Llagostera

The Sunday market spills across Plaça Major until half eleven, when stallholders start rolling up tarpaulins and the smell of grilled botifarra drifts from the bar under the town hall arcade. By noon the square belongs to teenagers on scooters and grandparents with newspapers. This is Llagostera in high season: busy, yes, but only with its own inhabitants and the occasional Catalan family who’ve driven up from Girona for a cheaper round of drinks.

At 160 m above sea-level the town sits where the Gavarres hills flatten into corn fields, 15 km from the nearest beach and light-years away from the coastal strip’s rental queues. Coaches don’t stop here; the railway line was ripped up in the 1980s. What remains is a working market centre of 9,000 people who still close shop for lunch and who greet the pharmacist by name.

Stone, Cork and Sunday Conversations

The old centre is small enough to circle in twenty minutes, but give it an hour. Carrer Major narrows between stone façades whose ground floors were once workshops for the cork trade. Iron balconies, painted the colour of dried blood, project just far enough to meet your umbrella if it rains. The Museu del Corcho (€3, open mornings except Monday) explains why the industry mattered: not just wine stoppers but soles, hats and early electricity insulation. One display shows a 1930s Singer sewing machine adapted to stitch discs of cork into soldiers’ helmets.

Above the rooftops the bell-tower of Sant Feliu keeps medieval time. The church was rebuilt piecemeal after French troops torched it in 1694; inside you’ll find a single Gothic arch stranded among Baroque plaster. Locals arrive for the 11 a.m. Sunday mass, leaving scooters propped against the south wall like a row of dominoes.

Market day is the moment to taste the town. Farmers from the surrounding plain set up trestles stacked with pale spring onions, jars of honey so new the wax still floats, and cheese wrapped in chestnut leaves. The queue at Can Xicu starts at 09:30; its butifarra dolça – a faintly sweet pork sausage dotted with raisins – sells out by ten. Bring cash: most stalls treat cards as an urban myth.

Between the Hills and the Sea

Llagostera’s best trick is location. Drive east for 15 minutes and you’re on the sand at Sant Feliu de Guíxols; head north-west for 20 and you’re parking under the city walls of Girona. Staying here means you swap sea-view prices for a two-star country hotel (Hotel Gran Ultonia, doubles from €65) and a restaurant bill that doesn’t need a stiff drink before you sign.

The Gavarres massif rises immediately behind the last row of houses. Pine and evergreen oak swallow the paths within ten minutes, and the only sound is the click of mountain-bike cleats on stone. A gentle 8 km loop signed as PR-G 77 climbs to the ruined Iberian settlement of Castell de Llagostera – little more than waist-high walls, but the panorama stretches from the Pyrenees to the glittering sea you haven’t paid waterfront rates to enjoy. Take water: cafés are non-existent once you leave town, and summer shade is patchy.

Road cyclists use Llagostera as a pit-stop on the way to the brutal coastal climb of Els Àngels. The Sunday peloton meets at 08:00 outside Forn Sistaré for coffee strong enough to float a spoon, then spins off towards the monastery. If you prefer walking shoes to Lycra, the same bakery sells cocas – flatbreads topped with red pepper and anchovy – that make ideal picnic cargo.

What to Eat, When to Eat It

Lunch starts at 13:30 sharp. Turn up earlier and you’ll be offered a beer and a bowl of crisps while the chef finishes his own meal. Can Xevi on Carrer de la Creu does a three-course menú del dia for €16: think broad-bean stew followed by rabbit with prunes, rounded off with crema catalana whose sugar crust is still warm from the blow-torch. The wine list is a single laminated page of local Empordà bottles; the house white is a Garnatxa-Sauvignon blend that tastes like grapefruit peel and costs €12 a bottle if you want to carry on into siesta time.

Evening meals are lighter. Plates of pa amb tomàquet arrive automatically; treat it as Catalonia’s answer to garlic bread and you’ll be fine. The one reservation everyone urges is at Michelin-starred Els Tinars, five minutes out on the road to Santa Cristina d’Aro. The arroz a la cazuela is baked like a paella without the social pressure to scrape the bottom: saffron rice, pork ribs and artichoke hearts under a lid of parchment. Book weeks ahead in May and September, months when the coast empties but the rice tastes exactly the same.

Fiestas, Fire and a Word on Winter

Mid-August brings the Festa Major. Pop-up bars, fairground rides wedged into every plaza and late-night concerts make sleep unlikely unless your hotel faces the hills. The payoff is seeing the town fully awake: human towers in front of the church, elderly couples dancing sardanes in trainers, children still clutching candyfloss at one in the morning.

January’s Sant Antoni is smaller but stranger: bonfires in the streets, a priest blessing dogs, horses and the occasional pet rabbit outside the town hall. Woodsmoke drifts through the cold air; someone hands out grilled sausages speared with bread. It feels medieval because, in essence, it is.

Winter itself is quiet. Cafés switch off outdoor heaters when the tramuntana wind sweeps down from the Pyrenees; some restaurants close Monday to Wednesday. Hotel prices halve, but you’ll need a car – buses drop to a skeleton service and the nearest station, Caldes de Malavella, is 10 km of dark country road away. Bring a coat: night temperatures can dip to 3 °C, a shock if you’ve driven up from a balmy coast that still thinks it’s September.

Getting There, Getting Out

No railway means you arrive by road. Girona airport is 25 minutes away on the AP-7 toll motorway; hire cars cluster in the terminal hall. If you’re train-bound, the high-speed AVE from Barcelona Sants reaches Girona in 38 minutes; a taxi from Girona to Llagostera costs about €35, or take a Sarfa bus that rumbles through the hills twice daily.

Leave time for the return journey. The coast road back to the airport twists like a dropped rope; summer traffic can add thirty minutes to what looks on the map like a hop. Factor in one last coffee in Plaça Major while the church bell strikes the hour, and remember: the beach will still be there tomorrow, but Llagostera’s bakery sells out by ten.