L’Espluga de Francolí is the home to the Font de Ferro fountain, the Poblet monastery and the Prades Mountains. There have been a series of farmhouses, country houses and mills in the township since the Middle Ages. Often the furthest ones were used as shelters at times of war, and later they housed outsiders who came to enjoy the iron-rich waters.

History

Specifically, historical documents tell us that several centuries later, in 1815, the wellspring of the Font de Ferro fountain was in the Masia de l'Aigua [Water Manor]. In 1890, the Anguera family sold this property to Pere Antoni Torres i Jordi, who renovated it to become the Balneari Vil·la Engràcia Spa. Thus, with 15,000 duros, he was the first to turn the current Jaume I Hostel into accommodations. So, the building has a unique history full of the names of specific people. Torres i Jordi took advantage of the natural conditions in the region to promote a business that would prove crucial to the county’s tourism. In fact, Les Masies in L’Espluga de Francolí had been attracting people from far and wide for many years, who came to benefit from the medicinal properties of the water that bubbled up from a black rock.1 Regardless, the Balneari Vil·la Engràciava Spa changed the landscape of Les Masies. Two years after it was bought, it was operating in full swing. However, with the start of the Civil War in 1936, its use changed. The spa disappeared and instead a military hospital run by the republican army was set up in it. This is when the second name in this story appears. As a spa, in 1906 the Barcelona City Council hosted the first summer school camp there, and given its success, a year later it created the ‘Comissió de Colònies Escolars de Vacacions’ [School Summer Holiday Camp Commission].2 Dr Salvador Roca, the chair of this commission, chose the Vil·la Engràcia as one of the camp sites, and camps were held there for several years until the Second Republic. 

Among its many graphic documents still surviving, in one photograph taken in the courtyard of what is today the youth hostel, the photographer Robert Capa (the pseudonym of Endre Friedmann) left evidence of the farewell to the International Brigade held there (1938).3 
Currently, the No Jubilem la Memòria [Let's Not Retire Memory] association is devoting its ‘Prelude to the Last Battle: The International Brigades in the Priorat, 1938’ project to recovering and spreading the word about the International Brigade's presence in the county, especially the Lincoln Brigade, which was primarily made up of US citizens. Nil Thraby, a German writer and photographer who lives in Montblanc, was the person who realised that Capa's photographs had been taken at the hostel.4 
Once the war was over, the Spanish state purchased the building for 400,000 pesetas and turned it into the Jaime I el Conquistador Hostel for the Women's Section of the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS, the Francoist party. Even though it was called a hostel, its purpose was far from the current concept, because back then it was viewed as a Falange training school and hosted gatherings of the Provincial Council of the Women's Section. In this sense, on 25 July 1949, with the presence of Pilar Primo de Rivera, the first round of girls to have spent the summer there were bid farewell. 
Once Catalonia regained its autonomy, the hostel came to be under the aegis of the Government of Catalonia, which changed its name to Catalan. Therefore, L'Espluga de Francolí Xanascat hostel can tell much of the history of L'Espluga de Francolí through two names that in theory are quite distant but share a common place: Les Masies. 

1. It is probably peridotite. 
2. According to the report of the summer camp by the Barcelona City Council, L'Espluga de Francolí hosted a girls’ summer camp in 1907. 
3. To commemorate Robert Capa's work, on 25 and 26 October 2003 the ‘No Jubilem la Memòria’ association organised the Commemoration of the 65th anniversary of the Farewell to the International Brigades in the courtyard of L'Espluga de Francolí Xanascat hostel.
4. Thraby, Nil (2003). Capa a Montblanc, ‘El Foradot’, 16. Valls, Cossetània

Architecture

Pere Antoni Torres i Jordi 
Born in Tarragona in 1844, he was the founder of the newspaper La Opinión de Tarragona (1875) and the first director of Vanguardia (1881). He stood out for his political and journalistic acumen and his fieriness as a poet and playwright. He served as the secretary of general Joan Prim and took part in the 1868 revolution. Within this context, he occupied the Secretariat of the Council of Ministers and served as secretary of the governor general of the island of Cuba. He died at the age of 58 in Les Masies in L’Espluga de Francolí.