Ripoll

One of the first Christian strongholds of the Reconquest and a center of religious erudition during the Middle Ages, Ripoll is known as the bressol (cradle) of Catalonia's liberation from Moorish domination and the spiritual home of Guifré el Pilós, first count of Barcelona and legendary founder of the Catalan nation in the late 9th century. A dark, mysterious country town built around a 9th-century Benedictine monastery, the town was a focal point of culture throughout French Catalonia and the Pyrenees, from the monastery's AD 879 founding until the mid-1800s, when Barcelona began to eclipse it.