Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #24, Barcelona, 2020
What Is It?
These are some easily accessible 19th/20th century (1870-1958) spa/bathhouse ruins just outside Barcelona, as you drive C-55 toward Montserrat.
It had to have been quite the luxurious get-a-way for Barcelona society back in the day. The sulfur-soda waters flowed naturally at 32 degrees C (almost 90 degrees F) and were deemed curative and restorative for many an illness–everything from arthritis to herpes. One early advertisement even boasted “radioactive” as a positive characteristic of the baths!
Unfortunately, “easily accessible” also means that we are now seeing the ugly degradation and rapid destruction of what was, just a few years ago, a worthwhile and interesting UrbEx site.
Apparently, during the recent past, the place became popular for “raves”… you know, those unofficial parties with five-foot speakers blasting out thump-thump techno tunes, the wild pulsating lights, and lots of sex, alcohol, and drugs (oh, how we pine for that old time rock and roll!). People tend to get a bit destructive when under the influence and when they have an audience of peers to “impress”, thus the current condition of the place.
If you spend some time on Google, you can find images of La Puda from just a few years back that show the spa as…well, not pristine… but reasonably graffiti-free with many interesting historical “finds” still in place.
Alas, I suppose my photos on this blog will serve merely to document one more stage in the march toward the complete erasure of the elegant and ghostly architecture that once was.
My Opinion?
My one word description of the place today: DISGUSTING.
There was trash everywhere, big bags of empty beer cans and bottles (gathered up but not hauled away), and many, many wads of white tissue with their accompanying human shit piles. Step carefully. Our N95 COVID masks were perfect for filtering out the contaminated dust that surely was floating in the air all around.
So, so, so, too, too, too bad.
Photographs:
Here are some current images which you can compare to the state of things in previous years. These were all made with the pocket-sized-but-capable Sony RX-100ii, handheld, ISO 1600 for interior shots and ISO 200 to 400 for exterior shots.
After turning off of C-55, you can actually drive to and park right at the site. We were very surprised to see maybe 10-20 folks (couples, kids, families) wandering the ruins on this weekday:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #2, Barcelona, 2020
Graffiti is everywhere, much of it just from the past three years or so:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #3, Barcelona, 2020
Sometimes, the artistic inclined actually took some time with their spray cans and the graffiti is colorful and somewhat interesting:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #4, Barcelona, 2020
Full garbage bags of trash, plastic party cups, water bottles, and beer bottles/cans were everywhere which meant that, for some reason, partiers felt compelled to clean up a bit–but not quite motivated enough to actually carry the bags away:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #5, Barcelona, 2020
Nature always wins the long game. Note the beauty on the left and the crumbling hubris on the right:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #8, Barcelona, 2020
Oh, what luxury, some 100 years ago:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #9, Barcelona, 2020
An excellent place to leave a sofa, dontcha know:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #10, Barcelona, 2020
Interiors:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #12, Barcelona, 2020
Under the dust, occasional broken glimpses of a golden era:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #13, Barcelona, 2020
A place to sit alone:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #14, Barcelona, 2020
Feminist gangsta art?
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #15, Barcelona, 2020
Nature invades from the sides and from above:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #16, Barcelona, 2020
Another place to sit solo and meditate the ruins… and commune with the phantoms of visitors past:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #17, Barcelona, 2020
It appears the baths were below with rooms on the second floor:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #18, Barcelona, 2020
The main entrance. As erosion and vandalism take their toll, it won’t be many more years before the original block lettering will be unreadable:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #24, Barcelona, 2020
Two beer cans left behind. What was their conversation about?
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #23, Barcelona, 2020
How much longer will this door last?
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #26, Barcelona, 2020
The Flying Mercury Woman:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #27, Barcelona, 2020
A precarious stairwell next to a completely destroyed elevator/elevator shaft:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #28, Barcelona, 2020
“Puta Espanya”, crawling with ants:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #29, Barcelona, 2020
Peeling paint and The Blue Woman:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #30, Barcelona, 2020
Arty things definitely happen here between, or maybe even during, the raves:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #32, Barcelona, 2020
More ants… Always ants… So, what’s with the ants everywhere? Maybe you have to take LSD during a rave to find out?
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #33, Barcelona, 2020
More interiors:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #34, Barcelona, 2020
Nature encroaches:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #35, Barcelona, 2020
The remains of the entry garden:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #36, Barcelona, 2020
Look above, and you will find the Catalan stripes built into the facade:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #37, Barcelona, 2020
The stairway to the river, and more baths:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #38, Barcelona, 2020
Note the iron supports that are now imbedded in the trees. From old photos, it looks like they once supported vines and ivy to give an archway of natural green shade for the comfort of the folks dining at tables outside at this very spot:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #39, Barcelona, 2020
From the Archivo municipal de Esparreguera, how the above scene looked circa 1910:
Exterior graffiti parade:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #41, Barcelona, 2020
The Cairat Gorge, as this narrow bottleneck along the Llobregat River (Riu Llobregat) is called, with the conglomerate spires of the Montserrat massif in the background. If you can ignore the vandal and visigoth scratches on this sign, you can see what this area and the Balneario used to look like in it’s prime. The sign also mentions the unusually tortured geology of the area, with various different stratum and fault lines in evidence, even to our uneducated hairy eyeballs:
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #43, Barcelona, 2020
For more comparison, here is an image of the Balneario entrance (circa 1910?) from the Archivo municipal de Esparreguera:
Now… What it all looks like today. The red-roofed building in the foreground is a factory built probably in the early to mid-20th century (likely post-Civil War):
Gran Balneario La Puda de Montserrat, #44, Barcelona, 2020
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