PALLARS SOBIRÀGeneral information

PallarsSobirà

 Lleida Sort

 1.377,9 km² 7.548 hab.

El Pallars Sobirà expands from south tonorth, starting at  tothe village of , following the courseof the river . It is thefourth biggest county in Catalonia.

There are 15 different municipalities in thecounty. The idea of a municipality is to puttogether the 135 villages spread on themany valleys that come together forming thespine of the river La Noguera Pallaresa: Valld'Àssua, Vall de Cardós, Vall Ferrera, Vall deSiarb, Vall d'Àneu and others.

On another level, El Pallars Sobirà is thethird county in the completely Catalan areawith the highest number of Municipal De-centralized Entities: Ainet de Besan, Araós,Àrreu, Arestui, Baiasca, Monternatró, Isil,Alòs, Sorpe, Sellui and Tornafort.The lake of  is the biggest lake ofthe Pyrenees and the highest peak in Catalo-nia, the .

Most of El Pallars Sobirà is a protected area, anature reservation. There are a few territoriesthat belong to the PEIN (Pla d'Espais d'InterèsNatural de Catalunya- Natural Interest Land-scape Plan of Catalonia), as

,,

, awide range of areas belonging to the XarxaNatura 2000,

, etc.

In thepast, it had also made a living out of

, as it was the case of the ironmines of La Vall Ferrera.

 also played another important part and,more recently, the implantation of hydro elec-trical industries. From a few years back to thepresent, the  has become lessand less important and the tertiary sectorbased on  has increased its develop-

ment. The tourist attractions of the countyare its historical and cultural patrimony, thegrandeur of the landscapes and the outdoorssport offer (fishing, river sports, wintersports, hiking and others).

The population of El Pallars goes backto , a period from which we havea variety of witnesses as many megalithicmonuments have been discovered.The  was thought not to beparticularly intense, in opposition to that inLa Vall d'Aran, although the most recentarchaeological findings are starting to dem-onstrate that is was not so.Already in  and while theRoman Empire was starting to recede, thecommunities living in the mountains beganto exploit the natural resources that theseprovided.In the times of , the territo-ry was only submitted to give them tributesor territorial taxes.After the  and under the domination

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 of Madoz, also by badclimate and the spread of the ,among other factors.From 1960 to 1980 the county undergoesa second crisis brought about by the mecha-nization of the farming process and theindustrialization of cities, which will makethe county of El Pallars suffer another demo-graphic drop, almost to the point of leavingthe region with less than half of the

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of the Counts of Tolosa, the noble house ofthe Counts of El Pallars started, which wouldbecome the longest one in all of the Catalancounties and that would end around 1487when the Castle of València d'Àneu wasinvaded and it put an end to the rule of HugRoger III.The general crisis of the feudal system con-tinues to the  and in the trans-formation of the County of Pallars into amarquisate in the hands of the House ofCardona. The marquisate coexisted with sev-eral regional nobles, but all of them belongedto a higher and superior structure, a royalone, which became a sotsvegueria of ElPallars and that, in the 18th century, wouldbecome the corregiment of Talarn.

,the population grows to reach the top of itsdemographic development, 20.348 inhabit-ants in the year 1860.

prevailing to thatmoment and a economic and demographicdecline stats, triggered by the

of the population (5.247 habitants).

The heights, the abrupt relief of the variousvalley slopes and the specific climate giveplace to a five-stage vegetation:

 (from 600 m to 1.000 m), (from

1.000 m to 1.600 m),;

(from1.600 m to 2.200 m),

and  (from 2.200 m to2.800 m), with ; and

 (from 2.800 m), with little herb-age and very stony.

The meadows (prats de dall) are mainly thelandscape that surrounds most of the villag-es, even now, when there has been a reces-sion in the agricultural sector.Some are well-known forests as the fir forestin

. It contains structurally

. According to the interpreta-tions of the geological section from ECORS,the units described clearly reflect the stackingof the three thrust sheets of rocks from thehercynian orogenic belt, called les Nogueres,l'Orri and Rialp.El mantle of Rialp is the inferior and mostmodern, and it barely shows its head in Rialp.The mantle of l'Orri basically correspondswith the dome called l'Orri. The mantle of lesNogueres (unit of les Nogueres) is the superi-or and oldest one, affecting as well the rockson the alpine basement, and would follow aroute northwards to the dome of la Pallaresa.

The oldest rocks in the county are placed inthe Cambrian and Ordovician.

. There are also black slateswith graptolites from the Silurian, limestoneswith crinoids, ceratids and trilobites from theDevonian.

