• This is the first FGC station in the metropolitan area to be customised
• The platform walls are decorated with pictures of the monastery’s Romanesque cloister and the transfer passageway has images of the town’s main tourist attractions

On Tuesday, the Mayoress of Sant Cugat del Vallès, Mercè Conesa, and the Chairman of Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya (FGC), Enric Ticó, visited FGC’s station at Sant Cugat, which has been customised with decorative elements depicting the Monastery of Sant Cugat (Vallès Occidental).

This project to customise the station’s image sets out to emphasise the importance of this historic monument and to promote the connection between the FGC lines and this piece of architectural heritage.

The redecoration has taken place on the interior of the station. The platforms have been specially decorated to show elements of the emblematic Monastery of Sant Cugat: details of the Romanesque cloister, the Romanesque capitals, the rose window, the church dome and the bell tower. This is the first station in the metropolitan area to be customised.

Sant Cugat, a unique town

The purpose of the tourism promotion campaign that Sant Cugat Town Council has put in place at the station is to highlight the main tourist attractions in the area. The station receives 20,000 passengers a day, so it’s the ideal place to show off the town to all train customers and encourage them to visit and explore the area.

The decoration on the platform shows Sant Cugat’s most important piece of heritage, the Royal Monastery, while the transfer tunnel welcomes passengers with a vinyl display featuring the most significant tourist attractions:

• Two golf courses (one of them over a hundred years old) and a pitch & putt.
• The pedestrianised shopping area that links the Monastery with a range of independent and original shops.
• Mercantic, a market that is the only one of its kind in Europe, loved by collectors and interior design aficionados, with Spain’s largest second-hand book fair.
• Outdoor sports.
• The green spaces, including Collserola Natural Park, with six horse-riding centres around it, so visitors can experience the world of equestrianism first hand, and the town parks.
• The Catalan Modernist El Celler, by the architect Cèsar Martinell, which houses an exhibition on the wine-making process within the historical context of the cooperative movement.
• High quality and varied cuisine.
• The Royal Monastery, home to the Monastery Museum, which has a permanent exhibition on the architectural evolution of the building and the life of the Benedictine community.

The campaign thus shows how diverse the town’s attractions are, providing a panorama of everything that Sant Cugat has to offer and that makes it so unique.

Over a thousand years of history

The Royal Monastery is a site that dates back to the 9th century and incorporates a wide spectrum of architectural styles, including Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque. Its cloister has one of Catalonia’s most unique collections of Romanesque sculpture.

Situated right at the heart of Sant Cugat, this architectural site has retained all its medieval splendour, with its bell tower, church, the Abbott’s palace and part of the old town walls. It was declared a National Cultural Heritage Site in 1931.

The Turistren offer

FGC and the Town Council work together to offer a range of combined tickets under the Turistren scheme, whereby FGC takes visitors to tourist sights and places of cultural interest near FGC train stations, thus promoting the leisure activities on offer around the train network. The scheme includes a whole range of combined tickets to use the train to get to FGC stations, take buses and visit museums, historical and architectural gems and a wide array of other places.

As well as the combined ticket that gives entry to the Monastery (and includes a return ticket to Sant Cugat from any station on FGC’s Barcelona-Vallès line and an audioguide tour of the complex), Turistren also offers other tickets that combine a visit to the Monastery with rental of an electric bike equipped with GPS, a set route around Collserola Natural Park, a visit to the Mercantic vintage market or the Marilyn Monroe Museum. More information at www.turistren.cat.