The Costa Brava: A Gentle Guide to Catalonia's Wild Coast

There is a moment on the Costa Brava that every visitor remembers. You come round a bend on a cliff road, or step out from under the pines on a footpath, and the sea appears below you — not blue exactly, but a pale, luminous green over white sand, with dark rocks scattered through it like sleeping animals.

The name means "wild coast", and it fits. This is the coastline of the province of Girona, in north-eastern Catalonia, running roughly from Blanes in the south to Portbou on the French border: some 200 kilometres of coves, headlands and old fishing villages, with the Pyrenees never far behind.

The good news for anyone who no longer wants to scramble over rocks is that the Costa Brava can be enjoyed almost entirely from comfortable places — from a boat deck, a car window, a shaded terrace, a flat seafront promenade. This guide is about those places.

A little history

For most of its life this coast was poor, hard-working and quiet. Villages lived from fishing, from cork cut in the woods behind Palafrugell, and — in the nineteenth century — from the ships that sailed to Cuba and the Americas. The nostalgic havaneres, the sailors' songs still sung on summer evenings beside the water at Calella de Palafrugell, come from exactly that era.

The coast is far older than that, of course. At Empúries, near L'Escala, Greek traders from Phocaea founded the port of Emporion in the sixth century BC. The Romans later built their own city beside it, which makes Empúries the only place on the Iberian Peninsula where Greek and Roman remains stand side by side. Serious excavation began in 1908.

That same year, a journalist from Girona named Ferran Agulló looked out over the rugged shoreline from the hermitage of Sant Elm, above Sant Feliu de Guíxols, and wrote the words Costa Brava in a Barcelona newspaper. The name stuck. Mass tourism arrived in the 1950s and 1960s and changed some towns a great deal — but step a few kilometres away and the coast Agulló described is still there.

The cove of Port Pelegrí at Calella de Palafrugell, photographed in July 1979.

What to see

Calella de Palafrugell and Llafranc

These two neighbouring villages are, for many people, the Costa Brava at its loveliest: white houses, arched porticoes at the water's edge, wooden boats pulled up on the sand. Llafranc has a crescent beach and a flat, easy promenade; Calella is a string of small coves linked by short paths. Both are gentle places to spend a slow morning.

Tossa de Mar

Tossa's Vila Vella is the only fortified medieval town centre still standing on the Catalan coast, its towers rising straight out of the sea above the main beach. You can admire the whole thing perfectly well from the promenade below without climbing a single step.

Cadaqués and Cap de Creus

At the northern end, whitewashed Cadaqués sits in a bay of dazzling light, reached by a winding mountain road. Beyond it, Cap de Creus is the easternmost point of mainland Spain — a natural park of wind-sculpted rock where the Pyrenees finally meet the Mediterranean. Salvador Dalí's house at Portlligat is a short distance from Cadaqués.

The clifftop gardens

Three gardens give you sea views with almost no effort: Marimurtra in Blanes, on the cliff edge; the formal, twentieth-century Santa Clotilde gardens above Lloret de Mar; and Cap Roig at Calella de Palafrugell, dramatic but the steepest of the three.

Calella de Palafrugell, one of the best-known villages of the Costa Brava.

Gentle walks, grand views and easy ways to travel

The Camí de Ronda, in small doses

The Camí de Ronda is the coastal footpath that threads along almost the whole Costa Brava. Walked end to end it is demanding — narrow, undulating, with many stone steps. Walked in short pieces, it is one of the great pleasures of Europe.

The kindest stretch is Sant Feliu de Guíxols to S'Agaró: roughly an hour at a slow pace, paved and essentially flat, passing 1920s mansions and short tunnels cut into the rock, with the sea just below you. The promenade links between Calella de Palafrugell and Llafranc are also short and mostly easy, though with some steps.

Viewpoints you can drive to

• The Sant Sebastià lighthouse above Llafranc, high on its headland, with parking at the top and a huge view along the coast.
• The hermitage of Sant Elm above Sant Feliu de Guíxols — Agulló's view, still intact.
• Several signposted miradors along the cliff road between Sant Feliu and Tossa.

Boats, roads and rails

In season, scheduled passenger boats hop between the southern towns — Blanes, Lloret, Tossa, Sant Feliu — which is by far the most restful way to see the cliffs. From L'Estartit, glass-bottomed boats run out to the protected Medes Islands; from Cadaqués and Roses, small boats tour the coves of Cap de Creus.

For drivers, the GI-682 between Sant Feliu de Guíxols and Tossa de Mar is one of Spain's finest coastal roads: about 22 kilometres, 40 to 50 minutes without stops, and several hundred bends. It is spectacular but narrow — take it slowly, stop often, and avoid it after dark.

