Els bandolers, el camí ral i la creu de la mà

The Royal Way was the most important communication route between France and Barcelona, and on its passage through Caldes it forked into two paths, the inland one and the sea one, at the point that is called La Cruz de la Mano (The Cross of the Hand).

“THE MOST DANGEROUS FORESTS IN THE COUNTRY”
This is what the traveller Thomas Platter in the 16th century called the forests of La Thiona and La Cruz de la Mano, as he travelled the Royal Way. Subsequent descriptions are not much kinder; the best ones talk of “solitude” and almost always of “deep forests” and “thick cork oak groves.”

n 1842, Pi i Margall made reference to an event burned into the memory of the place and narrated an event involving bandits who would pretend to be innkeepers: “Upon leaving this fatal house, the traveller often walked to a quick and inevitable death… the victim was delivered to the very executioner who had to escort them to the place of sacrifice. This sequence of events was horrible.”
Prudenci Bertrana in Proses bàrbares:

“There, in olden days, the way became dangerous for the wayfarer; from that point, the way was infested with daring and cruel thieves and blunderbuss gangs, who would kidnap, steal and attack those who did as they pleased … Specifically, the Cruz de la Mano did not look very calming … which of the two ways should have been taken? (…) it would have made no difference. Whichever route was chosen by the undecided traveller… the same aridness, the same low morale, the same succession of thick forests and imposing places awaited them, whose appearance promised nothing good… there was nothing else for it but to hand themself over to fate in body and soul.” For them, the “M” that crowned the Cruz de la Mano did not designate the sea way (marino), but rather death (muerte) and martyrdom (martirio). Likewise, the hand that crowned the other arm of the cross could have been the reproduction of a real hand that a group of bandits could have hung there as warning, indicating (to travellers or to other bandits) that this was their territory and the price they would pay if they entered that space.