The Costa Brava, from Girona to Cadaqués

From the coves to the villages of the Empordà

The Costa Brava is a rocky coastline running from Blanes to the French border. Its name means ‘wild coast’ and dates from 1908. The road climbs through the pines, drops down to a cove, then sets off again. The cliffs are red, the coves here are called cales, and the fishing villages have white houses. At Tossa de Mar, a walled town still stands above the beach. Further north, Calella de Palafrugell and Llafranc are two old fishing ports side by side. The camí de ronda, the old customs officers’ path, still links the coves on foot.

At Begur, a ruined castle looks down on the village, and coves follow one another at the foot of its cape, among them Fornells, Aiguablava, Sa Tuna and Sa Riera. Off L’Estartit, the Medes Islands are a protected area where people come to dive. Then the road leaves the sea for the Empordà plain and its stone villages. In the north, it crosses the mountain and drops down to Cadaqués.

The loop starts and ends in Girona. Its coloured houses, lined up above the Onyar, are the city’s calling card. You can walk along its walls. Tradition says you must kiss the backside of the stone lioness, near the church of Sant Feliu, to be sure of coming back.

For a long time Cadaqués could be reached only by sea or over a mountain road. That isolation preserved the white village, clustered at the foot of the church of Santa Maria. Picasso, Duchamp and García Lorca all passed through. Cadaqués still feels like an artists’ village.

At Cap de Creus, the Pyrenees plunge into the sea. It is the easternmost point of the Iberian Peninsula, and a nature park. The tramontane wind has sculpted the schist here, and Dalí painted these shapes in his pictures. On the neighbouring mountain, the Romanesque monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes looks down over the bay of El Port de la Selva.

From the Greeks to medieval villages

In the 6th century BC, Greeks from Phocaea, the city that had also founded Marseille, set up the trading post of Empúries. The Romans landed there in 218 BC. Its ruins stretch along the beach at L’Escala. A few kilometres away, Ullastret keeps the walls of an Iberian town.

In Girona, the Call is one of the best-preserved Jewish quarters in Europe. The cathedral has the widest Gothic nave in the world: more than twenty-two metres. You climb up to it by a grand Baroque stairway. Inland, Pals and Peratallada are villages of golden stone with unspoilt lanes. To the north, Besalú announces itself with its fortified Romanesque bridge over the Fluvià.

What not to miss

1. 1The Vila Vella of TossaA medieval walled town still standing above its beach, a rarity on the Catalan coast.
2. 2Calella de PalafrugellWhite arcaded houses at the water’s edge, with the Cap Roig gardens above.
3. 3PeratalladaA fortified village ringed by a moat cut into the rock.
4. 4The Dalí Theatre-MuseumThe museum Dalí conceived as a work of art in its own right, and his tomb.
5. 5CadaquésThe painters’ white village, at the end of its mountain road.
6. 6Sant Pere de RodesA Romanesque monastery above the sea, facing Cap de Creus.

The Costa Brava in pictures

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Peratallada and its golden stone.

The Empordà table

Costa Brava cooking marries sea and mountain: this is mar i muntanya, such as chicken with langoustines or meatballs with cuttlefish. L’Escala anchovies are salted and packed into jars by hand, following a tradition several centuries old.

Winter is the season for sea urchins: they have festivals of their own. Suquet, the fishermen’s stew of fish and potatoes, is cooked all along the coast. The Empordà appellation makes reds and a sweet garnatxa, served with dessert.