Bagà

Bagà is a municipality in the comarca of Bergadà, province of Barcelona, Cataluña. It sits in the valley of the Bastareny river, a right-bank tributary of the Llobregat, at 786 metres above sea level. The town is 20 km from Berga and 28 km from Puigcerdà, reachable via the Cadí tunnel, whose southern mouth lies just 6 km away. The district of Terradelles, about 2 km to the south, is also part of the municipality. Current population stands at around 2,100–2,160 people.

The town's present layout dates from a planned foundation by the Barons of Pinós, who laid it out with formal urban regulations. What survives from that era is the old quarter: a large central square, a church in the transitional Romanesque-to-Gothic style, and the Palau dels Pinós, which has served various purposes over the centuries — including as housing and a farm — and is currently undergoing restoration.

The local economy shifted dramatically after the collapse of the textile industry and the closure of the coal mines. Today most working residents are in the service sector, with tourism increasingly central to the town's future, thanks to its position inside the Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park, proximity to ski resorts at Coll de Pal, La Molina and Masella, and opportunities for hunting, river trout fishing and mushroom gathering.

The town also carries a medieval legend: the Rescue of the Hundred Maidens. It tells of Galceran II de Pinós, who sailed as admiral of the Catalan fleet during the conquest of Almería in 1147 under Ramon Berenguer IV, was captured, and was miraculously freed from Saracen imprisonment by the intercession of Saint Stephen — without payment of the demanded ransom of one hundred maidens from the Barony of Pinós. The legend, long an oral tradition, was set down in writing in the second half of the medieval period at the Royal Monastery of Santa María de Santes Creus, where Galceran de Pinós is buried, likely by the monk-chronicler Bernat Mallol.