A full day · Up to 8 hours · 2 walks
Up to Sant Marçal and back through the woods
Font Bona i Sant Marçal
- Time
- 3 h to 4 h 30 min
- Distance
- 8.4 km
- Ascent
- 400 m approx.
Three to four and a half hours, no car needed: you climb from the campsite up to Sant Marçal and come back through the woods. You leave the campsite by its other entrance and climb the concrete track of the Camí de Sant Marçal to Font Bona. Soon after, you cross the Coll de Sant Marçal, home to the Taula dels Tres Bisbes, and reach the Romanesque church of Sant Marçal, once a monastery. From there you follow the GR 5.2 along a wide dirt track through the beech trees to the highest point, at about 1,160 m. You head down by track and path, cross a wide boulder field and pass the ruins of the Fabriqueta d’en Tolín before coming back into the campsite. The hard climb is the first three kilometers, up to Sant Marçal; after that the GR rises gently. Two fountains, a church nearly a thousand years old and two ruins in just over eight kilometers.
We walked it on 15 October 2026.
Along the way
The numbers match the map.
Nova Forest
Head out through the gate above the pool toward the campsite’s other entrance, about 200 m away.
Entrada del càmping
Leave the campsite by this entrance and turn left, uphill, onto the track to Sant Marçal.
Font Bona
A two-spout fountain set in a stone wall, at the top of the climb up the Sant Marçal track.
Taula dels Tres Bisbes
On the Coll de Sant Marçal, a stone table where, by tradition, three bishops met, each seated in his own diocese.
Sant Marçal de Montseny
The Romanesque church of Sant Marçal, from the 11th century, once a Benedictine monastery. The Font de Sant Marçal is beside it. From here you follow the white and red waymarks of the GR 5.2.
La Fabriqueta
The ruins of the Molí del Puig, a 19th-century building known as la Fabriqueta.
Canal del Pedregar Rodó
The highest point of the route, by the Canal del Pedregar Rodó, a stream that doesn’t always carry water. Here you leave the GR 5.2, which carries on across the stream, and head down the dirt track. From here it is almost all downhill.
Tartera
The path crosses a wide field of loose boulders. Watch your step.
Fabriqueta d’en Tolín
The ruins of an old sawmill beside the Tordera. The river powered the saw that cut heather root, or briar, the wood tobacco pipes are made from.
Entrada del càmping
You come back into the campsite through the same entrance you left by.
The practical bit
- Water
- Font Bona, at 2.9 km. Beside the church, at 3.3 km, is the Font de Sant Marçal, which doesn’t always run.
- Surface
- Concrete track up to Font Bona; after that, dirt track and some stretches of path. At 6.6 km you cross a wide boulder field.
- Waymarking
- White and red GR 5.2 waymarks from Sant Marçal, at 3.3 km, to the highest point, at 5.6 km.
- Dogs
- On a leash. There is livestock loose, wildlife that nests on the ground and small children on the path.
- Parking
- Not needed. You walk out from the campsite.
These are the routes that start at the campsite. You walk them at your own risk: check the forecast before you set off, carry water, and there is no shame in turning back.
Emergencies: 112