Argentona

Argentona sits in the comarca of Maresme, in Catalonia, on the right bank of the Riera de Argentona. The town has a population of around 12,891 (INE 2025). The urban core grew up around a rise on which a Gothic church dedicated to Saint Julian of Antinoopolis was built, and the houses of the town cluster around that same elevation today. Beyond the main settlement, the municipality includes the village of Sant Miquel del Cros, about three kilometres downstream, and several residential developments — Les Ginesteres, Can Cabot, Can Raimí and Sant Pere de Clarà — spread across the hills on either side of the river.

What makes Argentona genuinely distinctive is its springs. More than two hundred exist across the municipal area, some of them carrying small amounts of carbon dioxide. Two are particularly well known: the Font Picant and the Font de Hierro, the latter named for the high iron content of its water. For several decades up until the 1970s, water from some of these springs was bottled and sold commercially. As agriculture declined and fewer people worked the land, many of the springs fell into disuse. Since the 1980s, a local group called the Grup de Fonts d'Argentona has worked to restore old springs and build new ones.

For much of the mid-twentieth century, Argentona also served as a significant summer retreat for people from the surrounding region, a role it held for more than thirty years.