"Tremp is the largest municipality in Catalonia," Xavier Boixadós, a guide for this town, assures me, so as soon as we see each other, he says almost before telling me: "Did you manage to park easily?" I am taken aback. I thought I had ventured into the most depopulated, emptiest Catalonia. He immediately explains it to me: "Larger in surface area, not in number of people. It has 300 square kilometers, more than Barcelona." Tremp has been adding abandoned or semi-abandoned villages, and that's why it has been growing. Many of these villages are built on high ground – defense was the number one element for settling there.