Lloret de Mar

The 11 a.m. coach from Girona airport dumps fifty suitcases onto a roundabout that smells of warm pines and diesel. Within minutes the same passengers who queued politely at Stansted are sprinting across four lanes towards the Spar on Carrer de les Parròquies, chasing €1.20 cans of Estrella. It looks, sounds and even tastes like every British memory of a “cheap week in the sun” – yet five minutes’ walk east the traffic fades, the neon bars thin out, and the Camí de Ronda footpath starts hugging cliffs the colour of burnt biscuit. Lloret de Mar never chose between the two identities; it simply built a dual carriageway between them.

The Sea That Paid for the Marble

Local census figures count 41,559 souls, but that number triples in July when the arrival of mainly British, French and Russian sun-seekers turns the 1.6 km Playa de Lloret into a giant towel mosaic. The beach itself is decent sand, regularly Blue-Flagged, with a gentle shelf that keeps paddling parents happy. What it is not – despite the postcards – is peaceful between 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. in high season. Lifeguard whistles, paragliding touts and Bluetooth speakers compete with the waves; if you want relative hush, keep walking south for ten minutes to Platja de Fenals, backed by pine-topped headlands rather than hotel towers.

Fishing boats still launch from a slipway behind the main beach, though only a handful work full-time. Their catches – red scorpionfish, fork-beards, the prized gambas rojas – appear the same evening on tables at restaurants such as Tramuntana, where a plate of grilled prawns will set you back €18 but tastes of proper salt water, not freezer. The real money that built modern Lloret arrived in the opposite direction: in the late 19th century more than a thousand locals sailed to Cuba and Puerto Rico, returned as self-made “americanos”, and erected mansions of pink marble and modernist ironwork. You can see the legacy in the cemetery’s miniature pantheons – Carrara marble angels, art-nouveau ferns, surnames like “Vila” and “Serra” carved in both Catalan and Spanish – and in the Santa Clotilde gardens that tumble in Renaissance terraces above the sea. Entrance is €7; go at 9 a.m. when the gates open and you’ll share the cypress-lined paths only with gardeners clipping agapanthus.

A Castle, a Sculpture Queue, and a Church That Glows Inside

Lloret’s two castles frame the resort rather like book-ends. Sant Joan, the 11th-century fortress, stands on a headland between the main beaches; it was blown up by the British Navy in 1805 and the surviving tower gives 360-degree views for the price of a €3 ticket. The later Castell d’en Plaja, down on Sa Caleta point, looks medieval but dates from 1940 – a Franco-era folly built by a local magnate that now houses private flats. The cliffside railings just south of it are the best spot for photos, especially at sunset when the stone glows honey-gold and the woman-with-umbrella sculpture (Dona Marinera) faces the horizon, commemorating fishermen’s wives who waited for boats that sometimes never came. Expect a queue of Instagrammers even in October; the perch fits three people at most.

Back in the grid of lanes behind Burger King, the parish church of Sant Romà breaks the concrete monotony with mosaic-green turrets that owe more to Gaudí’s school than to Goth. Inside, a 16th-century alabaster altarpiece is painted in colours so bright they look back-lit. The adjoining interpretive centre (free) explains, in English, how Lloret lost 217 men in the 1919 flu after their steamship home from Havana docked in Barcelona. No-one who hears that story looks at the resort’s karaoke bars quite the same way again.

Walking Off the Hangover

The Camí de Ronda coastal path is the antidote to the previous night’s €3 neon mojitos. Heading north-east towards Tossa de Mar you cover 13 km of sandstone cliffs, secret coves and Aleppo-pine shade. The route is way-marked but sturdy trainers help: some sections involve iron ladders and short scrambles. If that sounds too strenuous, the 40-minute stroll south to Cala Boadella still earns you water clear enough to watch starfish cartwheel across the seabed. Beware the eastern end of Boadella, adopted by nudists since the 1980s; British families sometimes arrive unaware and perform theatrical towel relocations.

Inland, the GR-92 long-distance footpath climbs 400 m into the Ardenya hills where cork oak and wild rosemary replace hotel pools. Spring brings orchids and migrating hoopoes; summer demands an early start because by 11 a.m. the thermometer can nudge 34 °C. The tourist office on Rambla Just Marlès hands out free topo-maps and will stamp your credentials if you’re collecting the Catalan “Camí de Ronda” passport, a harmless bit of paperwork that costs €2 and gives retirees something to show the grand-children.

When to Come, Where to Sleep, How Loud It Gets

Mid-July to mid-August is cheap for a reason: rooms facing the disco strip can thump until 05:00. If you need sleep, book west of the Avinguda de les Alegries or, better, opt for the low-rise villas around Fenals where local by-laws force bars to close at midnight. May, early June and late-September still deliver 24 °C sea temperatures but drop the clubbing hordes by half. Winter is mild – daytime 14-16 °C – and hotel prices fall to €45, yet some restaurants shut and the sea feels Baltic to British bones acclimatised to central heating.

Girona airport, 30 km inland, is served by Ryanair from Stansted, Luton, Manchester and Bristol; Jet2 adds Leeds-Bradford and Birmingham in summer. The Sagalés airport bus costs €10.50 and drops you at Lloret bus station in 35 minutes, quicker than Barcelona and without the taxi surge-pricing. Once in resort, everything is walkable; a single bus ticket to nearby Blanes or Tossa costs €2.55 if you fancy a change of sand.

Eating Without the England Flags

Avoid laminated menus advertising “full English all day” and walk two streets back from the beach. Can Sophia, tucked into the courtyard of a boutique hotel, offers a five-course tasting menu (lunch €29, dinner €35) that might start with a shot of chilled almond soup and finish with charcoal-grilled sea bass. Locals queue at Pizzeria Marghe for blistered Neapolitan bases; kids can still order ham-and-pineapple while parents try the Catalan botifarra sausage version. If you’re self-catering, the Supermercat Sorli four blocks inland sells local gambas for €9 a kilo on Fridays – half the seafront price – and will steam them free while you wait.

Worth It?

Lloret will never shake its reputation as the place where teenagers learnt to drink sangria through a straw. The strip still smells of sun-cream and last night’s vodka at ten in the morning, and the souvenir shops will flog you a sombrero that has nothing to do with Catalonia. Yet the same streets end in cliffs where cormorants dive for grey mullet, and the same council that licences foam parties maintains gardens that would grace a Renaissance villa. Come with ear-plugs and an alarm clock: use the former at night, the latter for dawn walks when the coast returns to the fishermen, the first yachts heel out of the inlet, and you remember why the Mediterranean became famous in the first place.