Pontós

The church bells strike noon, and through the stone archway of Pontós's eleventh-century portal, a tractor rumbles past the bar whose terrace holds three elderly men, two coffees, and one sleeping dog. This is the Alt Empordà's interior, twenty kilometres inland from Figueres, where the Costa Brava's summer crowds dissolve into wheat stubble and olive groves. At barely 100 metres above sea level, the village sits just high enough to catch the tramuntana wind as it spills off the Pyrenees, flattening the surrounding cereal fields into a blond, undulating carpet.

Pontós makes no bid for the spectacular. Its population—281 on the last municipal roll—has stayed steady since the 1950s, sustained by smallholdings rather than tourism. Visitors arrive either by design (they have rented a farmhouse nearby) or by accident (a wrong turning off the C-260). Either way, the place reveals itself slowly: a tight knot of ochre stone, Romanesque margins, and lanes just wide enough for a donkey and cart. There is no centre in the conventional sense; instead, the parish church of Sant Pere acts as a compass point, its belfry visible from every approach road.

Stone, Tile and the Scent of Drying Hay

A loop walk of the village takes twenty-five minutes if you dawdle. Begin at the plaça, where the ajuntament flies the senyera beside a noticeboard advertising Friday's paella communal (€8, bring your own bowl). From here, Carrer Major climbs gently, its houses bonded with mortar the colour of burnt honey. Look up: wrought-iron balconies carry geraniums in tomato tins, and timber doors still bear the hand-forged bolts that once secured livestock at night. Halfway along, a medieval arch bridges the street—thick enough to have withstood French raiding parties during the 1655 siege of Roses. Touch the stone: it is warm even in January, storing summer like a battery.

The lane spits you out beside the church. Sant Pere began life in 1079 as a simple pre-Romanesque cell; the Gothic nave and Baroque bell-stage arrived piecemeal, funded by successive cereal harvests. Inside, the air smells of candle wax and damp sandstone. A fifteenth-century font stands to the right—deep enough for adult immersion, its rim worn smooth by centuries of baptisms. No admission charge, but drop a euro in the box: the roof still leaks when the rain comes from the north.

Behind the apse, a footpath squeezes between vegetable plots. Here, pensioners grow fava beans so tender they need only three minutes in boiling water. Follow the track for 200 metres and you reach the village's old threshing floor, a circular stone platform now colonised by wild fennel. On clear days the Pyrenees float on the horizon like a torn paper chain; closer, the hills of the Gavarres mark the border with Baix Empordà. Swallows stitch the sky between April and September—after that, the wind picks up and the landscape reverts to the sound of your own footsteps.

What to Do When There Isn't Anything to Do

Pontós does not offer attractions in the checklist sense. Its appeal is the absence of them. That said, a network of farm tracks radiates into the surrounding mosaic of wheat, barley and sunflowers. Maps are rudimentary—ask at the bakery for a photocopied sheet—but the rule is simple: keep the church tower over your left shoulder to return. One flat circuit heads north-west to the tiny hamlet of Vilatenim (4 km), where a ruined castle keep overlooks the marshy headwaters of the Muga. Another pushes south-east to Navata (5 km), crossing an iron railway bridge that still bears Franco-era signage warning against sabotage.

Cyclists on touring bikes find the going gentle; gravel riders can link a 35-km loop taking in Bàscara, Siurana and Sant Llorenç de la Muga, with one short climb of 180 m that rewards with views across the Gulf of Roses. Carry water: farmhouses sell produce on an honesty basis, but taps are scarce once you leave the village.

Back in Pontós, the single grocery opens 08:30–13:00, closes for siesta, then reappears at 17:00 until 20:00. Bread arrives from the Figueres cooperative at nine; by ten-thirty it is gone. There is no filling station, cashpoint or tourist office. Mobile reception is patchy inside stone walls—stand in the plaça for three bars of 4G, enough to book dinner elsewhere.

Eating: Bring an Appetite and a Car

The village's culinary infrastructure amounts to one bar, Can Ton, where coffee costs €1.20 and the owner, Antoni, will fry you an egg sandwich if you ask nicely. For anything more ambitious, drive. Ten minutes north, the masia-turned-restaurant Les Moles serves a fixed lunch menu (weekdays €17, weekends €22) that might start with coca de recapte—aubergine and red-pepper tart—followed by duck confit glazed with local honey. Wine is from the Empordà cooperative: garnacha blanca if you want something crisp, or a carignan-based red that tastes of thyme and liquorice.

Alternatively, head south-east to L'Armentera, where the rice fields of the Aiguamolls delta supply Can Xiquet, a family place specialising in arròs de muntanya, mountain paella laced with botifarra sausage and wild mushrooms. Book ahead at weekends; cyclists in Lycra colonise the terrace from 13:00 sharp.

If you prefer to self-cater, Thursday is market day in Figueres. Stallholders will sell you a kilo of just-picked tomatoes, a wedge of ripened Garrotxa cheese, and a handful of salt-capped anchovies from L'Escala—enough for supper on your rental terrace while the sun drops behind the cypress windbreaks.

Festivals, Weather and the Practicalities of Small

Pontós wakes up twice a year. The main festa, honouring Sant Pere, falls on the last weekend of June. A mobile disco arrives on the back of a lorry, sandwiches of butifarra are grilled in the street, and the sardana circle forms beneath strings of coloured bulbs. The other date is 15 August, when neighbouring villages share the cost of a firework display visible from the threshing floor. Both events double the population for forty-eight hours; if you seek silence, come mid-week in February instead.

Climate follows Empordà logic: hot, dry summers (32 °C is normal) tempered by the tramuntana, and cool winters when the wind can slice straight through denim. Frost is rare but possible in January; spring and autumn offer the kindest light and temperatures hovering either side of 20 °C. Rain, when it arrives, tends to fall in heavy April or October bursts—pack a jacket even in July.

Access requires wheels. Girona airport is 55 minutes south via the AP-7; Barcelona's Terminal 2 adds another hour. Car hire is essential: buses serve Figueres but terminate there, and taxis refuse the rural run without a pre-booked return. Road surfaces are good, though GPS may send you down a farm track masquerading as a shortcut—stick to the C-260 and follow signs to Navata first.

Accommodation within the village limits amounts to one three-room guesthouse, Cal Perich, where prices start at €70 for a double including breakfast of toasted pa de pagès rubbed with tomato and draped with pressed olive oil. Alternatively, search the surrounding countryside for converted farm stays: many offer weekly rates in low season and come with salt-water pools that mirror the wheat gold at sunset.

Leaving Without a Souvenir

Pontós will not sell you a fridge magnet. What it offers instead is a calibration of scale: the realisation that a settlement of fewer than 300 souls can still sustain a bakery, a vegetable plot and a conversation in Catalan that stretches from dawn chores to dusk irrigation. Walk the lanes at twilight when the stone glows rose and the swifts scream overhead, and the Costa Brava's beach bars feel like a rumour from another country. Drive away the next morning, past fields already being turned for the next crop, and the village recedes in the rear-view mirror—not a hidden anything, just a place that carries on regardless, waiting for the bells to mark another day of ordinary, unpostcard life.