Why Catalonia is the perfect soft-cycling adventure for 2026

From a distance it’s not immediately clear where the rider ends and his bike begins. Silhouetted against the rising sun, the two merge in a symphony of sinewy, Lycra-clad limbs and range-topping carbon fibre. This cycling centaur stands at the viewpoint of the hilltop monastery taking in the sea of green below. He’s clearly a pro — a not uncommon sight here in the northeastern corner of Catalonia. I, manifestly, am not. Joining him with my chunky e-bike and billowing jacket, I’m greeted cursorily and then, with a click and a whirr, he’s gone.

He’ll likely be tackling a training ride of several hours, perhaps into the foothills of the Pyrenees — discernible as a faint smudge in the far distance. My itinerary is considerably less demanding: a six-day, indulgently circuitous meander in the opposite direction, blending medieval hilltop towns with sparkling Costa Bravan coastline. I’ll be averaging around 20 miles a day; my departed friend — and the peloton of elite riders who’ll pass a little way west of here when Catalonia hosts the Tour de France’s curtain-raising Grand Départ this summer — could probably knock that off in half an hour.

I linger at the viewpoint, relishing the warmth of a sun that was still slumbering when I embarked on my battery-assisted climb half an hour before. As monasteries go, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Angels isn’t much of a looker: pale, blocky, with faint echoes of a Victorian workhouse. Yet, given what it’s endured over its six-century life span, the austere aesthetic can be forgiven.

The monastery was looted in the 18th century during the War of Spanish Succession; torched by French troops who besieged nearby Girona in the Peninsular War a century later; then rebuilt and attacked again during the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s. By the time Salvador Dalí, the region’s most famous son, staged an uncharacteristically subdued wedding here in 1958, calm had been restored.

Through much of this turbulence, the view has remained largely unchanged. Waves of deep green radiate out in every direction — the oak and cork forests of the Gavarres, a protected, mountainous swath that extends from the city of Girona all the way to the placid coves and fishing villages of the Catalan coastline. The monastery’s lone approach road weaves through the trees like a silvery-grey serpent in the undergrowth. I watch as the ribbons of mist gathered in the forested folds gently dissipate, then hop back on my bike and set off down the mountainside.

Bastion of surrealism

For Dalí’s wedding, his Russian-born muse and bride to be, Gala, drove him to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of the Angels in a Cadillac. The outsized steel-blue vehicle is still parked at the castle — now a museum — in which she lived. Gala Dalí Castle is located in the village of Púbol, around six miles away, and is my next stop. You might expect such a car to strike an incongruous note amid the towering plane trees and redoubtable stone walls of an 11th-century Catalan fortress. In fact, as I discover when I park my bike outside and join the steady flow of visitors entering the castle, it’s entirely in keeping, thanks to its Dalí connection.

The Tramuntana wind that surges down through the Pyrenees, airbrushing the region’s cobalt skies of cloud and sharpening the outlines of the honey-coloured stone settlements, is said to inspire madness — and genius. Salvador Dalí straddled both camps, and having purchased the castle as a gift for Gala in 1969, the master of surrealism wasn’t about to hold back. Within the castle grounds, I encounter 10ft-tall elephant sculptures teetering on spindly legs, trompe-l’œil ceilings and doors, and art works that include a faux medieval tapestry depicting monks worshipping a flaming giraffe. On display in one room is a chess set with silver-embossed pieces shaped like severed digits. Gala, who died in 1982, is interred in the basement crypt.

As a key Dalí pilgrimage site, Púbol lacks the sleepy authenticity of so many of the other settlements I encounter. Sant Jordi Desvalls, however, better fits this mould. My ride there — a few miles north — is enlivened by the delicate white flowers of sweet rocket lining the traffic-free lanes. Like many of the region’s hilltop towns, Sant Jordi Desvalls appears hunched and inward looking on first impression — as if assuming the architectural brace position. There’s a reason the towns of northeast Catalonia are laid out like this: defence. The region has been forged from faith and vigilance. For centuries, threats swirled around this strategically desirable, politically fragmented corner of the Iberian peninsula; if pirate raiders, rural bandits or rival feudal lords didn’t clean you out, then sorties from across the French border surely would. Braced for anything, villages and towns of the area often feature a heavily fortified church with a watchtower in its bell tower. The subtext being: pray — but best keep an eye out, too.

But there’s no need for such guardedness when I park up at Sant Jordi Desvalls in search of lunch provisions. The wood-fronted grocery store at the top of town is third-generation family-run. It’ll be four if Albert Font, 39, ever commits to taking over from his 69-year-old mother, Isabel. He laughs as he tells me this, glancing over at Isabel, who sighs affectionately from behind the till.

Until the 1930s, the building was a much-prized cinema. “The whole village would turn out,” Albert tells me. “Then, once the film finished, the reel would be sped by motorbike to a meeting point midway between here and the neighbouring village and switched.” Through such roguish ingenuity, the frugal villagers could save on costly rental fees.

