Sant Pere de Rodes

Sant Pere de Rodes stands at about five hundred metres on the northern slope of the Serra de Rodes, above the Cap de Creus coast, and it was a powerful Benedictine house from the tenth century until decline set in after the sixteenth; abandoned in 1798, it was looted through the following century and restored from the 1930s onward. The church, consecrated in 1022, is the reason to go: a barrel-vaulted nave on piers faced with superimposed columns carrying carved capitals in a manner that appears to draw on Roman models, unlike anything else in Catalan Romanesque. A bell tower and a defensive tower stand above. Ruins of the medieval village of Santa Creu de Rodes and the castle of Sant Salvador lie on the ridge nearby.

What you actually see

• The columned piers - superimposed columns and carved capitals in the nave.
• The 1022 church - a barrel-vaulted Romanesque interior.
• The bell and defence towers - two towers rising above the complex.
• The coastal view - the Cap de Creus and the Gulf of Roses below.

When to go

April to June and September to November; the tramuntana wind blows hard on this ridge in any season and can be severe. Summer is hot on the climb up, and the site closes on Mondays.

Honest expectations

The road up is narrow and winding with limited parking, and the final approach from the car park is a walk uphill. Much of the monastery is roofless ruin. The wind on the ridge is genuinely strong.

Nearby

El Port de la Selva and Cadaques are on the coast; Figueres and the Dali museum lie inland.