Calonge i Sant Antoni

The castle bell strikes noon. From the stone ramparts of Calonge, you can see two worlds: terra-cotta roofs huddled around an 11th-century fortress behind you, and a ribbon of sand and apartment blocks shimmering three kilometres away at Sant Antoni de Calonge. Same municipality, two personalities, fifteen minutes apart by car—or thirty if you walk the old cork-oxcart lane that smells of pine and wet clay after rain.

Most visitors treat the pair as a single convenient base. They breakfast on toast rubbed with tomato and peppery olive oil in the castle shadow, then spend the afternoon on a Blue-Flag beach that shelves so gently toddlers can paddle twenty metres without disappearing. The arrangement works, provided you accept that this is not an undiscovered cove but a well-populated wedge of the Costa Brava where half the licence plates in August read “B” for Barcelona.

Castle First, Beach Second

Calonge’s old quarter is small enough to circumnavigate in the time it takes to drink a café amb llet. Carrer del Castell narrows to a passage no wider than a Bedford van before spitting you out into Plaça de la Constitució, where housewives still beat rugs over wrought-iron balconies at four o’clock. The fortress itself—rebuilt so often it looks like a patchwork quilt in stone—houses a modest local museum (open 10-13:30, €4, closed Mon). Even if you give the interior a miss, climb the outer slope: the view stretches from the Pyrenees on crisp mornings to the flash of a yacht’s sail entering Palamós bay.

Wednesday is market day. Stallholders from the interior bring mountain embutits—xoriço that tastes of fennel and smoke—while coastal traders pile up brittle dried octopus that smells of salt cellars. Bring cash; the card reader’s battery has a habit of dying at the precise moment a queue of impatient abuelas forms.

Sand, Promenade, and the Camí Trick

Sant Antoni de Calonge feels like an afterthought that got carried away with itself. A single straight promenade, Passeig Marítim, runs for three kilometres, wide enough for three pushchairs abreast. British families like the safety railings and the outdoor showers that actually work—rare luxuries on this coast. The sand is coarse, a mixture of ground shells and river quartz that doesn’t stick to towels; the downside is that it heats up like a griddle after 1 p.m. Arrive early, or reserve a €7.50 lounger under a woven palm-leaf parasol.

The real trick is the Camí de Ronda coastal path. Turn left from Torre Valentina beach and within ten minutes the apartment blocks thin out, replaced by low cliffs of honey-coloured rock. A wooden walkway swings round Cala Cap Roig, where water the colour of Bombay Sapphire gin laps against a pocket of sand barely fifty metres long. Carry on another thirty minutes and you reach Palamós fishing port in time for the 5 p.m. fish auction—glass gallery upstairs, free entry, and the smell of the morning’s catch hosed off the floor.

Cork, Wine, and the Inland Detour

Few British visitors realise Calonge once made its money from cork, not tourism. A short drive—or a stiff uphill cycle—brings you to the sendero del suro, a way-marked loop through abandoned cork-oak plantations. Bark still hangs like curled wallpaper on some trunks; information panels explain how it was boiled, cut, and punched into bottle stoppers for the Champagne houses of France. The walk is only 4 km but gains 200 m, enough to earn a cold beer afterwards.

Celler Martin Faixó, ten minutes beyond the castle, occupies a stone farmhouse where sand-coloured pigs once slept downstairs. Now stainless-steel tanks glitter beside ancient amphorae. A tasting of three wines plus picos and alioli costs €10; their Cadira red, made from Cabernet and local Garnatxa, tastes of blackberries and garrigue herbs. Groups of eight or more should email ahead; the vintner likes to finish his own lunch first.

When to Come, How to Move

Girona airport is 25 minutes away by taxi (fixed €45, book in the arrivals hall). Car hire is cheaper if you plan to hop between medieval towns—Pals, Peratallada, Ullastret—though parking in Sant Antoni becomes a treasure hunt after 11 a.m. in July. A shaded car park behind the castle offers free spaces and a twenty-minute downhill stroll to the beach; the return climb feels longer after paella.

June and early September give 25 °C afternoons without the August scrum; hotel prices drop by a third the day after Spanish schools return. Winter is quiet—too quiet. Many restaurants close between November and March, and the castle wind can slice straight through a Barbour jacket. Spring, though, brings wild gladioli among the olive terraces and the Medieval Fair in May: mead stalls, falconry demos, locals in chainmail taking selfies with iPhones.

Eating: From Mountain Stew to Palamós Prawn

Menus split along geographic lines. Inland, Can Puig on Carrer Major does a suquet de peix that arrives bubbling in a terracotta cazuela, its saffron broth thick enough to coat bread. Ask for “no picant” if you’re spice-shy; Catalan heat is milder than Andalusian but can still make a child’s eyes water. Closer to the sea, Restaurant Sant Antoni grills whole turbot over holm-oak embers; the fish is priced by weight, so establish cost before committing to a two-kilo monster.

For something between lunch and dinner—remember most kitchens shut 4-8 p.m.—try coca de recapte, a rectangular flatbread topped with roasted aubergine and red pepper. The beach kiosk at Cala del Racó sells it by the slice for €2.50, cold from the display case and better than any airport sandwich on the way home.

The Honest Exit

Calonge i Sant Antoni doesn’t dazzle; it serves. You get a castle older than Windsor, a beach safe enough to release the children unsupervised, and a coastal path that delivers postcard coves without demanding ordnance-survey skills. You also get apartment blocks from the 1970s, traffic tailbacks on the C-31, and August sunbed gridlock. Accept both faces and the village works—an efficient, unpretentious headquarters for exploring the Empordà, rather than the one spot you’ll remember for the rest of your life. Treat it as such and you’ll leave content, castle bell echoing behind you, sand still trickling from your shoes.