Sarrià de Ter

The 19:07 train from Girona carries more supermarket carrier bags than suitcases. In eight minutes it deposits shoppers, students and office workers on the single platform of Sarrià de Ter, a town whose greatest luxury is that nobody has thought to market it. No gift shop sells fridge magnets shaped like the river Ter; no guidebook lists it among “top ten hidden” anything. Instead, residents wheel their bikes past the station bar, exchange a quick “bona nit” with the guard, and disappear into streets where the loudest noise is usually a dog objecting to a scooter.

Seventy metres above sea level and three kilometres from Girona’s cathedral bells, Sarrià occupies the slack ground between the city’s eastern sprawl and the first fold of the Gavarres hills. The altitude is modest, yet the air feels different—less traffic, more river damp. Morning joggers follow the Ter’s poplar-edged path while mist still hangs above the water, and kingfishers flash turquoise beneath the railway bridge. It is the sort of scene that photography apps were invented to saturate, but the locals have the decency to leave it alone.

A Town that Forgot to Be a Museum

The old centre clusters around the parish church of Sant Julià, rebuilt brick by brick after 1939 shelling. What looks medieval from a distance reveals newer mortar up close; the bell tower was finished in 1952 using concrete disguised as stone. That honesty appeals. Plaça de l’Església tilts gently, cobbles polished by supermarket trolleys rather than tour groups. On Thursday mornings a white van sells gambes de Palamós from a plastic bucket—five euros a portion, cash only—while elderly men debate football scores outside Bar Parroquia. Nobody offers tapas in miniature zinc buckets; you get a plate of crisps and a beer at Catalan prices, not coastal mark-ups.

Behind the church three narrow lanes survive from the agricultural village that existed before Girona’s post-war expansion. Their stone houses have wooden balconies painted the colour of dried blood and shutters the colour of toothpaste. One doorway still bears the inscription “Ave Maria 1894” carved while the valley grew wheat rather than commuters. Most visitors walk these lanes in four minutes, decide there is “nothing to see”, and head back to the river. That is the point. Sarrià functions as a place to live, not a set.

Life on the Water

The Ter is wider here than in Girona, slower and shallower. In summer children leap from the old textile weir, emerging with shrieks and river weed in their hair. Kayaks are rare; the favoured craft is an inflatable mattress dragged from a cousin’s garage. A gravel path—flat, pram-friendly—runs five kilometres downstream to the neighbouring village of Sant Julià de Ramis. Cyclists share it with dog-walkers, grandmothers pushing shopping trolleys, and the occasional horse from the riding school at Can Xifra. Kingfishers again, and the splash of carp turning under lily pads.

Upstream the path narrows, surface roughened by tree roots. After two kilometres you reach the ruined concrete mill of La Farinera, walls graffitied in Catalan “volem escola rural”—“we want a village school”. The message is faded; the school closed in 2019, its pupils bussed to Girona. Pause here and you will hear only water and the metal clink of a spaniel’s collar as it sniffs among nettles. The scene is not dramatic, merely private—like overhearing someone else’s lullaby.

Eating Without Performance

Sarrià’s restaurants close on random weekdays and open when trade is guaranteed: lunch at two, dinner at nine, no fusion. Can Xifra, opposite the pharmacy, serves a three-course menú del día for €13.50 that begins with pa amb tomàquet and ends with crème caramel wobbling like a nervous aunt. The middle course is grilled chicken or bacallà a la llauna, depending on what the wholesaler delivered. Wine comes in a glass bottle with the label scratched off; the red is drinkable, the white refrigerated to near-ice. British teenagers have been known to cheer at the sight of chips.

Evening options shrink after 22:00. If you miss the last train back from Girona (22:14, not 22:30—check the timetable) the alternative is Hotel Jocana on Avinguda de la Rutlla. Rooms cost €55 but walls are thin enough to learn your neighbour’s ringtone. Better to book VillaGranCanaria, a converted farmhouse on the southern edge, where a small pool looks towards cornfields and the only night noise is the baker’s van at 04:00. The owners speak enough English to explain the coffee machine but not enough to recommend “authentic tapas trails”.

When the Calendar Says Fiesta

The third weekend of August brings the Festa Major. Streets are strung with bunting printed in primary colours that fade to pastel by Sunday. A chart in the town hall window lists events: sardanes at seven, correfoc at ten, paella popular at midday Saturday. Bring your own plate and pay €4 for a ladleful from a pan the diameter of a satellite dish. The fire-run is modest—twenty locals in devil costumes, drums, handheld fireworks—but the sparks still sting if you wear sandals. By midnight the plaza smells of gunpowder and sweat; teenagers flirt, toddlers ride parental shoulders, grandparents sit on plastic chairs discussing who has left for Barcelona and never returned.

January’s Sant Antoni is smaller: a bonfire behind the church, sausages speared on bent wire, a priest sprinkling holy water over two bewildered Labradors. The smoke drifts into plane trees and out towards the Pyrenees, invisible but present like so much else here.

Getting Here, Getting Away

Ryanair lands at Girona-Costa Brava from London-Stansted, Manchester and Bristol until late October. The airport bus (€6) drops you at the train station; buy a bitllet senzill to Sarrià for €2.20 and validate it in the yellow machine or risk a €50 fine. Trains run every thirty minutes; the journey lasts eight, crossing allotments, rugby pitches and a ford where egrets stand ankle-deep. If you hire a car, leave the AP-7 at Girona Nord, follow signs for Sarrià, and park free near the river—ignore the paying car park beside the pharmacy, it belongs to the doctor’s surgery.

Sunday mornings the town is shuttered. Bread must be bought by 13:00 on Saturday; after that you queue with hung-over students at the Repsol garage for machine coffee and factory-made croissants. Plan accordingly, or take the train to Girona where the bakeries never sleep.

Worth the Detour?

Sarrià de Ter will never replace Besalú’s bridge or Cadaqués’ light on anyone’s itinerary. It offers instead a calibration point: what Catalan life feels like when nobody is watching. Come for a slow bike ride, a plate of chicken, the sound of river water over broken bricks. Leave before you start comparing property prices. The town’s virtue is its refusal to perform; its risk is that visitors may decide, quite rightly, that three hours is enough. That is fine. The 12:07 back to Girona will still be on time, carrier bags and all.