The persistent rains of the past few weeks have revived magnificent waterfalls that hadn't flowed for years and have also filled reservoirs to capacity, such as Sau and Susqueda, and especially Darnius in the Alt Empordà region, until recently the driest of them all. The abundant rainfall has once again transformed rivers and streams, bringing them back to life with a vitality that still lingers. Let's take a look at some of these waterfalls, most of them ephemeral, which can still be visited for a few more days. These natural phenomena occur when rivers or streams encounter a drop in elevation, an ancient scar in the terrain where the hard rock resists and the adobe gives way. When the flow increases, as it has in recent days, the waterfall reveals itself in all its power and beauty.

Writing about Caldes de Malavella is a bit intimidating because great writers such as Joaquim Carbó, Josep Pla, Josep Maria de Sagarra, and a few years ago Rafael Nadal (have already written texts about this municipality)The Italian's son), among many others. In Caldes itself, on the street, you can read some fragments of texts by these authors. I'm including this one, from Palau i Fabre: "Before marrying my father, my mother already went to Caldes to take the waters, because she had a bad liver. Later, the whole family went. We stayed at the Prats Spa. A party in the Vichy building. It was a kind of costume ball in which some very daring situations occurred, considering the time.

"They took us for fools when we opened the studio in the Rec neighborhood," says Lluís Jubert, a graphic designer from Igualada who, in the late 1990s, with the painter Ramon Enrich, acquired and renovated the old Cal Segall tannery, one of the oldest in Igualada, to set up the office. Now it's a coworking space (as they call it). coworking), Rec. Spaces. "Many of the tanneries and industrial buildings had been empty for years. There were, for example, some operating tanneries," Lluís tells me. We are in the basement of Cal Segall, where the hides were treated. The space retains its original vaulted structure. We are at a lower level than the irrigation ditch: this is how the water from this open-air canal that runs right next to it could reach.

Romanesque art, nature, and hot springs make an unbeatable combination in Caldes de Boí. Of these three elements, the first thing that attracted visitors to the valley was the waters. Families of Barcelona's bourgeoisie began frequenting Caldes de Boí when the valley's Romanesque churches were not yet World Heritage Sites—nor were they of much interest—and there were no jeeps to take tourists from all over the world up the mountains. This was back in the days when there were no cars, or very few of them. Wealthy Barcelona residents would travel to Pont de Suert by bus and then, along a dirt road, with a donkey and a pile of packages., They would go up to Caldes, where they would stay for many days—sometimes even with a maid—to "take the waters" and to receive care and rest. They would stay for a fortnight, a novena (nine days), or more.

There are days when I wake up very early to work, and I wonder who's working when it's still dark. Today I met some who "get going" at 5:30. At that time, they leave their tent and go to the hot spring in front of the church in Caldes de Montbui, with a wheelbarrow and three special (thicker) hot water jugs. When they get back to the tent, with the jugs full, they change the water for the chickpeas that had been soaking overnight—they pour in the hot spring water they brought—and put the pot on the fire. They do the same with the beans.

There are numerous vestiges of ancient irrigation ditches throughout the country. Xavier Cervera, from Vic, has dedicated himself to finding traces of the so-called Marquès irrigation ditch, to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Aigües Vic. Now you can draw your route on the map with extreme precision, and you can recognize it from a distance, especially since the rows of trees and reeds are the best indicator.

The Ter is one of the hardest-working rivers in the country. In the Ter Mitjà alone (from Ripoll to the Sau reservoir), there are 35 factories. Have they all stopped operating? Seeing them without anyone else, it might seem so, but the answer is no. They no longer transform cotton into thread—as almost all of them did—with the power of the water, but with the same turbines, they generate electricity.

"When I was a child, we used to walk upriver from Xerta to here. It was one of the most common walks. At Easter we would eat mona, and on Thursday, fogasseta (a sandwich made with round bread, filled with tortilla, sausage, artichoke, and spring garlic)." We're standing in front of the Xerta dam, and Roger Aviñó, the town's mayor, recalls some of the good times he spent with family and friends.

Fed by the Puigcerdà irrigation canal—also known as the International Canal—which draws water from the Querol River, the lake in the capital of Cerdanya has been a major water reservoir, essential for irrigation and for cleaning the municipality's irrigation ditches and sewers. However, these functions have become secondary: the lake is increasingly, let's say, decorative.

Estopanyà (in Spanish, everything is always longer: Estopiñán del Castillo) is a pretty village in the Franja de Poniente region, home to just under a hundred people. Walking around, you feel like you speak more Catalan than in Barcelona. It's quite busy because it's one of the starting points for a visit that has become very popular: the "Great Wall of Finestres," located next to the Canelles reservoir and the abandoned village of Finestres. This village was abandoned in the mid-1950s. The construction of the reservoir flooded its most fertile lands and cut off the river links it had with its neighboring towns. "When people ask me how to get to the Great Wall of China, I tell them it's 13,000 kilometers," Benjamín Vallmanya from Estopanyà tells me. "Here we've always called it 'The Rocks of the Town' or 'The Teeth of Ventanas'."