The flora of El Pallars Sobirà, its naturalareas,are similar to other parts of the Catalan

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Les Valls de l”AltPirineu

high mountain, as the fauna commonly associ-ated to the county. Those are species perfectlyadapted to the cold, as for instance,the , the and the ,which belong to the Alpine stage.

Further down the mountainside, on the subAlpine stage, one can find species that belongto the forest (some of them threatened withextinction), such as the ,

, a variety of ,the , the  and some othermore that can be seen on a lucky day. As amatter of fact, the biggest population of ca-percaillie of the state is found in this countydue to the large amount of Scotch pine, andfir forestlands. Many regions in these forestshave sheltered as well the brown bears of thePyrenean mountain range.On the sunny slopes, the established fauna arethe , the , the andthe , among others. These are usuallyfound among the laburnum, the rhododendronand other bushes; the same habitat is sharedwith an important amount of bird species andflesh eating mammals of middle size.On the mountain stage, very close to the areaswhere people still lives, the deciduous forestsand the winter grazes and meadows- becomingmore and more scarce every season_ will bethe typical habitat for species from the centreof Europe, such as the   andthe , among others.In the rivers and clean water lakes (very abun-dant and characteristic from El Pallars),the , the  and the otterstill subsist.

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Finally, the population of predatory birds,such as the , the

 and the  will fly above thesummits searching some food.

CraftsAmong the various options of tradi-tional crafts we can find in theshops, the most remarkable are thewooden saltcellars, the beçulles,the pottery, the baskets and naturalfarm food.

Finally, the never-ending choicesof hand made farm food, speciallyrelated to dairy products (cheese, yo-ghurts), meat processing (dry sausag-es, pâtés, pâté bread), healing herbsand aromatic ones, fruit (jams and jel-lies, spirits), among others.

Even the county has quite a low demographicrate, and thanks to the promotion from thetourist activities, nowadays there is an excel-lent cultural offer: museums and ethnologicecomuseums, nature interpretation center,cultural dealers, producers of natural andartisan food production... all of these activi-ties may be carried out within a unique envi-ronment and landscape.

The Romanesque from El Pallars is highlyvalued, unfortunately for this reason there aremany masterwork pieces scattered all overthe world. As people become increasinglyaware of its importance, little by little thehermitages have been rebuilt and restored,the frescos painted up on the apses areminutely reproduced, and exact copies of thebeautiful carved wooden sculptures are beingordered. Similarly, there are sanctuaries inevery neck of the mountainside valleys, al-though not belonging to the Romanesque,having some reputation among the villagers,who congregate in the sacred palaces once ayear in crowded gatherings.

People have inhabited El Pallars Sobirà frommany centuries ago, and to prove it there aremany archaeological and architectural re-mains.

All the villages around El Pallars Sobirà -madeof stone, wood and slabs -, have their specialcharm. However, some of them are remark-

able for their features about their situation ofthe pattern of their streets.

El Pallars Sobirà is one of the regions with abigger number of protected areas: the onlyNational Park in Catalonia is here, a part fromthe Natural Park of the High Pyrenees, cer-tain parts of the PEIN (Natural Interest Land-scape Plan of Catalonia) and the NationalHunting Reserve of Boumort. It also has thebiggest lake in the Pyrenees, Certascan, andthe highest peak of the princedom: the Picad'Estats.

Whereas years ago, El Pallars Sobirà wasbasically a farming and cattle-raising county,in the recent years tourism has become themost important sector.

Because of this, in the intervening years thelodging offer has increased relevantly and agastronomic association has been createdintroducing the traditional food of the area aswell as promoting a creative cuisine of thehighest quality: the Associació GastronòmicaLa Xicoia.

Dishes: Lamb, cheese, rabbit, “vaca bruna"(red meat), pork, chicken, game, trout, mush-rooms, herbs for salads, wheat, eggs, pota-toes and black cabbage, quince and pear fromCardós and different kind of deserts

El Pallars Sobirà has always been a highmountain county and it has traditionally livedon a basis of autarchic economy. These twofacts, the mountain and the self sustenance,have influenced the traditional gastronomy.

El Pallars Sobirà is a mainly a rural county andit has a high mountain profile, which obvious-ly favours . The first sport tobe practiced was hiking, the famously cele-brated climbing was done by Father JacintVerdaguer to the top of La Pica d'Estats, in1883.

During the sixties, in the waters of theriver ,  starts as asport, as also the first ski resorts were builtready to function. In the eighties

 become more and more popular and inthe nineties the old paths connecting thevillages and hamlets are recovered, which willpromote the development of

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The big impulse of trekking in the county ofEl Pallars Sobirà starts in 1996, when thecounty government, the Consell Comarcal,decides to invest on the recovery of a veryancient and incredibly valuable human heri-tage. In the last decades, such heritage hadbeen declining more and more as time wentby: the old connecting routes, the old herdpaths that had traditionally linked all thevillages and hamlets.

