El Tremat, the corner of Encamp where a mill still turns

El Tremat is one of those names that appears on the official list and in no guidebook. It’s a slice of Encamp’s old quarter and everything it has fits into a short walk. I like it for one specific reason, because this is where a mill from the days when the village lived on grain still stands and, the council says, still works.

One of Encamp’s six settlements

The Encamp parish council lists six settlements, and El Tremat is one, together with Encamp, Vila, Les Bons, La Mosquera and Pas de la Casa. With La Mosquera it forms the village’s old quarter, and on the map it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.

The Guillem mill

The settlement’s showpiece is the Guillem mill, an old water-powered flour mill owned by the Guillem household. The council dates it to between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, while Andorra Tourism puts it in the sixteenth and adds that the council restored it recently. The best part is the council’s note that it keeps all its original machinery and that the wheel below the arch of its main front still works.

Andorra Tourism explains what it was for. It ground cereal for the flour in the villagers’ bread and for animal feed, and bringing it back lets you get close to a trade that has vanished from the valleys. It features among the parish’s ten cultural highlights, on a list it shares with Casa Cristo and Santa Eulàlia.

The Tremat fountain and the old-quarter walk

A few steps away stands the Tremat fountain, which Andorra Tourism says carries Andorra’s coat of arms and a chamois, the most Andorran of mountain animals. It’s a small detail, but it hints at how the village likes to picture itself.

The easiest way to take it all in is Andorra Tourism’s La Mosquera and El Tremat trail, through alleys, squares and traditional houses, past mills, wash houses and small chapels in the old quarter. Start at Casa Cristo and you’ll reach the mill almost without noticing.

Is El Tremat worth it?

Just for itself, probably not. Folded into a morning in Encamp’s old quarter, yes, and it costs nothing. Skiers staying in Encamp will find it a few hundred metres from the Funicamp base station, which makes it an easy detour on a day when wind shuts the top lifts. The council’s map marks a car park at El Tremat, but if you leave the car in the centre you’ll walk there in a few minutes. Without a car, national bus L2 runs frequently from Andorra la Vella to Encamp, with a bus every half hour at weekends. For more of Andorra’s old trades, the Farga Rossell forge and Casa Rull are covered in my guide to museums in Andorra.