Carrers de Sant Pere i del Doctor Jaume Curell, i les Seixanta Escales

The original hub of Masnou grew out around the Church of Sant Pere, between the towers known as La Mesquita[1] and the Roca de Xeix.

The hilly terrain with steep inclines that are traversed with ramps or staircases has conditioned the town’s development, planning and growth. A good example of this old urban layout of roads running parallel to the coast are the streets of Sant Pere, Sant Francesc d’Assis and its extension, Doctor Jaume Curell i Sampera, formerly Ginesta street. The houses on these streets once enjoyed magnificent views of the sea.

You can reach the summit of Roca de Xeix by the seixanta escales (60 stairs), which have become a steep pedestrian route made up of a succession of steps and landings adorned with the highly characteristic horizontal kerb bricks. This point, the present-day Avinguda Joan XXIII, used to be the Alella road and represented the division of the parishes of Sant Feliu d’Alella and Sant Martí de Teià.

According to popular legend, the country home that lent its name to the municipality is close to here, the ‘manso novelli’, which appeared in a document dated 1055.Other sources say this house is in Can Malet. 

[1] mesquita²

1.  f. [LC] [AGR] Semi-liquid mixture of urine and faecal matter that man took from the waste tanks to fertilise fields. Diccionari de la llengua catalana. Second edition.