Ethnographic Museum of Ripoll

The Ethnographic Museum of Ripoll, founded in 1928, is the oldest Catalan ethnographic museum and was recently renovated and expanded. The collection covers the material culture of the Pyrenean foothills — shepherd life, agricultural tools, religious objects, and the town's famous iron industry. The firearms collection is particularly interesting: Ripoll was a major centre of gun manufacture from the 16th through 18th centuries, producing a distinctive local style of flintlock that exported across Spain and into Spanish America.

The museum occupies a modern building adjacent to the monastery, making a combined visit easy to plan. The exhibits are well-presented and the building itself is worth noting for how it frames views of the monastery's apse. Allow an hour to an hour and a half.

things to do museum
A story
Ripoll's ironmongers were so good at their craft that by the 16th century the town was one of the leading producers of firearms in Iberia, supplying weapons to the Spanish Crown. The trade declined after repeated French invasions and the Carlist Wars destroyed the industry, but the legacy survives in the museum's remarkable collection of locally made guns, swords, and tools.