The Segre Gold Interpretation Center continues to be a tourist reference in Balaguer ten years after its inauguration.
The facility has attracted numerous visitors from all over this year, with a rise in those coming from France and the Basque Country, although Catalans continue to be the majority. Thus, the reserves for the gold-seeking workshops in the river have been around full throughout the summer and have risen this month of August, with places sold out in several days.
On the other hand, the center celebrates its tenth anniversary in a year marked by drought, which initially raised fears for the development of activity in the river and which was ultimately not affected, explained the center’s technician, Mireia Subirada.
The search for gold in the Segre river was brought forward this year to June, for Sant Joan, given the high demand for registrations and it is expected to last until mid-September. “Reservations are going very well, in July we filled most of the available places and in August there are already several days with everything full. We even hope to increase places for September,” explained Mireia Subirada, a technician at the Gold Interpretation Center of the Segre. Something that she has celebrated, since from the outset there was a fear that the drought would prevent the development of the activity in the river. “At the beginning it made us suffer, but we have noticed that more or less the same amount of water has dropped and in the end it has not affected us at all,” said Subirada.
In this way, the facility is once again a pulse of tourist attraction this summer, especially for families looking for “inland regions of Catalonia to carry out activities other than beach and mountain activities” and who see gold research in the It was an “experiential and familiar” day, said the technician from the center.
In this sense, this year there is a rise in French tourists, especially from the south of France, and also from the Basque Country, although the majority of visitors come from Catalonia, especially from the Barcelona area and from places close to the capital of the noguera.
An example is Anna and Laura, two residents of Talladell (Urgell), who “had been wanting to do this cool” activity “for a long time” and in which one of them has found much more gold than the other, they explained between smiles. Participants typically find about four 1/2-millimeter particles for every bucket of sand they examine and can take their little treasure home with them.
The Segre Gold Interpretation Center was inaugurated in 2013 and celebrates a decade of history this year. Since its creation, the facility has established itself as a point of tourist attraction, not only in Balaguer, but also in the region of La Noguera. It is a space that offers a journey through the history of gold mining in the Segre and invites both adults and children to live, for one day, the experience of authentic gold prospectors.
The Segre is a gold-bearing river that, along its route, deposits small particles of gold in the sand and gravel as a result of the erosion of the Pyrenees mountains. For this reason, Subirada has affirmed that the search for this mineral “is assured”, as long as there is the necessary gravel and water.
The search for gold in the Segre has been documented since Roman times in the Cerdanya area but, later, it had two moments of special activity. First, in the Andalusian period (VIII-XII), and later in the 16th and 17th centuries, when mercury began to be used as an amalgamator in order to extract these precious particles from the sand and gravel of the river.
At the beginning of the 18th century, its exploitation was gradually abandoned when the costs to extract it were higher than the benefits obtained. The panels and showcases in the center explain and illustrate this historical link between Balaguer and the Lleida plain with the search for gold as another economic activity, as well as its uses and properties.
The tour continues in the laundry room with a workshop where visitors have the opportunity to put themselves in the shoes of the Segre seekers for a while. With the help of an abacus, he is taught to extract the straws of pure gold from the sand. In summer, the activity moves to the river and participants can take the gold they find at home.
On the other hand, the center was forced to close its doors at the end of last July due to an act of vandalism that broke the windows of part of the building and knocked down small pieces of glass in the laundry rooms, for which reason they had to be emptied, clean and refill. However, the activity was able to resume a few days later.
