Canet de Mar is a town of the Maresme region. Located 40 km north-east of Barcelona and to the south of Girona, you can get there on National Highway II or on the C-32 motorway. With a population of more than 14,000 inhabitants, Canet offers both residents and visitors a municipality open to the sea and surrounded at the same time by mountains, a beautiful contrast of shades of blues and greens where you can enjoy clean and tranquil beaches in ideal surroundings for walking or cycling in the mountains. One place that stands out is the Pedracastell hill, from where you are offered the whole of the coastline with impressive views of the region, and the Montnegre-Corredor, which forms part of the Serralada Litoral or coastal mountain range, which includes the Valley of Canet and protects the whole of the region and gives it such a privileged climate.
Apart from enjoying the excellent climate, the extensive beaches more than two and a half kilometres long and deep forests surrounding the municipality, Canet de Mar is the town where there is most modernist heritage in the least space.
Canet was home to the architect, teacher, artist, politician and humanist Lluís Domènech i Montaner. Here he conceived such important works as the Palau de la Música Catalana and the Hospital de Sant Pau i de la Santa Creu.
In Canet you will find the Ateneu Canetenc, now a library, the Casa Roura, today a restaurant, the Domènech i Montaner Museum House where the architect lived and worked, along with Can Rocosa, a Baroque country house of the 17th century which was the architect’s studio, all of which form a very interesting museum complex in the heart of the Modernist town. They are also many other buildings and homes in this architectural style from the late 19th century and early 20th by architects of the like of Puig i Cadafalch, Eduard Farrés, Rafel Masó, Rubió i Tudurí, Cabanyes, Guàrdia, Domènech Roura, Fragas, etc. Another necessary visit is the majestic Sanctuary of Mercy, with its Park and Restaurant, the work of Puig i Cadafalch. The cemetery, in typical Mediterranean style, has sculptures and modernist pantheons, as well as the noteworthy Neogothic Castle of Santa Florentina, rebuilt by Domènech i Montaner.
Canet de Mar is a town which enjoys festivals and culture with very open and participative townspeople. Throughout the year, a large variety of activities are organised for the whole population, which makes the town one of the most dynamic of the region. A small sign of this is the Local Festival in honour of St Peter and St Paul at the end of June, the Little Festival of Our Lady of Mercy on the 8th of September, the Festival of Repercussion for the Odeon in early June and the Castell Santa Florentina classical music festival during the summer. In September there is the Modernist Market Fair which cannot be missed and is held over the weekend after Catalan National Day (11 September), during which Canet goes back to the early 20th-century and dresses in its streets in festival dress with fun and cultural activities to show us the town’s modernist wealth.
The town is known for its varied and quality gastronomic offer with more than 30 restaurants specialised in Mediterranean cuisine and home cooking. The products of the garden, the land and the sea are very much present. One special item is the strawberry, which is cultivated in the land around the town and which is celebrated in gastronomic meetings in May, and the traditions of snails with onion or cooked in different styles, celebrated each year on the 11th of September with the snail cooking contest and popular tasting. The ‘vitralls dolços’, or sweet stained glass windows, created by the Guild of Bakers in tribute to Ll.Domènech i Montaner, is a typical product of the town.
