Holiday cottages in Saus, Camallera and Llampaies

Three towns in one. This is what you will find if you go to Saus, Camallera and Llampaies, a municipality in the Alt Empordà region next to the Baix Empordà and the Gironès. Saus was, in the past, the most important nucleus of the neighborhood. Currently, however, the capital of the term is Camallera. And what will you find in this peculiar municipality? Romanesque churches, cobbled streets with a medieval feel, Iberian silos and, on a gastronomic level, very good sausages.

Although remains of a settlement from the second Iron Age, an Ibero-Roman town and ceramics from the 2nd and 1st centuries BC have been found, it is not until the 13th century that we again have signs of Camallera which, together with Saus, belonged to the county of Empúries. Llampaies, on the other hand, was from the county of Girona. Both Camallera and Llampaies were born as a grouping of several scattered farmhouses. The three towns decided to unite in a single municipality less than two hundred years ago.

Probably, however, one of the most curious historical facts is that in the seventies of the last century, in Saus, two Iberian silos were found there. In subsequent excavations, in addition, remains of pottery dating from the 5th-4th centuries to the 1st century BC were discovered. But that's not all: Several historians believe that the Via Augusta connecting Tarraco with Rome passed through Saus. What is certain is the existence of a Roman road that linked Empúries with Girona and a Roman Villa, verified thanks to the discovery of several impluviums .

In Camallera we find a series of must-sees: Let's start with the church of Sant Bartomeu, which already existed in the 13th century, although only the semicircular apse and the current church remain standing from the Romanesque period, which you can see, it is the product of a reform completed in 1951. Second point: The hermitage of Sant Sebastià, an eminently popular construction that was built in the second half of the 16th century. If you prefer to discover what an authentic Empordà town is like, if you walk through Llampaies you can see some interesting farmhouses, such as the neighborhood of Puig, from the 17th-13th centuries and the neighborhood of Les Masos, with houses from the 19th century.

Saus maintains an ancient and medieval air thanks to the old stone facades of most of the houses and the paving of the streets, carried out, yes, between 1982 and 1984 at the initiative of the residents. If you choose to discover this charming town, you can't miss the Romanesque church of Santa Eugènia de Saus, declared a cultural asset of national interest.