This country is full of chapels filled with dust and cobwebs, a haven for mice. Some are open only one day a year, for their feast day. And some are not open at all. It's fine for empty chapels to have a use. And if it's not a religious use, then it's fine.

What a great view I have of the Empordanet from the Can Mario water tower. I'm in Palafrugell, the town where the prolific writer was born. –and described it in great detail– Josep Pla, who popularized the name Empordanet.

"Water was a fundamental element in the Munts, for irrigating the gardens, for the animals, for bathing, for washing, and for living, of course," says Josep Anton Remolà, curator of the MNAT (National Archaeological Museum of Tarragona), who knows Els Munts (Altafulla) like the back of his hand. This Roman villa is located by the sea, but what it needed to "function" wasn't seawater, but freshwater. And lots of it!

I have always said irrigation ditch, with an open e. But it is writtenirrigation ditch, because the vast majority of the linguistic domain, and especially where there are irrigation ditches, pronounce it with a closed e. I thought that irrigation came fromwater. And that's why it surprised me that it was written irrigation and not irrigation. But it turns out that the word irrigation (of pre-Roman origin, with the same meaning as today, canal or ditch) is written like this, with c (the wordirrigation refers to irrigation or the irrigation system).

It's a good thing that water comes from different sources. Just in case one fails. This is what happens in Sabadell, which receives water from the inland basins of Catalonia (from the Ter and Llobregat reservoirs), from mines and wells... and also from Barcelona! Yes, yes: there's a pipeline that starts on the Carretera de les Aigües (Barcelona) and brings water to the city in the Vallès region.

One of the things that most catches my attention about the Ter, the longest river in the so-called inland basins, is its sudden change of course relative to the Vic plain. A little above Vic, it abandons the north-south direction it has had since its source in Ulldeter and instead takes on a west-east direction. It seems as though it should flow into Barcelona, or the metropolitan area, but instead it ends up in the Empordà! Water has its secrets. Thanks to this change of direction, several Girona regions enjoy the Ter. And, of course, they take advantage of it.

In virtually every visit I've made so far in this series of reports on our freshwater heritage, I've been captivated by the Catalans' ingenuity in harnessing water. My visit to Torrelavit is no exception. "The Riudebitlles is one of the tributaries of the Anoia River, born from the confluence of waters that occurs in La Laguna, which has always been widely used," says Carla Coca, tourism technician for the Penedès Tourism Promotion Consortium and Torrelavit City Council. "If the water level has consistently dropped, no matter how little water it has brought, it has been used to its full potential," emphasizes Daniel González Caldito, director of Anoia Heritage, the company that organizes the tours offered by the Torrelavit Water Interpretation Center.

There are plenty of sculptures at roundabouts, service areas, and so on that don't say anything (to be kind). They're placed to fill an empty space, or to satisfy some compromise. This isn't the case with the one in the car park next to the Collegats Gorge (just before the tunnel, on the north side). It's a large sculpture, featuring two rafters—the one in the back and the one in front—made of iron, on a tree trunk.

Yes, water is still flowing through the Comtal irrigation ditch. What surprises me most is that it looks crystal clear. It's moving at a certain speed—which makes its sound clear (even now that the machinery for burying the R2 train line is working at full speed). If I focus my gaze on the water, I can imagine it's from a river in the Pyrenees, one of those that invites me to swim (but when I put my feet in, not so much). However, if I raise my gaze, the contrast is enormous. I'm in Montcada i Reixac, in the Can Sant Joan neighborhood, urbanized since the 1920s by both railway workers and those from the Asland cement factory. Yes, the one from "Arriving at the cement factory, left lane signposted, direct to Barcelona", which decapitated the Montcada hill to extract limestone and make cement.

The working conditions of those building the Camarasa dam and hydroelectric plant were extremely harsh. In an attempt to improve them, a union was formed. Initially recognized by the company, it achieved gains, such as fifteen days' severance pay. One day, at the construction site entrance, the company, concerned about the union's strength, asked the Civil Guard to search the workers. They refused and began a strike demanding an end to the searches and a pay raise, but soon included an eight-hour workday as their main demand. The strike lasted almost a month and a half, thanks to the support of the CNT. With the money collected from members and sympathizers, the Camarasa strikers cooked a meal each day that allowed them to survive. The struggle spread and reached Barcelona. He went on to work for La Canadiense (the name given to Barcelona Traction Light and Power, which included Riegos y Fuerza del Ebro, the construction company for the Camarasa water intake). In January 1919, a strike had been called in Barcelona, which was aborted by heavy repression and led to the imprisonment of Salvador Seguí, among other instigators. But in February, the protest, known as La Canadiense, resumed and led to the publication of a decree establishing an eight-hour workday for all workers in the country. Thanks, therefore, to Camarasa's inspiration, the eight-hour workday was achieved.