Malgrat de Mar

The 07:42 from Barcelona drops you exactly one hour and six minutes later onto a platform that still smells of pine resin and diesel. Step out of Malgrat de Mar station and the sea is already there, glinting between two hotels that book-end the horizon like squared-off cruise liners. No winding lanes, no dramatic clifftop reveal—just four kilometres of sand unfurling northwards, stitched to the railway by a parade of cafés whose breakfast blackboards promise “full English, HP sauce on request.”

Yet turn your back on the prom and the place reverts to Catalan coastal village in the space of 200 metres. The old grid of narrow lanes, built for mule carts and shade, still funnels residents to the parish church of Sant Nicolau de Bari, its neoclassical façade patched after the 1448 earthquake. Elderly men in house slippers park themselves under the plane trees in Plaça de l’Església, arguing about tomato prices while glancing at the clock tower that hasn’t struck the correct hour since 1983. Friday’s market spills across the same square: pyramids of Maresme strawberries, leather belts arranged like radiator hoses, and a stall that sells only three types of dried chilli—mild, middling, and “call the fire brigade.”

The beach and what lies behind it

The sand is coarse and honey-coloured, the sort that doesn’t stick to sandwiches but burns the soles of your feet by noon. Blue flags fly, yet the lifeguard chairs are empty before May and after October. Playa del Centro, directly opposite the hotels, fills with multilingual sandcastle competitions and volleyball nets strung between German teenagers. Walk ten minutes north-east to Playa de la Conca and the crowd thins dramatically; on a weekday in late September you can claim a 50-metre radius. The catch is zero facilities—no loo, no kiosk, no shade except the scrubby tamarisks at the back. Bring water, coins for the beach shower, and a brolly if you’re sun-shy.

Behind the seafront the land is dead-flat, carved by the Tordera river into a maze of vegetable plots protected from salt wind by cane hedges. This is still working huerta: tractors rumble along lanes narrow enough to clip wing mirrors, and the irrigation channels run so close to the surface that winter storms sometimes send carp swimming across the road. A signed footpath leaves the last roundabout and within five minutes you’re among reed beds listening to reed warblers rather than karaoke.

A river mouth that refuses to behave

Where the Tordera finally gives up and spills into the Mediterranean, the coastline forgets it’s on the Costa Barcelona. Dunes shift after every swell, forming shallow lagoons that warm like paddling pools. The protected delta—over 200 hectares—draws bird-watchers in April and October when honey buzzards ride thermals overhead and flashing kingfishers follow the freshwater seam. Flamingos sometimes drop in for a week, prompting local WhatsApp groups to combust with telephoto evidence. Cyclists appreciate the flat gravel track that shadows the river inland; turn around at the old railway bridge and it’s a gentle 14 km loop back via the orchards, scented with lemon blossom in May.

The same river is also Malgrat’s headache. Autumn cloudbursts can turn it into a café-au-lait torrent that closes the coastal railway for hours, marooning day-trippers who assumed “Mediterranean climate” meant perpetual sun. When the water recedes it leaves banks of polished pebbles and the occasional hotel sun-lounger folded like a deckchair.

Eating: from roast dinners to romesco

British bacon smells drift from the Union Jack pubs on Passeig Marítim, useful when children refuse anything resembling a squid ring. Yet the old-town still cooks for itself. Bei Pepe does a family paella heavy on chicken wings and light on shellfish—no eyebrows raised if you ask for ketchup. Around the corner, El Trull keeps the wood-fired chimney that once dried fishermen’s nets; order the canelons de la casa, thick pasta tubes stuffed with leftover stew and glazed with gratin that would make a French grandmother purr. Lunchtime menu del día hovers between €14 and €17, three courses plus a carafe of wine that’s perfectly drinkable if not destined for any awards.

Evening choice is narrower. Most hotel kitchens shut at 22:00, and the seafront morphs into a slow-moving procession of pushchairs and mobility scooters. If you want clubbing, catch the disco-bus to Blanes (€3 return, 20 minutes) or accept that Malgrat’s idea of late-night excitement is Irish-coffee karaoke in Bar Windsor.

Getting about (and away)

Girona airport is 32 km inland—half the distance of Barcelona—and a pre-booked taxi costs around €35. If Barcelona El Prat is your only option, the train still beats the coach: buy the T-Casual card at the airport station and ten journeys between city and village cost €26.60, usable on Barcelona metro as well. Trains run every half-hour in summer, hourly on winter Sundays; the last service back from Barcelona leaves at 23:11, so don’t linger over post-dinner cava unless you fancy a €90 taxi.

Inside the village everything is pedal-close. Bike-hire kiosks on the prom charge €8 a day for a cruiser with basket—ideal for the river path where cars are banned. The tourist office (open 10:00-14:00, closed Mondays outside July-August) lends free audio guides that direct you to the 16th-century Torre dels Encantats, a squat pirate lookout now hemmed in by a children’s playground. Scan the QR code and you’ll learn it stored saltpetre during the Napoleonic wars; local teenagers use it mainly as a backdrop for Instagram stories.

When to come, when to stay away

May and late-September deliver 24 °C afternoons, hotel rates 30 % lower than August, and enough breeze to keep the jellyfish at bay. British half-term crowds arrive late October, surprised to find the sea still 20 °C and hotel pools officially “closed”—staff shrug, hand over a pool-net, and let you swim at your own risk. November can feel like Cromer with palm trees: empty prom, shuttered ice-cream kiosks, but the baker still produces cocas de recapte (pastry topped with roast aubergine) at 07:00 sharp.

August is a different proposition. Population triples, sun-loungers are corralled into colour-coded ranks (€7 a day, €10 with parasol), and the Friday market becomes a shuffle of sweaty elbows. Even the river path fills with electric scooters. If that’s your only window, stay north of the footbridge where apartment blocks give way to private villas and the sand stays comparatively empty.

The verdict

Malgrat de Mar will never win prizes for photogenic perfection; its skyline is a saw-tooth of 1980s hotels, and the karaoke bars still murder “My Way” every night. Yet the place functions: trains run on time, strawberries taste of strawberries, and you can swap the British fry-up for a fisherman’s breakfast of grilled sardines without travelling more than 400 metres. Come for the river mouth at dawn when the only footprints are heron tracks, or for the market stall that remembers how you like your coffee by the second morning. Just don’t expect a hidden gem—Malgrat is too busy being an honest, slightly scruffy, reliably convenient seaside village that hasn’t quite decided whether it belongs to Catalonia, the Costa del Sol, or the Home Counties. That indecision is precisely its appeal.