We’re in Falset!

View of the restored Castle of Falset from our terrace.

Up in the mountains of Tarragona, about fifty kilometers from the coast, in a valley of the Montsant range, there is a small, quiet, cobbled town named Falset. With 2600 inhabitants, not all of which reside there all year round, Falset is the biggest town in the county of Priorat, and it is also its capital. Falset may not be very large, but it is certainly old. Its castle, now a restored building with few remaining stones of the original structure, stood proud in the same central hill already in the 12th century.

Cobbled street, Falset.

Falset sits in the middle of two important Spanish wine Denominations of Origin: Priorat and Montsant and the regional economy has been related to agriculture, in general, and winemaking, in particular, since its origins. In modern times this whole county was a depressed region at the brink of being left uninhabited. Today, there are approximately 150 winemaking cellars in the area.

Old house near the Gate of the Blacksmiths, Falset.

To provide this thriving industry with skilled labor, Falset sports a viticulture and enology school which offers the equivalent of an Associate Degree in the technology and art of making wine. As I mentioned on a previous post, in September 2009, Mar and I got accepted to this school.

After two-and-a-half months of driving there and back from l’Arrabasada, we decided to move to Falset. And so, we were there and unpacking our move a couple of days before Christmas. Just in time for the worst snowstorm in the area in the last decade!

After the January 7th, 09 snowstorm from our living room window.

However, we did move in time for “l’Encamisada” or the Party of the Shirt (pictures below). This is a 2-day celebration, January 16-17th, which commemorates how the Falsetians defeated the invading French troops in January 1708 by going out at night in the fog dressed in white shirts. This rendered them invisible to the invaders. Today it is a carnival of sorts where whole families dress in traditional clothing and parade in horse or donkey-driven carts. The whole thing get’s complicated by Saint Anthony and animals are blessed in the church. Candle-lit altars to the patron saint sprout all over town.

Children dressed in traditional local clothes for l'Encamisada, Falset.

Here are some more images:

A diable, or devil, leading l'Encamisada procession.

Street altar to Saint Antony, Falset

Another street altar to Saint Antony, Falset.

Sunrise, Falset