Sant Feliu de Buixalleu

The bakery in Sant Feliu de Buixalleu opens at seven, but the baker often arrives at quarter past. Nobody minds. The village clock, perched on the sixteenth-century church tower, has been running seven minutes fast since 1994 and nobody minds that either. This is the first lesson: time is negotiable at 400 metres above the Costa Brava.

Spread across a fistful of forested ridges, the municipality contains fewer residents than a single London Underground carriage. What looks on the map like a dot between Girona and the sea turns out to be a scatter of stone farmhouses, each separated by cork-oak woods and meadows that still smell of wet earth after rain. The only through road is a narrow stripe of asphalt that twists upward until the Mediterranean appears suddenly, a silver blade between pine-covered hills.

Getting There, Getting Cash, Getting Fed

Approach from the C-35 at Hostalric; the turn-off is signed but easy to miss at 90 km/h. Twelve kilometres of climbing later the tarmac narrows and hedges give way to dry-stone walls built without mortar. There is no petrol station, no cashpoint, no Sunday bus. The nearest 24-hour ATM is back down the hill in Hostalric, so fill wallets before the ascent.

Most visitors arrive with camping gear. Camping Vila Village, two kilometres below the church, has 120 pitches beneath holm oaks and a small pool that saves lives in July. A night for two adults and a tent costs €24 low season, €34 August; booking is essential because French caravans claim every spare centimetre from mid-July to the third week of August. Mobile reception is patchy on every UK network; download offline maps before leaving Girona.

The village shop keeps Spanish hours: open 09:00–14:00, closes until 17:00, shuts again at 20:30. If you arrive on Sunday afternoon expecting milk, you will leave with dry cornflakes. Emergency provisions come from the campsite kiosk: overpriced baguettes, tinned mussels and ice cream that melts faster than you can pay.

What Passes for Entertainment

Entertainment is mostly self-generated. Way-marked footpaths exist but they are suggestions rather than promises. A useful loop starts behind the church, drops past the ruined masia of Can Borell, then climbs through holm-oak forest to an abandoned lime kiln. The circuit is 6 km with 250 m of ascent; allow two hours and carry water because the advertised spring is often dry by June. After rain the clay paths glue themselves to boots; expect to carry an extra kilo on each sole.

Mountain bikers share the same tracks with tractors and the occasional hunter’s 4×4. gradients are steady rather than brutal, but consecutive climbs punish anyone who attacked the first too hard. A sensible 25 km route follows the ridge south-east to the hamlet of Vallmanya, returns via the coll where buzzards thermalled overhead long before the first cyclist appeared.

The church itself is unlocked only for Saturday-evening mass. Step inside and the air temperature drops five degrees; the Romanesque font survives beneath later Baroque paint, proof that practicality usually wins over purity. From the small square outside you can see the sea on very clear days, 25 km away and 1,200 metres below.

Eating Without Tears

Local restaurants assume you speak Catalan or enough Spanish to negotiate. Can Puig, halfway between campsite and village, offers a weekday menu del día for €14; grilled chicken and chips is always available for children who refuse anything resembling seafood. Mas Gelat, five minutes further along the lane, serves three courses on a shaded terrace. Start with pa amb tomàquet – toasted country bread rubbed with tomato, garlic and olive oil – then try the fuet, a thin cured sausage milder than chorizo and acceptable even to spice-phobic palates. House wine arrives in a glass jug; it costs €2.50 and tastes better than anything served on the seafront for three times the price. Book at weekends; when the tables are full the owners simply lock the door.

Vegetarians survive on omelettes, salads and the reliable excellence of local tomatoes. Vegans should self-cater. Coeliacs will find the concept still novel; bring your own bread.

Festivals and Other Noise

The Festa Major erupts over the last weekend of August. A foam machine turns the football pitch into a bubble bath for children, the village band plays Catalan rock covers, and everyone eats fideuà – short noodles cooked like paella – from paper plates. Visitors are welcome but there are no bilingual announcements; if you want to join the communal supper buy tickets at the bar by Thursday because the headcount is taken seriously. Fireworks finish before midnight, astonishing anyone fresh from the coast where displays routinely continue until three.

October brings the mushroom pilgrimage. Locals disappear into the woods at dawn, return with baskets of rovellons and ceps, then argue over identification in the bar. The café owner will fry your honest harvest for €5 if you provide the fungi and the bread; poisonous specimens are returned with the same gravity as a bounced cheque.

When to Come, When to Leave

April and May smell of thyme and cut grass; daytime temperatures sit in the low twenties and night skies are properly dark. Astronomers set up telescopes outside the church and identify constellations without light pollution. October repeats the weather with added mushrooms.

July and August are hot but rarely suffocating; the altitude knocks three degrees off the coast. Afternoon thunderstorms build over the Pyrenees, arrive at tea-time and drench the roads for twenty minutes. The campsite pool fills with bodies whenever the sun reappears.

November to March is quiet, occasionally bleak. The bakery reduces production to twice a week, one bar closes altogether and English voices vanish. Frost whitens the meadows; the road to Hostalric can ice over after dusk. This is the trade-off for having the trails to yourself.

The Honest Verdict

Sant Feliu de Buixalleu will not change your life. There are no epic viewpoints, no Michelin stars, no ancient ruins requiring audio guides. What you get instead is continuity: bread that tastes of flour and firewood, neighbours who still borrow each’s ladder, darkness thick enough to need a torch. If that sounds like deprivation, stay on the coast. If it sounds like relief, bring cash, download maps and leave the hurry at the bottom of the hill.