High on the pass through the Desert de les Palmes stands the Carmelite monastery from which the natural park takes its name. The Discalced Carmelites — the contemplative branch reformed by Saint Teresa of Ávila — founded a wild "desert" retreat here in 1697; the original mid-eighteenth-century stone buildings were rebuilt after a landslide and remain in continuous use by a small community of monks.
The monastery church is open to visitors at set times, and there is a small museum of Carmelite history with liturgical objects, manuscripts, and old hermits' tools. The monks make and sell a herbal liqueur called Carmelitano in the shop next to the entrance.