style.
It is formed by eight side chapels
with shields. Carmelite cloisters
were built at the end of 16th C. and
due to the earthquakes that
devastated the city in 1427 and 1428
is in fact one of the city’s oldest
buildings. The cloisters are currently
dedicated to the Fine Arts School.

13. “Parc Nou” is a former stately home that
in 1932, became a municipal property
and was opened to the public in 1943.
Currently, New Park, has about four
hectares, and is home of the Museum of
Volcanoes, that provides an explanation
of the volcanic phenomena and natural
systems to be found in La Garrotxa.

14. Devoted to the manufacture of
religious imagery, where visitors
can witness in situ the details of
this production.
This activity has more than a
hundred years of history.
The museum is located in a neo-
gothic building that was home to
Art Cristià, the first ever saint’s
workshop opened in Olot (1880).

15. Wonderful and peaceful spot,
declared Artistic Natural Park
in 1945.
The Moixina’s fountain is
Romanesque and it’s made of
volcanic stones with a shield and
several water streams,
surrounded by a big group of
oaks.
A delightful landscape of
swamps and wet vegetation
which has inspired thousands of
artists.

16. In the Triai meadows, we
find the Triai cross, made
in memory of the murder of
eleven men on 31st October
1936, the most horrible event
of the Civil War in Olot.
It’s called the Triai because in the past, during the month of May,
young people from all the region came to Olot to look for a boyfriend-
girlfriend, so the name of Triai, means “promise”. A party started and a
lot of young people started a relation which was the cause of a lot of
marriages.

17. Fageda d’en Jordá, of mysterious
appearance, is an exceptional
beechwood because it grows at an
elevation of just 500m and is
located above the lava flow of the
Croscat Volcano. The relief of the
land is characteristically waving,
with short elevations (hillocks).
Nowadays it is one of the twenty-
five natural reserves of the Natural
Park of the Volcanic Area of La
Garrotxa. Building and hunting is
banned. La Fageda is a kind of
caducifolic forest, and it presents a
different look according to the
season.

18. Situated inside the beechwood
called Fageda d’en Jordà.
On it we can read the poem “La
Fageda d’en Jordá”, by Joan
Maragall (Barcelona 1860-1911).
He was a journalist and poems
writer. His death in 1911 set the
end of a literature movement
called modernism.
Joan Maragall visited the “Fageda
d’en Jordá” and got inspired to
write a poem about this
beechwood, which transmits
peace and calm feelings.

19. It’s a mixed volcano, of
strombolian and freatomagmatic
kind.
Its eruption opened a wide circular
crater, with 350 m of diameter, 70
m deep and 80 m high.
Inside the crater we can see the
hermitage called with the same
name. The rest of the volcano is
fully covered by vegetation and
forests.

20. The youngest volcano in this
area. It had two eruptions, the
first and more important was
17000 years ago, and the
second one was 11500 years
ago. It is an strombolian
volcano. This kind of volcanoes
characterized for a violent
explosion of magma fragments.
The fragments of the Croscat
covered an area of 10 km² and
they joined making a cone
160m high. The crater with a
horseshoe shape is 600m long
and 350m wide.

21. Located in the inner city
Montsacopa is only accessible on
foot, but it is worth climbing for the
360º view. In the crater, the
church of Sant Francesc was
built in the 19th C. and the watch
towers date from the era of the
Carline Wars, also in the 19th C.

22. Avenue situated on the left bank
of the river Fluvià, with a row of
centenary plane trees on both
sides.
At one end there is Saint Roc
bridge, Saint Roc fountain, and
the cycle lane. Up the stairs there
is Saint Roc chapel, built in
1594.

23. Devoted to the city patron, Tura
Virgin. The legend says that she was
found by an ox.
First building from the early
Romanesque, but the carving of Tura
Virgin is the only thing preserved.
The 15th C. earthquakes destroyed it
and during the 16th and 17th centuries it
was restored.
In 1936 the church was burnt, the bell
tower destroyed and the Romanesque
figures of the Virgin (11th-12th C.),
Sant Joaquim and the Ecce Homo by
Amadeu were the only elements
saved.

24. Tortell
Ratafia
Crema
Yogurts

25. Embotit (cold
meat from pork)
Meat industry

26. Olot’s "giants”, a symbol of the city.

27. http://www.turismegarrotxa.com/publi
cacions/publicacions_294_en.html
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