Discovery of the historical center

LLANÇÀ: THE HISTORICAL CENTRE

Throughout history, the original nucleus of the town of Llançà has been highly modified. Few traces remain of its distant past and, unfortunately, no remains have been preserved that would allow us to reconstruct its initial layout, except for the configuration of the present-day villa that surrounds the church and the Palace-Castle of the Abbot of Sant Pere de Rodes, with its classic narrow alleys that lead us to imagine how our town must have been in the past.

We should remember that in feudal times it was common to build castle-palaces with homage towers in urban centres, as a temporary or habitual residence of the lords of the place. The village of Llança was no exception, and its historic centre preserves several heritage elements of this period: the road structure, the homage tower, the remains of the castle, nowadays private, the bell tower of the original church... A few centuries later, in the historic centre of the old town, the new church of Saint Vicenç was built between 1690 and 1730. Subsequently, both the respective houses and the walls suffered the effects of growth and modernization of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the last defence tower (tower of the Portal d’en Serrapí, formerly Portal de la Plaça) was demolished by the same City Council in 1899.