The coastal Camí de Ronda footpath at Lloret de Mar, looking out over the Mediterranean.

A day trip nearby: Girona

Forty-odd kilometres inland, Girona is the perfect change of scene when you have had enough salt air. Its old town is stacked above the river Onyar, famous for the row of ochre and red houses reflected in the water — a photograph you can take from a flat bridge in thirty seconds.

Inside, there is a magnificent cathedral, one of the best-preserved Jewish quarters in Europe, and long stretches of Roman and medieval wall. Be warned: the Jewish quarter is a maze of steep lanes and steps, and the cathedral is approached by a famously long flight of stairs. The riverside streets, the cafés on Plaça de la Independència and the Rambla de la Llibertat are all flat and lovely, so you can enjoy Girona without ever going uphill.

If you prefer the coast, Figueres — with the Dalí Theatre-Museum — and the ruins of Empúries make equally good half-day outings by car.

Honest advice for comfortable travel

• Choose your base carefully. Llafranc, Sant Feliu de Guíxols and S'Agaró have flat seafronts and gentle approaches. Calella de Palafrugell, Begur, Tossa and especially Cadaqués involve slopes, steps and cobbles.
• Coves mean stairs. Almost every small beach is reached by a staircase down from the road. Look for towns with a main beach at street level if that matters to you.
• Hire a car if you can. Buses connect the main towns, but the villages and viewpoints are much easier with a car. Roads are good; the cliff roads are simply slow.
• Parking fills early in July and August. Arriving before mid-morning solves most problems.
• Heat and glare. Midsummer afternoons are hot and the light off the sea is strong. Walk before eleven or after five, and carry water.
• Shoes matter more than fitness. The Camí de Ronda is uneven and occasionally slippery on polished stone. Flat-soled sandals are the main cause of trouble.
• Lunch is late. Restaurants generally serve from around two in the afternoon and again from eight or nine in the evening.
• Boat trips are the easy option — but swell can be lively, and most small boats are boarded from a floating pontoon with a crew hand to steady you.

The Camí de Ronda at the Dona Marinera monument, Lloret de Mar, looking east along the coast.

What to eat

Empordà cooking is seafarers' cooking: simple, slow and very good. The dish to look for is suquet de peix, a fish and potato stew built on onion, tomato and garlic, originally made from whatever the boats brought back.

Other things worth ordering: salt-cured anchovies from L'Escala, served on bread rubbed with tomato; the sweet red prawns of Palamós; rice from the fields of Pals; and stuffed squid. Catalans love mar i muntanya — sea and mountain on the same plate, such as chicken with prawns — which sounds odd and tastes wonderful.

To finish, there is cremat: rum flamed with coffee, sugar and lemon peel, traditionally drunk while havaneres are sung. And if you come in deep winter, Palafrugell holds the garoinada from January to March, when sea urchins are the star of every menu.

The Costa Brava coastline near Calella de Palafrugell.

Getting there

Our verdict

The Costa Brava has a reputation it only half deserves. Yes, a few towns were overbuilt in the boom years. But drive twenty minutes in almost any direction and you find pine woods falling into clear water, a chapel on a headland, a village of fifteen houses around a beach of grey pebbles.

For travellers over 60 it is an unusually forgiving destination: short distances, excellent food, a gentle climate in spring and autumn, good roads, and enough boats and viewpoints that you never need to earn a view the hard way. Pick a flat seafront to sleep on, accept that you will not see every cove, and let the coast come to you.

It rewards slowness. That, in the end, is the best thing we can say about anywhere.

Calella de Palafrugell on the Costa Brava.

“Here the pines lean out over the water as if they, too, had come for the view.”

Photo credits

• Costa Brava-Llafranc-Calella de Palafrugell: Aylaross, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
• Port Pelegrí 1979: Davidbarna, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Calella de Palafrugell Costa Brava - panoramio: klimmanet, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Lloret de Mar - Coastal 'Camí de Ronda' Footpath down at Carrer Josep de Tarandellas - Panorama View of Mediterranean Sea Costa Brava Coast 01: Txllxt TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Lloret de Mar - Coastal 'Camí de Ronda' Footpath at Dona Marinera Monument 1966 - View East on the Mediterranean Sea Costa Brava Coast: Txllxt TxllxT, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Costa Brava bei Calella de Palafrugell, Katalonien Spanien: Gordito1869, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
• Calella de Palafrugell, Costa Brava, Katalonien Spanien: Gordito1869, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons