Cardona, Spain

This article is about Cardona in Catalonia. For other uses, see Cardona (disambiguation).

Cardona
—  Municipality  —
Church of Sant Miquel
Coat of arms
Cardona Location in Catalonia
Coordinates: 41°54′49″N 1°40′50″E
Country	Spain
Community	Catalonia
Province	Barcelona
Comarca	Bages
Government
• Mayor	Ferran Estruch Torrents
Area
• Total	66.38 km2 (25.63 sq mi)
Elevation	506 m (1,660 ft)
Population (2009)
• Total	5,187
• Density	Bad rounding here78/km2 (Bad rounding here200/sq mi)
Time zone	CET (UTC+1)
• Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Website	Official website

Cardona is a town ìn Catalonia, Spain, in the province of Barcelona; about 90 km (56 mi) northwest of the city of Barcelona, on a hill almost surrounded by the river Cardoner, a branch of the Llobregat. To the east of the town, the river has been diverted through a tunnel has been dug through a spur, leaving a loop of dry river bed near the saltmine.

Near the town is an extensive deposit of rock salt. The salt forms a mountain mass (called Muntanya de Sal) covered by a thick bed of a reddish-brown clay, and apparently resting on a yellowish-grey sandstone. It is generally more or less translucent, and large masses of it are quite transparent. The hill has been worked like a mine since Roman times; pieces cut from it have been carved by artists in Cardona into images, crucifixes and many articles of an ornamental kind.

Main sights

• The Castle of Cardona, which is set high on a hill and contains a Parador hotel.
• The 14th-century Romanesque Church of St. Vincenç.
• The Church of Sant Miquel, built in the 11th century and rebuilt in the 14th century in Gothic style. It houses a precious polyptych by Pere Vall, depicting St. Anne, the Virgin and St. Amador, and a 15th-century baptismal font.

Local festivals

• Caramelles: The Sunday of Passover
• Mercat de la ganga: The first Sunday of February
• Fira de Pentecostés: The first Sunday of June
• Fira de la Llenega: The last Sunday of October
• Festa Major: The second last weekend in September
• Aplec de Cardona: 18 September

The Castle of Cardona: last redoubt of the Catalonian supporters of Charles VI of Austria in the War of the Spanish Succession, in 1714.

Notes

The movie Chimes at Midnight, by Orson Welles, was filmed at the castle in Cardona.

Twin towns

• Cardona, Uruguay

Bibliography

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Pedrosa, Andreu (2001). The Castle of Cardona. Sant Vincenç de Castellet: Farell. ISBN 84-930418-8-2
• Panareda Clopés, Josep Maria; Rios Calvet, Jaume; Rabella Vives, Josep Maria (1989). Guia de Catalunya, Barcelona:Caixa de Catalunya. ISBN 84-87135-01-3 (Spanish). ISBN 84-87135-02-1 (Catalan).

External links

• Official site (in Catalan)
• Parador at Cardona
• Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia)
• Associació Cultural El Mercat del Blat (Cultural Association of Cardona)
• Associació Cultural 18 de Setembre (Cultural Association of Cardona)
• Photos of Cardona