Ullà

The church bell in Ullà strikes seven-thirty and the village’s only bar fills with the clatter of steel-tipped boots. Elderly men in corduroy trousers park their bicycles against the stone wall, order a short coffee laced with brandy, and compare moisture levels in the rice fields. By eight the terrace empties again—work starts early on the Baix Empordà plain—leaving just the smell of fresh pa amb tomàquet drifting through the doorway. You could spend a week on the Costa Brava and never witness this moment; in Ullà it happens every weekday, winter and summer, rain or shine.

Ullà sits twenty-one metres above sea-level, far enough from the sea to avoid the July stampede yet close enough that the afternoon tramuntana wind still tastes faintly of salt. Drive south from Girona airport for twenty-five minutes on the C-31, past the hypermarkets and polytunnels, then turn inland towards the dark outline of Les Gavarres. The road narrows, poplars replace palms, and suddenly the landscape is all wheat stubble and white egrets following the tractor plough. That is the village’s appeal: it gives you rural Catalonia without the three-hour schlep up to the Pyrenees.

What the Map Leaves Out

Guidebooks usually skim Ullà in a sidebar—“sleepy agricultural centre, population 1,193”—which suits the locals fine. They have organised life around the seasons, not school-holiday calendars, and the rhythm is contagious. Monday is peix day: a refrigerated van from L’Estartit docks in the square at 11 a.m.; arrive late and the red prawns are gone. Thursday the travelling butcher sets up his awning opposite the post office; his botifarra negre runs out by 1 p.m. because half the village slow-cooks it with pears for Friday lunch. If you need hummus, tofu or oat milk, keep driving—Torroella de Montgrí has an organic shop eight kilometres away.

The architectural set-piece is the twelfth-century church of Sant Feliu, a low, fortress-like rectangle softened by later Gothic windows. Inside, the air is cool and smells of candle wax and dust; the font is still in use, so don’t be startled if a Saturday evening visit collides with a christening party clutching almonds wrapped in tulle. Opposite the church, the old primary school has been converted into a tiny ethnographic museum. Opening hours are “ask at the bar,” but the barman will lend the key willingly once you’ve bought a drink. One room is given over to rice-growing implements: wooden paddles for stirring the paddy, a hand-forged sickle sharp enough to shave with, photographs of barefoot workers ankle-deep in flooded fields. The captions are in Catalan only; the pictures need no translation.

Eating (and Drinking) Like You’re Expected

Catalans treat meal times as non-negotiable appointments; turn up at Can Junqué at 3.30 p.m. and you will eat alone. The restaurant occupies a former farmhouse on the edge of the village—stone walls two feet thick, a vine-draped terrace, the clink of ice in porró jugs. Locals start with a gauxcla, a deep-fried croquette of salt-cod brandade sharpened with lemon zest, then move on to duck confit glazed with figs from the tree outside the door. A half-carafe of white Garnatxa flows for €6 and tastes of green apples and herbs. The menu is short, written on a blackboard, and when the rice from the neighbouring paddies runs out the chef simply crosses the dish off. No apologies, no substitutes.

If your budget winces, the Centre Cívic fires a wood-burning oven on weekend nights. Pizzas are thin, blistered and cost €8–€10; locals bring their own bottles of wine (corkage €1) and children career round the courtyard until midnight. For breakfast, the bakery opens at 6 a.m. and sells coques de recapte, a sort of Catalan pizza topped with roasted aubergine and red pepper, intended for field workers but equally restorative after an early swim in the sea.

The Twenty-Minute Rule

Ullà’s trump card is its radius. Within twenty minutes you can be floating in the protected waters of the Illes Medes, browsing ceramics in La Bisbal d’Empordà or walking the medieval walls of Pals. Head north-west and the road climbs gently into Les Gavarres, a jagged chain of oak and cork forest threaded with forestry tracks. Park at the Sant Miquel de Cruïlles turning, follow the signed path for forty-five minutes, and you reach an abandoned monastery where storks nest in the bell-tower. The view stretches from the Pyrenees to the sea; on a clear winter morning you can pick out the white scar of the Rhône delta 150 kilometres away.

Beaches first: forget L’Estartit’s main drag—follow the signed turn-off to Platja de la Fonollera, a four-kilometre spit of dunes reached by a dirt track. Even in August you’ll share the sand with maybe thirty people and a handful of kite-surfers. The water shelves gently, warmer than the rocky coves further north, and the only facility is a wooden shack selling chilled coconuts and lukewarm beer. Second, history: the Iberian settlement at Ullastret, three kilometres away, is the largest of its kind in Catalonia. Walk the 2,500-year-old stone walls at dusk and you’ll hear nightjars churring among the olive trees, the modern world reduced to a distant hum.

When the Plain Turns White

Come January the rice fields flood, transforming the valley into a mirror that reflects every sunrise. This is duck season, and hunters in camouflage punts pole through the reeds at dawn; the pop-pop of shotguns becomes part of the dawn chorus. Temperatures can dip to zero at night, but daytimes are often T-shirt-warm thanks to the ponent wind blowing off the sea. Hotel rates plummet, restaurants serve escudella, a hearty meat-and-bean stew, and the roads empty except for the odd French cyclist training for the spring classics. If you want stone cottages, log fires and silence, winter here beats the overcrowded Pyrenean ski villages hands down.

The downside? You really do need wheels. Ullà has no railway; the bus from Girona trundles in three times a day and the last departure is before 7 p.m. Taxis from the airport cost €45 pre-booked, more if you land after midnight. Mosquitoes thrive in the paddies—pack repellent or dine inside at dusk. And if you crave nightlife, aim for nearby Torroella where teenagers career along the pedestrian precinct on scooters until 1 a.m.; Ullà itself rolls up the carpet once the coffee machine is cleaned.

Still, for a base that delivers authentic Catalan farm life, affordable eating and quick strikes to both coast and mountains, Ullà is hard to fault. Check in, borrow the village’s free-to-use bikes, and remember the locals’ rule: if the church bell rings twice in quick succession, it means the baker has taken coques out of the oven early. Drop whatever you are doing and go—those aubergine-topped slices rarely last an hour.