Vila, the quiet Encamp settlement with a one-off treasure

Vila is the Encamp settlement nobody talks about, and I can see why. It’s small, it sits up on the hillside and it has no shops or lifts. But its church holds something that no other corner of Andorra has, and for me that earns it an hour.

A settlement on Encamp’s western slope

Encamp’s council lists six settlements in the parish, and Vila is one of them, alongside Pas de la Casa, El Tremat, Les Bons, La Mosquera and Encamp village itself. Andorra Tourism describes it as a small settlement on the western side of Encamp village, a little over a kilometre from the centre on the map. There are no big sights and no ski-resort buzz, which is exactly what makes it one of the quietest corners of the parish.

Sant Romà de Vila and Andorra’s only painting on wood

The settlement’s church is Sant Romà de Vila, Romanesque in origin and remodelled and restored in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the council says. You can read that history from outside. The apse is square today, but at its foot you can still make out the start of the original rounded one, and the west wall carries a small belfry with a bell that Andorra Tourism describes as Gothic in tradition.

The real reason to come is inside. The altar shows a copy of a Romanesque altar frontal that Andorra Tourism calls the only example of Romanesque painting on wood in the country, and a complete one, with all three sides. On the front, Christ in Majesty surrounded by the symbols of the evangelists and four pairs of apostles; on the sides, the Assumption of Mary and three more apostles. The thirteenth-century original is in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona.

That isn’t the only piece of Vila kept elsewhere. Encamp’s Sacred Art Museum displays the remains of a Romanesque wrought-iron candlestick that, according to Andorra Tourism, came from this church.

How do you get inside?

The church opens for guided visits on request and with advance booking, according to Andorra Tourism. Arrange it at the Encamp tourist office on Plaça del Consell. If you’d rather arrive on foot, Andorra Tourism’s Encamp and Vila walk starts on Avinguda de Joan Martí, home to the National Car Museum, and connects the village museums with churches and old houses.

Don’t confuse it with Sant Romà de les Bons, the parish’s other church to the same saint, in the medieval group on the far side of the village. If you can, see both in one morning; between them they cover the best Romanesque churches Encamp has to offer.

Vila’s feast day

Vila celebrates Sant Romà every Whit Monday with a solemn Mass for the saint, according to the council, drinks for everyone who turns up and sardana dancing. If you’d like to see the frontal without booking a visit, it’s the simplest chance of the year.