Massanes

The church bell in Massanes strikes nine times, yet only three cars pass through the village centre during the entire chime. One belongs to the baker, another to the woman who opens the colmado at half-past nine—unless she’s delayed by coffee—and the third is probably lost. At 164 metres above sea level, in the folds between the coastal plain and the Girona highlands, this scatter of stone houses counts 832 residents, four breeding storks, and precisely zero traffic lights. For British visitors schooled in Cotswold prettiness, the appeal is not what Massanes offers, but what it refuses: souvenir shops, organised parking, any soundtrack louder than cicadas.

A landscape that still clocks on at dawn

Maçanet de la Selva, the nearest place with a cash machine and a proper supermarket, lies seven kilometres downhill. From there a single paved road climbs past almond terraces and a roadside shrine dedicated to some long-forgotten shepherd. The gradient is gentle, but hire-car gearboxes grumble if you insist on fourth. Olive groves give way to holm-oak woods; stone walls appear, topped with ceramic tiles to keep out the rain that can arrive, hard and brief, in late September. Between storms the air is improbably clear: on windless winter mornings you can pick out the white glare of the Pyrenees fifty kilometres north, while thirty-five kilometres south-east the Mediterranean sits like polished pewter. The beach looks close enough to cycle to; it isn’t. The coast road coils through two river valleys and a commuter corridor of roundabouts—allow forty minutes to Lloret and most of a morning to recover from the duel-carriageway temperament of Spanish holiday traffic.

Inside the village the land levels into a shallow bowl where the parish church of Sant Estepe keeps watch. The building is 12th-century at its core, though subsequent restorations have given it a bell tower that owes more to 1970s concrete than Romanesque grace. Sunday mass still draws a respectable congregation; if you slip in at the back you’ll hear Catalan spoken at the brisk, businesslike clip that suggests people who have lunch to get home to. Services finish promptly at quarter to twelve; by five past, metal shutters are rattling down on the bakery and the place returns to its weekday rhythm of almost nothing happening.

Tracks for boots, tyres and the occasional boar

That impression lasts until you study the map pinned inside the ajuntament porch. Red dashes indicate footpaths radiating like wheel spokes: north-east to the ruined masia of Can Bosc, west to the charcoal-makers’ clearing at Coll de la Boquera, south to the Roman bridge below Sant Llorenç. None exceeds eight kilometres out-and-back, but the web of interlocking loops means you can stitch together half-day walks without repeating ground. Waymarking is refreshingly minimal—cairns, the occasional stripe of yellow paint—so the feeling of finding your own route survives even when five German hikers left the car park twenty minutes earlier. Spring brings carpets of white asphodel and the risk of ticks; autumn trades flowers for fungi, and the local pharmacist stocks tweezers and antibiótica cream in English-labelled boxes.

Mountain bikers use the same lanes, though after heavy rain the clay surface grips wheels like cheap toffee. A 4 km track east to Hostalric castle is rideable on a hybrid if you don’t mind dismounting for the drainage gullies; beyond that, the gradient stiffens and the tarmac gives up. Road cyclists fare better on the C-35 towards Girona—smooth, rolling, blessed with a hard shoulder wide enough for a wobble when the café stop in Breda over-delivers on croissants. Professional teams train here each February; if you recognise Ineos colours, resist the urge to shout “Come on, Geraint”—they’re probably on Zone-two watts and won’t answer.

What passes for gastronomy (and where to stock up on teabags)

Massanes itself provides one restaurant, Can Marc, wedged between the agricultural co-op and a row of garages. Inside, Formica tables support bottles of house red that cost €6 and taste like liquid oak shavings. The menú del día—three courses, bread, drink—runs to €14 mid-week and rarely strays from grilled pork, chips and a pudding that might be crema catalana or might be Bird’s custard with a blow-torched top. Children are welcomed with high-chairs and a bowl of plain pasta five minutes before adult mains arrive; vegetarians receive a sympathetic shrug and an omelette the size of a dinner plate. It is honest, quick, and shuts at five sharp.

Self-caterers should shop before arrival. The colmado opens 09:30–13:00, 17:00–20:00, stocks UHT milk, tinned tuna and peaches that have sat in the window since 2019. For anything greener than a cucumber, drive to Maçanet’s Caprabo where the British section hides between tinned beans and Polish pickles: Marmite €4.90, Tetley €3.40, digestives suspiciously labelled “galletas integrales”. The butcher opposite will vacuum-pack sausages for the freezer if you mime a British barbecue convincingly enough. Fresh fish arrives Thursday; by Saturday only anchovies remain, glaring like a row of silver bookmarks.

Saturday night belongs to the village bar, a room added to somebody’s ground floor some decades ago. Drinks are poured by Quim, whose English stretches to “Same again?” and whose measure of gin would worry a Portsmouth licensing officer. Locals play dominoes at deafening volume; visitors nursing a Rioja are tolerated provided conversation stays below the television relaying Barça highlights on loop. Closing time is negotiable, but when Quim starts stacking chairs you have five minutes—he won’t ask twice.

Festivals, fireworks and why August feels different

For eleven months Massanes practises hibernation; in August it remembers how to throw a party. The Fiesta Mayor begins with a communal paella cooked in a pan two metres wide while someone’s cousin runs a sound system powered by jumper leads and optimism. Children chase each other through smoke until 02:00; parents pretend not to notice. Bull-running here involves a heifer with padded horns trotting after teenagers who vault the steel barriers when courage runs out. British observers often find the spectacle less barbaric than expected, more agricultural gymkhana. At midnight on the final day a firework display launches from the football pitch: rockets hiss above the oak canopy and car alarms compete with the oohs. Then the village exhales, litter is swept into piles, and silence reasserts itself before the hangover has cleared.

Book accommodation early. There are perhaps twenty holiday lets scattered among farm tracks; most are restored stone farmhouses with pools, exposed beams and Wi-Fi that depends on a 4G router taped to a bedroom window. August prices hover around €180 per night for a three-bedroom house; September halves the tariff and doubles your chance of phone reception. Check whether the access lane is concreted—Google Satellite is ruthlessly honest. After rain, two kilometres of gradient on packed earth will test clutch plates and marital diplomacy alike. One British reviewer recommended a 4×4; another arrived in a Corsa and spent the week parking at the bottom, walking up with rucksacks, pretending it was part of the wellness routine.

When to come, when to stay away

April and late-September gift the best compromise: daytime highs in the low twenties, cool enough for walking, warm enough for the pool if you insist. Spring adds wildflowers and the risk of a soggy week; autumn brings mushroom season and the possibility of tramuntana winds that rattle shutters like an angry neighbour. Winter is quiet, occasionally frosty, and cheap—some owners rent long lets to remote workers from Barcelona who flee city flats for €400 a month plus firewood. Snow is rare but not impossible; if it arrives the village functions on a two-hour delay and nobody apologises.

July and August deliver heat, cicadas, full occupancy and the faint smell of sunscreen drifting from villa gardens. Families from Madrid and Toulouse colonise pools; hire cars clog the single street. Even then you can escape—walk two kilometres along any track and the only splash is a frog diving into the cattle trough. But if you measure holiday success by proximity to beach clubs, stay on the coast. Massanes will feel like house arrest with better scenery.

Leave on a weekday morning and the road downhill is yours alone. Swifts stitch the air above the pine tops; somewhere a tractor starts, then thinks better of it. Back in Britain the M25 will feel wider, louder, faster. Whether that strikes you as relief or regret is the quickest test of whether Massanes worked its minor, stubborn magic.