Borrassà

The church bell strikes three, and the only other sound is the scrape of metal chairs on terracotta as locals settle in for late lunch at Celler Mas Pla. Outside, the Tramuntana wind rattles plane tree leaves along Carrer Major. This is Borrassà at midday: a village of 800 souls where the siesta still matters more than the selfie.

Seventy metres above sea level, the place sits on a gentle rise of the Empordà plain, 15 minutes by car from Figueres and half an hour from the Costa Brava car parks that British numberplates fight for in August. Here the fields run uninterrupted to the Pyrenean foothills, wheat giving way to olives, then to the first dark folds of cork oak. When the air is clear after rain you can pick out the snow line on Canigó, 70 kilometres away across the French border.

A Grid for Walking, Not for Driving

Borrassà’s medieval core is a tight lattice of stone houses, their ochre walls warmed by afternoon sun. Arched doorways still hold iron studs from the days when farmers drove mules straight into ground-floor stables. Look up and you’ll spot Renaissance stone-carved lintels, the 1568 date still sharp above one doorway on Plaça de l’Església. The parish church of Sant Andreu dominates the square; its single tower leans slightly, a useful landmark if you lose your bearings among the identical lanes. Step inside and the temperature drops five degrees. Baroque retable, dusty saints, the faint smell of beeswax—nothing curated for tourists, simply a working building that unlocks at 7 a.m. for the baker’s Mass.

There is no ticket office, no audio guide, no queue. That absence of infrastructure is both charm and caveat. Come on a Monday and the only bar open might be the social club next to the ajuntament, where ordering in Catalan earns a nod of approval and a free plate of olives.

Food That Forgives a Timid Palate

British visitors expecting laminated menus in five languages will be disappointed. Lunch is a three-act affair: pa amb tomàquet, grilled meat, crema catalana. Celler Mas Pla delivers this formula without fuss. A 14-euro menú del día buys charcoal-grilled lamb shoulder, chips cooked in olive oil, a quarter-litre of house red and dessert. Vegetarians survive on escalivada (smoky aubergine and pepper) and the town’s single pizza, served only after 8 p.m. at Bar Central. Sunday lunch fills up with multi-generational families; reserve or risk waiting outside with the Sunday papers and a lukewarm Estrella.

If self-catering, the bakery on Carrer Nou opens at 6.30 a.m., selling still-warm coca (Catalan flatbread topped with red pepper) that travels well in a rucksack. Pair it with peaches from the roadside stall on the C-252a towards Vilafant; honesty box, one euro per kilo.

Flat Roads, Big Sky

The plain looks dull on Google Earth. Cycle it and the scale shifts. A lattice of farm tracks links Borrassà to neighbouring Vilanant and Avinyonet, tarmac so smooth you hear the chain over the tyres. Round a bend and a medieval masia appears, stone walls six feet thick, storks nesting on the chimney. Farmers raise a hand as you pass; the universal acknowledgement of strangers who know you’re lost but polite. Bring water—there are no shops between villages and summer temperatures touch 35 °C.

Walkers should aim for the low ridge north-east of the village, a two-hour loop through almond groves that erupts white in February. Spring also brings flocks of honey buzzards riding thermals above the plain, best watched from the picnic table halfway up the dirt track signposted “Puig Sec”. Winter is quieter: the same track turns to red mud after rain, and the Pyrenees show their teeth against a porcelain sky.

Cervantes, Not Instagram

Evening entertainment is low-watt. August brings outdoor cinema in the plaça—last year’s bill featured Jurassic Park dubbed into Spanish, projected onto a white wall while children chased glow sticks. The annual fiesta around 30 November fills the streets with habaneras and sardanes, the circular Catalan dance that looks easy until you try to keep pace with octogenarians who’ve been practising since Franco. Fire-crackers echo off stone at midnight; dogs bark, the church bell answers, and by 1 a.m. even the teenagers have gone home.

Those needing brighter lights drive to Figueres: the Dalí Theatre-Museum stays open till 8 p.m. in summer, and the Rambla fills with tapas bars where gin-tonics are served in goldfish-bowl glasses. Ten minutes further, the beaches of Empuriabrava offer sand as fine as the Caribbean but water chillier than Brighton in April—swim before 11 a.m. or be battered by the afternoon wind that fills the sky with kitesurfers’ rainbow canopies.

Getting Here, Staying Sane

Girona-Costa Brava airport is 35 minutes by hire car; Ryanair’s Friday morning flight from Stansted lands before Spanish lunchtime. Without wheels you’re stranded: taxis from Figuères cost 25 euros and must be booked a day ahead. No railway station, no Uber, no bus on Sundays.

Accommodation is scattered. Hotel Duran in Figueres has been run by the same family since 1855—art nouveau lift, decent gin selection, secure parking. Closer options are rural: Mas Pau, a ten-minute drive west, offers eight rooms in a 16th-century farmhouse, infinity pool overlooking wheat fields, dinner menu that changes when the gardener picks too much courgette. Prices start at 140 euros B&B mid-week; cheaper than the Costa Brava equivalents and you’ll share the pool with French cyclists rather than British stag parties.

When to Bail Out

Come in July expecting buzzing terraces and you’ll find shuttered windows; locals head to the coast and return only for the tomato harvest. Mid-August is hotter, but second-home owners inject life. October delivers 24 °C afternoons and grape-heavy vines along every lane—perfect for photographers, useless for swimmers. January can be raw; the Tramuntana slices across the plain like a Sheffield gale, and restaurants close for staff holidays.

Rain falls hard and fast. Within minutes lanes become streams; driving home after dinner requires dodging tree branches and the occasional escaped chicken. If the sky turns slate-grey, abandon the bike ride and head for the covered market in Figueres instead.

The Bottom Line

Borrassà offers the opposite of a weekend break checklist: no monuments to tick off, no souvenir stalls, no cocktail bars with sea views. What it does provide is rhythm—slow mornings, long lunches, skies that change from lavender to copper while you finish a second coffee. If that sounds like boredom, stay on the coast. If it sounds like breathing space, pack a phrasebook, hire the smallest car you can change gear in, and arrive hungry.