Vilafranca del Penedès Voyage Tips and guide

Contents

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Map of Vilafranca del Penedès

• 41.3461191.6963321 Tourist office, Hermenegild Clascar, 2, ☏ +34 93 818 12 54, [email protected]. (updated Mar 2025)

• Nearest airport is Barcelona El Prat Airport BCN ^IATA, 50 km (31 mi) away.
• Reus airport REU ^IATA is 61 km (38 mi) by  AP-7 .

• 41.3447031.7032831 Vilafranca del Penedès station, Plaça de l'Estació. line  R2  Granollers Centre - Sant Vicenç de Calders, line  R4  Manresa - Sant Vicenç de Calders (updated Mar 2025)

The main roads that reach the Penedès are the N340, C15, C32 and AP7.

• 41.3396461.6906782 Motorhome Parking. It has RV services. (updated Mar 2025)

The old town centre, around the Plaza de Jaume I, is where the main buildings are located, such as the church of Santa Maria, the Royal Palace, the Chapel of Sant Pelegrí and the Chapel of Dolors, from the 17th century.

In the Plaza de la Vila you can find the church of Sant Joan. In the same square is the Casa de la Vila, of Modernist architecture. On the two boulevards, that of Nostra Senyora and that of Sant Francesc, and on the streets General Prim and Hermenegid Clascar, you can see some of the best examples of Modernism in the town.

• Vilafranca del Penedès Cemetery. In the Espirall neighborhood, there is the cemetery, inaugurated in 1839, with interesting neo-Gothic and modernist style pantheons, where figures such as Eugeni d'Ors and Manel Milà i Fontanals are buried. The cemetery was built on a plot of land that occupied the old Capuchin convent, which was ceded to the municipality by the State in 1837, as a result of the confiscation of Mendizábal. The cemetery has a rectangular plan and is made up of a set of funerary buildings, gardens and a public chapel. Renowned architects such as Santiago Güell, August Font, Leandre Albareda or Antoni Pons designed some of the pantheons, and sculptors such as Rafael Atxé have work there, a good example of the social position of the different people and families who are buried there. The municipal cemetery of Vilafranca del Penedès is part of the ASCE, the European Association of Significant Cemeteries. Guided tours are available.
• 41.34671.696861 Royal Palace (Palau Reial), Plaça Jaume I, 1-5. A construction from the time of Peter II the Great, between the 12th and 13th centuries. The main facade is made up of two stone walls of different heights, one in the form of a tower with a smooth crown and the other with a wooden barbican. The appearance that the Royal Palace of Vilafranca presents today is conditioned by the reconstructions, extensions and restorations that took place during the 20th century with the aim of adapting the stately home, which belonged to the Álvarez-Cuevas family, to what is now the Museum of Wine Cultures. (updated Mar 2025)
  • In the same premises is the chapel of Sant Pelegrí, documented since 1334 and which was part of the first hospital of the Trinitarian order in Vilafranca.
  • VINSEUM, Museum of Wine Cultures of Catalonia, Royal Palace, ☏ +34 93 890 05 82. Tu-Sa 10:00-19:00, Su holidays 10:00-14:00, last entry 1 hr before closing. €1, €7 for child 13-17 or senior. (updated Mar 2025)
• Basilica of Santa Maria. The basilica church of Santa Maria was begun at the end of the 13th century and is in Gothic style and has a single nave. It is the first parish building in Catalonia built in the Gothic style and follows the construction guidelines of Catalan churches with a single nave: covered with ribbed vaults, but with a wide nave of five sections and five lateral chapels separated by exceptionally thick buttresses. It is a Gothic building built on an old Romanesque chapel. The main facade was begun in the 15th century following Gothic guidelines, but has undergone several interventions throughout history, the most recent of which occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. The bell tower of Santa Maria, the crypt and the interior of the church can be visited. Activities are carried out to enjoy the sunset from the bell tower.
• Palau Baltà is an old Gothic manor house built by Francesc Babau in 1308, but renovated in 1522 and later restored by August Font in 1889. It is a building that follows the structure of Gothic manor houses, with the central courtyard that acts as a distributor nucleus for the rooms of the house with the characteristic staircase, which is niw covered, and the gallery of pointed arches. In 1889, the architect August Font from Vilafranca restored it and introduced new elements to the building, of which the tribune on the main facade stands out.
• Cal Gomà (15th-16th century) was the manor house of Bishop Torras i Bages and stands within the old walled enclosure of the city, apparently very close to where the Jewish quarter was located. It is a building crowned by a characteristic gallery of lowered arches. Inside, it retains Gothic arches on the ground floor and a three-arched crown window. The building houses the Torras i Bages municipal library.
• Church and Convent of Sant Francesc or Old Casal Vilafranquí. The church of the old Franciscan convent, of which only the cloister has been preserved, is a sober Gothic building from the late 13th century of great architectural, artistic and historical value, which became the pantheon of illustrious nobles of Vilafranca and the Penedès. It is a sober Gothic building from the late 13th century that brings together a whole set of elements that have been defined as the basis of Catalan Gothic architecture. The main facade is very austere and basically consists of a semicircular portal, of Romanesque origin. The interior space is distributed in a single nave with a square apse that indicates a clear Cistercian influence, later adopted by mendicant orders such as the Franciscans.
• Palau Macià is a 15th-century manor house that was probably part of a large Gothic manor house, along with the current Casa de la Vila (Vilafranca Town Hall). The house preserves the Gothic structure of the patio, now covered, with the staircase and the gallery of semicircular arcades.
• The Church of the Trinity is unique in Vilafranca for being a building of transition from Gothic to Renaissance. Built in 1578, it is structured in a single nave, a slightly pointed barrel vault and five lateral chapels on each side. The Church of the Holy Trinity and the remaining dependencies of the old Trinitarian convent form an architectural ensemble where the progressive transformations and expansions of the convent dependencies and complementary constructions can be observed. Guided tours are available to the church and the neo-Gothic bell tower.
• The Chapel of Saint John (Sant Joan) has a Gothic structure and late examples of Romanesque tradition. It was built at the beginning of the 14th century by the military order of the Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem. The main facade has a semicircular door with Romanesque reminiscences, formed by archivolts with columns and capitals, a Gothic rose window and an octagonal bell tower begun at the end of the 16th century. On the south wall, which faces the Plaça de Sant Joan, there is a Romanesque bricked-up door that was probably the portal of the old chapel of the Hospitallers. The interior of the chapel is rectangular in plan with a polygonal apse. The construction is robust and in Gothic style without sculptural ornaments, following a clear Cistercian influence.
• The Casa de la Vila is a public building of medieval origin built by Santiago Güell i Grau, which consists of two floors and an attic. The facade was remodeled in 1912 and arranged asymmetrically with Modernist floral elements. The balconies have balustrades and lanterns with round floor lamps. At the top of the facade stands out a clock framed by garlands of classicist fruits and flowers. It is used by the Vilafranca del Penedès City Council.

• Human castles (Castells). see an exhibition. check dates on tourist office.

• Coca garlanda, a typical dessert.
• Les Catànies de Vilafranca, sweets made with almonds and chocolate.
• El Xató de Vilafranca, a salad made with "escarola" (a kind of lettuce), cod, tuna, anchovies and olives.

It's a wine destination. It has its own DOC.

Tarragona ← junction ←

SW  NE

→ Martorell → Granollers