Tortellà

Stone Lanes and Saturday Bread

The bread van honks at 09:30 sharp. By then the baker from Sant Jaume has already wedged his white van against the stone trough in Plaça Major, hatch up, selling pa de pagès still warm from the brick oven twelve kilometres away. Tortellà’s weekly rhythm starts here: pensioners clutching exact change, teenagers buying croissants de xocolata on the way to secondary school in Olot, and the odd British couple in walking boots trying to work out if the round loaves are sourdough or plain white. They’re plain, and they cost €2.20. That’s the first surprise – prices haven’t been nudged up for visitors because, frankly, there aren’t many.

At 276 metres above sea-level the village sits exactly where the Pyrenean foothills peter out into market-garden flatlands. Look north-east and you’ll see the first serious summits; turn south-west and the view is all lettuce tunnels and apple orchards following the river Fluvià. The altitude keeps nights cool even in July, so cafés still serve café amb llet inside thick stone walls rather than on sun-bleached terraces. There is no sea, no sand, and certainly no chiringuito playlist. What you get instead is a working Catalan poble of 822 souls whose main traffic jam is caused by the tractor delivering gas bottles at 11:00.

Romanesque Bell-Tower, 21st-Century Silence

Parish church Sant Feliu squats at the highest point, its chunky Romanesque base wearing a Baroque top hat added after the 1428 earthquake. The door is unlocked from 08:00 until the priest locks up after evening mass – timings vary, posted on a paper index card. Inside, the air smells of beeswax and the stone floor dips where centuries of parishioners have shuffled forward for communion. Climb the tower (ask at the house opposite for the key; tip €1) and you’ll look straight down tiled rooftops to a mosaic of allotments, each labelled with the owner’s initials in white paint. On a clear morning you can pick out the volcanoes of the Garrotxa Natural Park 15 km away; they look like innocent green mounds until you notice the crater rims are too perfectly circular.

Back in the lanes, house numbers stop making sense after 30 because the street narrows into medieval carrerons where numbers were never needed. Park at the entrance carpark – signed aparcament dissuasiu, free – and walk. Driving inside the old core is possible but suicidal: walls are 60 cm thick, doorways open without warning, and the mirror of a Range Rover is an expensive casualty. Mobile signal vanishes around corners; download an offline map before you leave the cottage.

Pedal, Walk, Then Eat Beans

Tortellà’s genius is its position on the quiet triangle between Olot, Besalú and the Fluvià valley. Marked footpaths start literally at the last streetlamp: the 8 km circuit to Sant Aniol d’Aguja follows an old mule track through holm-oak woods, emerges onto chalk grassland buzzing with chalkhill blue butterflies, then drops back past a river pool deep enough for a swim if you don’t mind 18 °C water. Road cyclists swear by the GI-524 towards Argelaguer – rolling, almost car-free, and with a café at the far end that serves tallat (Catalan cortado) for €1.30.

Come lunchtime the village’s single restaurant, Cal Tico, opens at 13:00 and stops taking orders at 15:15. Locals eat cigrons amb botifarra – chickpeas stewed with pork sausage – followed by crema catalana burnt to order. The three-course menú del dia is €16 including half a bottle of house wine; they’ll swap the beans for grilled chicken if you ask politely, but don’t expect chips. Vegetarians survive on escalivada (smoky aubergine and peppers) and the acknowledgement that this is still rural Catalonia, not Brighton.

Saturday is market day in Olot, ten minutes by car. Stallholders shout prices in Catalan for mongetes del ganxet (cream-white beans that fetch €8 a kilo) and formatge de cabra still coated in ash. Bring cash – many traders fold their arms at contactless – and arrive before 11:00 when the car parks fill with French day-trippers stocking up on cheap Spanish diesel.

When the Fiesta Lets Its Hair Down

For fifty-one weeks of the year Tortellà closes the shutters at 22:00. Then, during the last weekend of August, the Fiesta Mayor pitches a marquee in the football field, hires a orquestra that plays Catalan covers of Queen until 04:00, and serves cervesa at mainland prices (€2.50 a caña). The correfoc – devils with fireworks – charges down Carrer Major on Sunday night; bring long sleeves and don’t stand under balconies unless you fancy a shower of sparks. The village quadruples in population for forty-eight hours, after which the rubbish lorry circles at dawn and normality – and silence – returns.

Winter is a different story. From November to March the Tramuntana wind whistles up the valley, daytime highs struggle past 10 °C, and the sun drops behind the ridge at 17:00. That’s when the stone houses earn their keep: thick walls, wood-burning stoves, and escudella – a meat-and-pasta broth – simmering on the hob. Snow is rare at this altitude but the road to Olot can glaze over; if you’re renting a 300-year-old cottage, check whether the access lane is paved or you’ll need chains.

How to Do It Without Tears

Getting there: Fly into Girona-Costa Brava (GRO); Tortellà is 44 minutes on the C-66 and GI-524, all tarmac, no vertigo. Barcelona takes 1 h 45 min on a good run but leave margin for the AP-7 toll queues. Car hire is non-negotiable – the village sees one bus a day from Girona, none on Sundays, and the petrol station is 9 km away.

Stay: Expect 17th-century stone, narrow stairs, and ceilings a six-footer will duck. There are two self-catering townhouses and a trio of rural masias within walking distance; pool villas are scarce, so book early for July. Most rentals include logs in winter – ask, because a supermarket bundle costs €7 and lasts one evening.

Eat: Cal Tico (closed Monday eve & Tuesday). For a Plan B drive 6 km to Castellfollit de la Roca; Can Xel does a reassuring menú with roast chicken fallback for £11. In Olot, Les Cols holds two Michelin stars if you fancy spherified olives after a morning crater-hopping.

Don’t forget: A fleece whatever the month, euro coins for the baker, and the realisation that Tortellà will never post perfect Instagram shots. It offers instead the small pleasure of a place that refuses to perform for visitors – and, for many Britons exhausted by Costa choreography, that is holiday enough.