Castell d'Aro

The castle of Benedormiens was built to defend the Vall d'Aro against Saracen raids, and the first written record of it dates from 1041. That document describes a meeting held to decide the castle's future, attended by Countess Ermessenda — widow of Count Ramon Borrell — the Bishop of Girona, the abbot of the monastery of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, and the lords of Pals. They gathered at the church of Santa Cristina de la Vall d'Aro, and the castle was handed not to a lay lord but to the monastery of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, along with tithes from the parish of Santa Cristina.

Over the following century and a half the castle changed hands several times. In 1099 the abbot granted its wardenship to Ramon Gaufred of the Pals family, and in 1197 ownership passed to Guerau de Lledó in exchange for an oath of homage. By the mid-14th century, a royal census from the reign of Pere III recorded 73 households in Castell d'Aro. In 1462, during the Remença peasant war, the castle was burned and fell into serious decline.

By the 16th century the castle no longer belonged to the monastery and had passed to the Crown, becoming part of the royal bailiwick of the Vall d'Aro. The church, mentioned as a parish in 1691, was no longer the original Romanesque chapel but a large late-Gothic structure built probably between the 15th and 16th centuries, to which a Baroque façade was added in 1784 and a sacristy in 1765.

A second, accidental fire in 1879 caused a serious explosion that damaged the castle's original fabric further. The building, by then municipal property, was rebuilt and used for several purposes including the town's national schools until 1970, when restoration work finally began.

In the 19th century Castell d'Aro was the administrative capital of the Vall d'Aro, but in 1858 four parishes broke away to form the separate municipality of Santa Cristina d'Aro. Then, in the 1960s, the tourism boom created the coastal settlement of Platja d'Aro, which eventually took over as the main population centre and municipal capital. Today the municipality also includes s'Agaró, Sant Pol, Fenals and La Crota. The historic core of Castell d'Aro is classified as a protected cultural heritage site of national interest. Since 1959 the town has staged the Pessebre Vivent — a living nativity — which is the oldest of its kind in Catalonia.