Colera

The 7.04 from Barcelona pulls in at 09.58, brakes squealing like gulls overhead. One door opens, three passengers step down, and the regional train rumbles on toward France. Behind them, a nineteenth-century viaduct arches above the rooftops of Colera, its sandstone the colour of burnt sugar, the Mediterranean glittering three streets away. No taxis wait, no souvenir stalls, no piped music—just the smell of bread from the bakery on Plaça Major and the knowledge that, for the next however-long, nothing much will happen. That is the point.

Colera sits at the last gasp of the Costa Brava, 3 km from the frontier and light-years from the package clichés of Lloret or Roses. The mountains that shield it from the Tramuntana wind also kept mass developers at bay: planning laws here were written by geography, not councillors. The result is a working village of 479 souls where boats still get hauled up the slipway at noon, where the only crowd is Monday’s market queue for the cheese van, and where the sea is watched as a colleague, not a backdrop.

The Back-and-Forth Between Rock and Water

Drop down Carrer del Mar and you reach Platja d’en Goixa in two minutes. The beach is wide but not sandy; grey-green pebbles the size of conkers roll underfoot and the first stride into the sea is a stony handshake. Bring rubber-soled shoes and the reward is gin-clear water, posidonia meadows waving like sunken wheat, and noise levels that rarely rise above a child’s squeal and the clack of a paddleboard on kayak plastic. By ten o’clock locals have claimed the shady southern corner; by seven the last sunbathers drift off to shower and the whole crescent belongs to dog-walkers and the evening breeze.

Walk north instead and the GR-92 coastal path climbs through pine and rosemary to Cala Garbet, a scooped inlet small enough to throw a stone across. In June the scent is resin and warm fig; in January the same trail is empty save for a fisherman in yellow oilskins checking urchin pots. Keep going another forty minutes and you hit the concrete husks of Civil-war bunkers at Cap Ras, built to guard against an invasion that never came. Bring water—there is no kiosk, no wifi, and the only soundtrack is wind rattling the bunker grilles.

Eating What the Boat Brought

Colera’s restaurants can be counted on one hand; outside July and August two of them shut mid-week. The safest bet is the terrace of Restaurant Garbet, ten minutes up the lane behind the cove of the same name. Grilled sardines arrive upright like silver soldiers, their skins blistered to crispness; a bowl of monkfish stew lands with a hunk of bread for mopping up the paprika-thick sauce. House white from the Empordà co-operative is poured from a chilled jug, light enough for lunchtime and mercifully free of oak. Expect to pay €22 for a main, €3 for coffee, and to be offered a carajillo (coffee laced with rum) whether you asked or not.

If the shutters are down, drive 15 minutes south to Llançà where the choice widens; but remember Spanish clocks—kitchens close at 16.00 and reopen around 20.00. A fallback picnic is easy: the Monday market sets up two stalls selling Manchego cut from the wheel, tomatoes that actually taste of tomato, and baguettes still warm from the train baker’s oven in Portbou. Add a bottle of local verdejo and you have dinner on the balcony for under a tenner.

Getting There, Staying Put

The R11 regional train links Colera with Barcelona Sants twice daily; the journey hugs the coast and is more reliable than the summer traffic on the N-260. Not every service stops—if the timetable shows a dash, change at Llançà or Portbou. A hire car makes life easier outside high season, but the village itself is vehicle-free: residents leave cars in the shaded carpark behind the church and walk the last 200 m. Parking discs aren’t needed; common sense is.

Accommodation is low-key. Three small hotels occupy converted fishermen’s houses, their facades the original mustard-yellow with green shutters. Rooms are simple—no pillow menus or spa playlists—yet most open onto balconies wide enough for sunrise coffee. Prices hover around €90 in May, €140 in August, and plummet to €55 the moment schools go back. Winter lettings exist but check heating first: mountain nights drop close to zero and thick stone walls remember the cold.

When Too Quiet Becomes a Problem

The flip side of authenticity is absence. Need cash? There are two ATMs; if one is out of order the nearest alternative is 11 km away. Fancy a cocktail after midnight? You’ll be mixing it yourself. Stormy weather can trap the village for days: when the Tramuntana blows above 70 km/h the train suspends service, fishermen stay ashore, and even the bakery may shut if the flour lorry can’t get through. Colera in a gale is exhilarating for ten minutes, tedious after three hours.

August weekends fill up with French second-home owners who know exactly which sunlit rock is theirs; by 11 a.m. the main beach towel-to-towel distance shrinks to a polite metre. Come September the place exhales, shutters bang down, and you may find you’re the only customer in the bar—glorious or eerie, depending on mood.

Leaving Without a Souvenir

There is no gift shop. The closest thing to a memento is the €4.50 jar of honey flavoured with rosemary from the hives above the vineyard, sold on trust from a wooden box outside the town hall. Slip coins through the slot, lift the latch, and you’ve participated in Colera’s only retail ritual. Whether that feels like enough depends on what you came for: if the answer was nightlife, retail therapy or sand the colour of biscuit, you got off at the wrong station. If you wanted proof that the Mediterranean coast can still belong to the people who salt it, wind it, and swim in it before breakfast, Colera keeps the evidence—quietly, stubbornly, and free of charge.