route 9 Sarela river

Restored today, possibly dating from the nineteenth century and had been built at the same time as the tanning factory. You have to go down some stone stairs to access it. It has a very elaborate fountain. The washhouses used to be public and for collective use. Most of them consist of a single washhouse surrounded by sloping stones that allowed washerwomen to wash standing up and not on their knees as in the old river washhouses. It can be used in different shapes: square, rectangular and even octagonal, they also used to be covered, which allowed them to be used on rainy days. In the nineteenth century, the construction of washhouses and fountains was a priority of the city councils, especially of the republican mayors.
Around the laundries and the washerwomen themselves, a folklore was created, or their own way of talking about the workers, and thanks to the study of this trade, we can have a vision of the social and historical context of women at the time. The greatest contribution of the construction of laundry rooms is to be one of the greatest points of socialization, especially for women -those who always went-, who shared their day to day and created authentic ties of cooperation and gatherings.