La Bisbal Demporda

The smell hits first. Not salt air or pine resin, but something earthier—wet clay and woodsmoke drifting from a brick chimney on Carrer de l'Aigua. It's Thursday morning and a potter in a clay-spattered apron is hauling a rack of freshly thrown bowls into a kiln that has fired almost continuously since 1820. No one stops to watch. In La Bisbal d'Empordà, ceramics aren't a heritage spectacle; they're the town's pulse.

A town that still makes what it sells

Eleven thousand people live here, yet the centre feels compact. Pastel façades rise three storeys above stone arcades, every second doorway leading to a showroom stacked with plates, lamps or garden urns. Prices start at €3 for a cereal bowl and climb past €300 for a sculptural centrepiece you'll struggle to fit in hand luggage. The serious bargains sit in the factory outlets on the eastern ring road—seconds with microscopic glaze bubbles, sold at 60 per cent off. Go before 13:30; rollers shutters drop at lunchtime with Catalan punctuality.

The Terracotta Museum occupies the castle-palace bishops of Girona built in the 11th century to keep an eye on their inland tax hub. English caption cards are kept in a drawer—ask or you'll miss them. The collection races from medieval storage jars big enough to hide a shepherd to 1960s acid-green ashtrays that prove even pottery had a psychedelic phase. Allow an hour; the rooftop terrace gives a chess-board view of terracotta roofs that explains why the town's name is now shorthand for "casserole dish" across Spain.

Cobbles, arcades and the Friday scramble

The old quarter is a grid of lanes barely wide enough for a Citroën. Iron oil lamps project from stone walls; children kick footballs against 15th-century portals. Santa Maria's neoclassical frontage looks plain after Girona's baroque cathedrals, but step inside and the acoustic makes the organ sound like it's breathing down your neck. Friday is market day: the plaça fills with tarpaulin trestles selling chanterelles, cheap bras and cheese so fresh it still holds the imprint of the farmer's fingers. Arrive before noon—stalls pack up once the locals have stocked up for the weekend.

Brits expecting a souvenir tat bazaar leave empty-handed or delighted, depending on temperament. This is weekly shopping, not tourism with price tags attached. Elderly women clutching woven trolleys haggle in rapid Catalan; visitors hovering with canvas totes get the same prices, no more, no less.

Mud on your sleeves: getting hands-on

Several workshops run two-hour "torna" sessions where you centre a lump of local clay and attempt a bowl that doesn't wobble. Kids love it; adults discover core muscles they last used in Pilates. Pieces are fired overnight and wrapped in newspaper for collection the next afternoon—factor that into itinerary planning or you'll mourn your lopsided masterpiece from Gatwick. Book ahead in April, May and October when French school parties descend.

If you prefer your clay pre-fired, sign up for a decorative-painting class at Ceramica Elias. You'll leave with a tile sporting traditional blue manganese swirls that dry to the colour of a stormy Channel sky.

Beyond the potter's wheel

La Bisbal sits 15 km inland, equidistant from the Costa Brava's crowded coves and the Gavarres hills. Drive ten minutes north-east and rice fields of the Ter delta shimmer like wet green glass; fifteen minutes south-west cork oak forest replaces tractors with wild boar. The Ice-Wells Walk (3.5 km, 90 min) circles past 18th-century stone pits where winter ice was packed in straw for summer sherbet. Trainers suffice; the steepest gradient is the flight of steps back to the car park.

Cyclists borrow free maps from the tourist office (open weekdays only) and follow signed loops through olive groves to medieval Peratallada, all tarmac but mercifully flat after the Pyrenean foothills around Girona. Bike hire shops are thin on the ground—bring your own or book through Hotel Castell d'Empordà, five minutes above town.

What to eat when you're clay-footed

Restaurant Can Xevi does a weekday three-course "menú" for €18 that swaps shellfish for slow-cooked beef cheek if you ask nicely—English menu cards available. Locals lunch at 14:00 sharp; turn up at 15:30 and you'll be offered the remains of the chickpea stew. For lighter bites, Forn Pa i Dolç bakery sells coca de llardons, a crunchy sheet of pastry studded with caramelised pork fat that tastes better than it sounds—think treacle tart minus the syrup.

Evenings see tapas crawls along Carrer d'Anselm Clavé: razor clams grilled with parsley, and clay cups of vermouth poured from ceramic porróns made up the road. Wine lists favour Empordà grenache; bottles start at €14, half the price you'll pay on the coast.

When the kilns cool down

Summer weekends swell with Barcelona families browsing for dinner services; parking on Passeig de l'Estació is free and only three minutes' flat walk from the centre. Come November, streets empty, shops shut on Sunday and Monday, and hotel rates drop by a third. The trade-off is risk of tramuntana wind that can rattle terracotta roof tiles like castanets; bring a scarf.

January brings the Ceramics Fair—tents in the main square, demonstration kilns fired day and night, and half the town exhibiting pieces you'll never squeeze into Ryanair's cabin bag. It's fascinating, bracingly cold, and the one week when hotels insist on two-night minimum stays.

Getting here, getting away

Girona airport is 35 minutes by car; there are only two taxis licensed for the run, so pre-book or wait an hour while the driver finishes his lunch. Trains from Barcelona Sants reach Flassa station (4 km away) in 70 minutes; buses meet most arrivals but finish at 20:30. Hiring a car unlocks inland monasteries and coastal beaches with equal ease; without wheels you're reliant on hourly buses to Palafrugell and a lot of patience.

La Bisbal won't hand you sunset cocktails or sand-between-toes moments. It offers something narrower and deeper: a place where craft is commerce, where the same family has thrown pots for five generations, and where the earth under your feet ends up glazed and on somebody's breakfast table. Buy a bowl, fill it with local olives, and you've taken home a piece of the town that still makes what it sells.