Bringing new life to a Catalan ghost town: the first road to Àrreu

There are Catalan towns where no light shines through the windows, no smoke comes from the chimneys, and no voices are heard in the streets. These are the ghost towns of Catalonia – abandoned decades ago, and now isolated and inaccessible. And one, called Àrreu, is about to be reconnected to civilization.

Soon to be reachable by car, the very first road to Àrreu is a longtime goal of the local homeowners. And it’s “just in time,” says Alt Àneu mayor Laura Arrault, explaining the state of the houses. The road which will be built in a few weeks costs just over €80,000, and it will serve to reverse the disuse and vandalism since the village was abandoned in the ‘80s. Mostly, the homeowners want to be able to bring tools and materials up to their property to do the work themselves.

Four owners

Indeed, the town still has owners – four, to be exact. One of these is Alícia Giralt, who was born in Àrreu but left in her mid-teens, mainly due to a back accident. “We may never live there again, but we can at least save it,” proclaimed Giralt. “At least being able to say, here I was born, here lived my godparents, my parents, here, we had a whole network,” she said.