Banyoles

Six Kilometres of Flat Water and a Town That Knows Its Neighbours

The lake wakes before the cafés. By seven the surface is already dented by sculls cutting north–south lanes marked out like dual carriageways. Coaches shout in Catalan from aluminium launches, and herons flap off to let the athletes take over. This is Banyoles: 20,506 residents, 172 m above sea level, and the only inland place in Spain that still hosts Olympic-grade regattas twenty years after the flame left Barcelona. The water, fed by underground rivers that dissolve the surrounding limestone, stays a steady 19 °C from May to October—warm enough for a long swim, cool enough to keep algae from blooming.

British visitors usually arrive expecting a modest substitute for the Costa Brava. What they find is a working town whose front garden happens to be Catalonia’s largest natural lake. There is no beach, only grass verges and wooden docks that the locals call pesqueres. Bring water-shoes; the bottom is stony and drops quickly once you wade past the yellow buoys that mark the swimming zone opposite the tourist office.

A Loop You Can Walk Before Lunch

The perimeter path measures 6.5 km, dead flat, shaded by plane trees for roughly half its length. Cyclists share the track, but bell-ringing etiquette is good and nobody races. If you prefer two wheels, kiosks beside the lake rent hybrids for €12 a day; no passport deposit is needed outside July and August. Joggers tend to start early, dog-walkers take over after nine, and by eleven the Spanish school parties appear with clipboards to count dragonfly larvae. The best window for uninterrupted laps is therefore 09:00–11:00, when the water is clearest and the sun still polite.

Half-way round you pass La Draga, a small neolithic site where archaeologists pulled a 7,000-year-old dug-out canoe from the mud. A replica lies inside the shaded hut; children clamber in while parents read the English panel and wonder why lake levels haven’t changed since the Stone Age. The answer is the same karst spring system that keeps the Olympic lane markings in place: rainfall in the Pyrenees arrives here three weeks later, buffered by limestone caverns.

What the Old Centre Does, and Doesn’t, Offer

Leave the water and you are back in provincial Catalonia. The medieval core fits inside a ten-minute stroll. Arcaded shops sell school uniforms, not fridge magnets. Santa Maria dels Turers lifts its square tower above the rooftops; step inside for five minutes of 14th-century Gothic calm, free, donation box by the door. Further up the hill the Benedictine monastery of Sant Esteve has been rebuilt so often it feels like a patchwork quilt—Romanesque base, Gothic nave, neoclassical cloister where the only sound is a leaky gutter. The county museum round the corner houses the “Banyoles jaw”, a fragment of Homo heidelbergensis that once made the town briefly famous among palaeontologists. Admission is €5, closed Mondays.

British reviews call the old centre “nice but not pretty”. They are right. The charm is in the rhythm: butchers open at seven, bakery queues form for coca flatbread at eight, market stalls pack the Plaça Major every Saturday until two. If you want fairy-tale arches, drive ten minutes to Besalú. Banyoles supplies everyday life with a lake view.

Rowing Boats, Dragonflies and the €3 Deck-Chair

Water rules the afternoon. The Club Natació runs a roped-off swimming area with lifeguards, changing rooms and a café that will swap chips for salad without fuss. Entry is €4; a deck-chair is another €3. Locals bypass the fee and launch from the northern shore where reeds give privacy and the bottom is muddy rather than stony. Kingfishers flash past here in spring; storks nest on the dead pine opposite.

Pedal-boats cost €12 for thirty minutes, rowing boats €5 per person per hour. The electric Tirona (€7, 45 min) glides silently to the island heronry—bring binoculars. Stand-up paddle boards are available after 16:00 when the lanes close; the hire shack insists on a 50-metre swimming test first. The water is drinking-quality, but weed rises like green ghosts in late summer. Nothing dangerous, only surprising when it strokes your ankle.

Eating: Carp, Sausage and Proper Filter Coffee

Restaurant Can Xabregas sits on the southern dock and will grill the local carp (carp de l’estany) over holm-oak embers. The flesh is pale, halfway between cod and trout; order it escabeche if you like sharp vinegar cutting through the oil. A three-course weekday menu costs €16 and includes wine. Cal Mingo, two streets back, is the safe introduction: half roast chicken, chips and allioli for the unadventurous, plus house wine at €2.50 a glass. Café Fleca Pujol, opposite the monastery, has the only filter coffee in town—refill offered without asking—and almond croissants that justify the early start.

Vegetarians do better than on the coast: samfaina, the Catalan ratatouille, appears as a main course everywhere, and Saturday’s market sells mountain honey and sheep cheese so solid it squeaks. If you self-cater, the Supermercat Esclat on the ring-road stocks Marmite and Tetley’s for the homesick.

When to Come, and When to Stay Away

April–June and September–October give daylight swimming without the crowds. In May the surrounding fields are full of poppies; by late October the plane trees turn chrome yellow and drop into the lake like giant cornflakes. Winter is quiet, often misty, but the water still hovers around 12 °C and a hardcore swimming club meets at noon every Sunday—you’ll hear them before you see them, yelping as they hit the grey.

August is a different place. Girona families descend for the Festa Major (last week of the month), fireworks echo off the water until two in the morning, and the perimeter path becomes a slow-moving queue. Parking is free at La Draga and Passeig Darder, but both fill before 10:00. If you must come in high season, aim for Tuesday or Wednesday; Spanish school trips leave on Thursdays, and the lake regains a little oxygen.

A Final Lap

Leave ten minutes before sunset. The last rowers lift their oars and the surface turns the colour of a two-euro coin. Swallows skim the lanes, a coach’s whistle fades towards the club-house, and the town lights flick on one by one. No one will try to sell you a fridge magnet. Walk the final kilometre slowly; by the time you reach the tourist office the water is black glass and the only movement is the evening jogger who always nods good-night. Banyoles does not shout. It simply keeps the lake filled, the coffee strong and the lanes straight—ready for tomorrow’s first stroke at dawn.