. Theresult is a great  that allowsthe hiker a countless and varied offer ofexcursions to all the unexplored or hiddenplaces of the region.

El Pallars Sobirà has traditionally been chosenas one of the most suitable regions for moun-tain sports. Apart from theuncountable to many of our peaks,

along the northern region the  and the go across the mountain

range. Two of the most popular and mostvisited summits are la , the highestpeak in Catalonia, and the

. Butthe trail options to do some trekking and hikingare countless, thanks to the great network ofhigh mountain refuges.The most important areas for climbing arein ,  and

 (especially in Amitges, Vall de Gerber, Plade la Font, JM Blanc, Sant Maurici and Comade l'Abeller)There are some potholes and caves to do somespeleology, although it is not one of the mostpopular sports in the area.

The amazing phenomenon of started in Catalonia precisely here, in El

Pallars Sobirà. In the river Noguera Pallaresakayaks had been paddling from the early six-ties, but it was not until 1986 that we couldsee another kind of boat: the , brought hereby some French people. The first company thatoffered descents down the river was

called . There are a lot more ofcompanies nowadays and the offer of ex-treme sports is neverending: , ,

, , ,, ,

.The flow, the verticality and the character ofrivers and ravines, which come together inLa Noguera Pallaresa, favours the practiceof canyoning in different parts of the coun-try. From south to north, the crossing ofeach canyon is very diverse: you can findstretches with much or little flow, pools withmore or less depth, and more or less highwaterfalls.All of this variety in the route promotes thepractice of different sports including a widevariety of activities adapted to each step oftour: walking, swimming, jumping, andclimbing crawling if necessary.

Ithas more than 60 Km navigable waters witha range of difficulty from level II and V. Thismakes it a friendly river, open to all ages andtechnical levels: good for those after theadrenaline-inducing actions on wild whitewater but also good for those who wish tospend a quiet paddling sightseeing a lovelylandscape.

Riu LaNogueraPallaresa

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ThePyrenees ofall records!

Kayaking started here at the beginning ofthe sixties thanks to the yearly celebrationof the

, taking place in Sort. In2013 the 50 edition of this tournament willtake place.

There are four ski resorts in el Pallars Sobiràavailable for , ,

 and  (EspotEsquí, Port-Ainé, Tavascan and Baqueira),apart from a fifth resort which offers onlycross country ski (Forest of Virós). In someof them, there is also a trail for

 and .On the other hand, because it is a highmountain region, the itineraries to practicemountaineering ski or snowshoe are endless.

The  of El Pallars Sobirà is the river, LaNoguera Pallaresa that feeds upon the manyravines, gorges and lakes lying at the feet ofthe valleys.From ancient times, fishing has been a tradi-tional activity next to hunting, a sport thatstill today manages to gather some people tohunt and is done by the usual method ofbeating.

El Pallars Sobirà, due to the regular profileof some of our mountains, is an ideal set-up

to go mountain bike riding. Amazing land-scapes and hundreds of

 are the perfect playing field for this sport.There are now two Centers of BTT, in Sort andin Esterri d’Àneu, with some .

El Pallars Sobirà has been traditionally a farm-ing and cattle breeding county. Thus, it meantthat all festivities and celebrations, until veryrecently, followed a basic cycle. Firstly,the  were celebrated in May, Sec-ondly, before shearing and marking the herdsand flocks to be sent away to the high moun-tains for the summer. Thirdly, the  openedthe autumn season, at the time when thelivestock came down from the mountains. Themain feast took place during the winter be-cause there was hardly any work then, etc.from some years, the  have beenrelocated in the summer, when the income ofvisitors is at its highest, and some of the fairsare still in the Pallars Sobirà fair calendar.

On the other hand, following the liturgicalcalendar, the main celebrations would

 (including the cooking of ,the  and the delicious

). Easter is also very much renowned(including the outdoor meals of thedifferent ) and, of course, , thefamily gathering.

Finally, the celebration that is traditionallyassociated to the summer's arrival, thepopular  (Feast declared a “Na-tional Interest Feast”) and

 (burning logs carried down from themountaintop to the main square of thevillage of Isil and Alins), and many otherfestivities related to sports, culture and spe-cific events of the county's folk: the gastro-nomic and the kayaking rallies, someassociations parties, and others newemerged.

Oficina de Turisme del Pallars Sobirà

C/Cami Cabanera, s/n

25560 Sort

Tel: 973 621 002

E-mail: turisme@pallarssobira.cat

Web: turisme.pallarssobira.cat

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