Cassà de la Selva

Twelve kilometres inland from Girona airport, the road dips past a cement works and suddenly you're in Cassà de la Selva. No sweeping mountain vistas, no honey-coloured arcades—just a functional grid of streets where locals queue for Wednesday's market and the town band rehearses in a converted garage. This is the buffer zone between Costa Brava package deals and Pyrenean poster villages: a place that works for a living.

The Everyday Engine

At 137 metres above sea level, Cassà doesn't so much rise from the land as sit squarely on it. Pine and oak roll down from the Gavarres massif and stop politely at the industrial estate. The chimneys here once spat steam for textile mills; now they print labels for cava bottles bound for Brighton and Berlin. Shift change at three o'clock sends scooters buzzing towards the centre, past bakeries that still sell bread by the kilo and butchers who'll joint a rabbit while you wait.

The old town keeps to its medieval bones, but without museum polish. Carrer Major narrows to the width of a single Seat Ibiza, forcing drivers to fold mirrors and inch past doorways where grandmothers perch on plastic chairs. Their conversation doesn't pause for photographers. Above them, the parish church of Sant Martí squats like a weathered bulldog, its 18th-century facade patched with mismatched stone. Inside, the air smells of beeswax and last Sunday's lilies; a side chapel displays the banner carried in 1888 when Cassà demanded its own railway stop. They got the line, then lost it in 1969. The trackbed is now the Via Verde, a pancake-flat greenway that pedals straight into the forest—no Lycra required, just working brakes for the gentle downhill return.

What Grows Between the Bricks

Look up from street level and you'll spot carved dates: 1564 on a Gothic arch, 1926 on a modernista balcony. Can Trinxeria hides behind iron gates, its 16th-century tower built less for romance than for spotting bandits coming up from the coast. The building serves as the civic centre these days; ring first if you want to nose around the stone troughs where grain once fed mules. Further out, the Molí de Can Cònsol still contains its millstones, though the water channel is dry and swallows nest in the rafters. Restoration funds come and go; at present you peer through cracked windows at rusted cogs and promise yourself to check Facebook for the next open day.

The real heritage is kinetic. On Friday evenings teenagers practice castells in the plaça, forming human pyramids four storeys high while a pensioner counts time on a flute. Collapse is part of the drill—they dust off and rebuild. During Festa Major in late August the same square fills with fire-run devils and drunks who've been recycling since noon. Brits who stumble on it by accident report feeling like wedding crashers until someone presses a plastic cup of rancio into their hand and explains the difference between a cercavila and a correfoc in fluent Scouse.

Forks in the Forest

Cassà's restaurants don't chase Michelin stars; they feed the cousins who left for Barcelona but drive back each Sunday. At Can Xapes the €14 menú del día starts with pa amb tomàquet and ends with crema catalana; in between you choose between rabbit stew or grilled chicken, chips mandatory. The owner speaks Manchester-accented English—he spent winters wiring houses in Sale—and will swap romesco for ketchup without rolling his eyes. Locals tip 50 cents; round up to a euro and you'll get a gruff "bona gent" on the way out.

If you want ceremony, Mas Ros has linen napkins and a terrace that smells of rosemary. Ask for the beef carpaccio and they'll produce a perfectly grilled fillet instead, apologising that "the raw stuff gives the English tummy trouble". House red comes from Empordà vineyards 30 minutes north; drink two glasses and the chef emerges to discuss rainfall statistics like a meteorologist who happens to own a skillet.

The forest delivers the digestif. Marked paths leave from the football ground, following dry stone walls between pine and holm oak. Within twenty minutes the hum of the C-65 fades, replaced by hoopoe calls and the crunch of last year's cones. Choose the 5-kilometre loop to Sant Muguet chapel and you'll meet more mountain bikers than hikers—Catalans treat walking as transport, not pilgrimage. Take water; the only bar en route opens sporadically when the owner's tomatoes need picking.

Getting Here, Getting Fed, Getting Home

Girona airport is a fifteen-minute taxi hop (pre-book via Taxi Cassà app; €28 flat). Buses run hourly Monday to Saturday, last departure 21:30—miss it and you're sleeping among the sheep. Sunday service doesn't exist; treat it as nature's reminder to rent a bike and follow the Via Verde 22 traffic-free kilometres to the beach at Sant Feliu. Trains from Barcelona stop at Girona; change there for the bus, or share a cab with the couple clutching EasyJet boarding passes.

Accommodation is thin. Hotel Sant Martí has eighteen rooms overlooking a car park; ask for the back ones if you value sleep over sunrise. The municipal albergue rents bunks to cyclists for €18 but locks the door at 22:00 sharp—Cassà keeps factory hours. Airbnbs appear on weekends when residents decamp to family villages; expect IKEA sofas, espresso pots and neighbours who vacuum at eight sharp.

Cash still talks. Many bars reject cards under a tenner; the ATM beside the church charges €1.75 unless you bank with Caixa. Supermarket Caprabo shuts at 21:00, earlier on Saturday, never on Sunday. Land too late and the airport Spar becomes your larder—overpriced crisps, but the wine aisle beats duty free.

When to Clock In—or Out

April and May smell of cut grass and orange blossom; temperatures hover in the low twenties, perfect for cycling before lunch and siesta afterwards. October trades blossom for mushrooms, and restaurants add wild-picked rovellons to every plate. Mid-summer turns the streets into a kiln—locals close shutters and head to coastal second homes, leaving Cassà to the asphalt shimmer. Winter is quiet, occasionally frosty, never postcard-pretty; the forest paths turn to caramel mud that cakes trainers and refuses to let go.

Come for a night either side of a flight and you'll glimpse a Catalonia that guidebooks skip: a town where industry and agriculture still share a parking space, and where the evening paseo ends not at a souvenir shop but at the bakery loading tomorrow's baguettes into a van bound for Girona hotels. Enjoy the absence of tour buses. Just remember: on Sundays even the church bells sleep in.