I depart the store with a pannier full of freshly baked bread and llonganissa (a slender, spiced regional variant of chorizo), which I eat in the shade of the imposing church as the clocktower clangs its way through an early afternoon hour.

Air of mystery

The beauty of unhurried cycling lies in its capacity for spontaneity. I’m reminded of this as I’m departing Sant Jordi Desvalls and my eyes are drawn to a barn-sized structure by the roadside. Stepping into the cool, I discover something between an art gallery, an antique store and a tapas bar. A dizzying assortment of sculptures, abstract paintings and furniture is assembled within, lit by slanting beams of light from small, high windows.

Beneath a huge Warholian banana mounted on exposed brickwork stands co-owner Luis Mohedano. Relocating from Barcelona, the 64-year-old artist started Aire Arte with his partner Laura Sanchez, a local woman — they named it after their two chickens, she tells me. Dressed in a black wool top and jeans, with his cropped grey hair and stubble uniting around amiably creased features, Luis digs around in the back and brings out a slender bottle, no bigger than the type dessert wine comes in. It’s sealed, with a woman’s face and some words I can’t discern painted cartoonishly on the outside. “Aire del siglo veinte,” says Luis — ‘20th-century air’. A mounted article from a Catalan newspaper elaborates, describing how the artist had 1,000 of the individually decorated bottles sealed and verified prior to the turn of the millennium, then kept them in storage over the intervening years. “The bottles sell for €60,000,” Laura says, proudly. Lucrative art conjured literally out of thin air? Dalí would surely have approved.

It’s a flat, leisurely seven-mile ride back to Madremanya and the hotel in which I’m based for the next two nights. I last saw the little medieval hamlet in the gloom of pre-dawn. Now, lit by a sinking sun, it glows the fierce gold of the wheat fields that encircle it. Windows are shuttered and the chunkily cobbled lanes are as silent as a pre-shootout scene in a Western. I briefly wonder whether I’m not so much the only hotel guest as the village’s sole occupant.

But, come dinner, served in La Plaça de Madremanya’s low-slung vaulted stone restaurant, around half a dozen tables are lively with conversation interspersed with appreciative silence for the Catalan food. I order the creamy cannelloni filled with roast chicken and drizzled in a truffled béchamel sauce, followed by a delectable crema catalana — a lighter, lemon-infused take on crème brûlée.

Thereafter, I find my cycling trip morphing into a food tour punctuated by the occasional outbreak of pedalling. Here, in a region lauded for its gastronomy, progress is measured in meals, not miles. Grilled rabbit skewers, foraged mushrooms and a glass of sweet local cava are sampled in Monells the next day. I’m joined by 53-year-old Santi Puig and his 18-year-old daughter Jana, whom I find sitting outside their restaurant in the village centre, enjoying the lull after a busy weekend.

Monells is film-set pristine — not a patch of stonework unscrubbed or flowering climbing plant untrained. The cinematic comparison proves apt: just over a decade ago, one of Spanish cinema’s highest-grossing films was set here, a romantic comedy entitled Ocho Apellidos Catalans (‘Eight Catalan Surnames’). It made a star of the village’s focal Jaume I square, and the broad arched walkways and handsome, ivy-draped houses that enclose it.

“This, officially, is one of the prettiest villages in Spain,” declares Santi, wringing his pendulous beard. As a couple of cyclists kitted out in matching taupe Lycra and road bikes freewheel into the square, I ask Santi about the region’s two-wheeled credentials and whether he’s aware of the Tour de France’s impending arrival. “Of course,” he says. “The sunshine, the mountains, the sea; this is cycling perfection.”

A couple of miles south east of Monells lies La Bisbal d’Empordà, the capital of Baix Empordà county, in which the remaining days of my trip play out. Together with neighbouring Alt Empordà, this forms a corner of Catalonia to which locals feel a powerful attachment. Many I meet speak of being Empordàn first, Catalan second. Spanish, of course, trails a distant third.

This sense of regional identity is manifested in distinct dishes and delicacies. I taste the latter at Pastisseria Sans – Bisbalenc as I’m passing through Bisbal on day four. The bakery sits among the old kiln chimneys and ceramics shops on Avinguda de les Voltes and across the street from the handsome 19th-century stone arcade for which the thoroughfare is named. A row of identical, lantern-adorned arches longer than a football pitch lines the road. In the shaded, wind-warmed hinterland within, groups of old men sit around cafe tables earnestly engaged in the most important job of the day: inconsequential chatter.

I watch them from the window of the pastisseria as I overindulge on Bisbalenc: a crumbly concoction of puff pastry, pine nuts, crunchy sugar and cabell d’àngel (angel’s hair) — a sweet, stringy jam made from caramelised pumpkin fibres. Then I stroll through the labyrinthine streets of Bisbal’s Ciutat Vella (‘old town’) district as noisy pulses of jackdaws rise and fall from the 18th-century bell tower.

Sleeping under the stars

As I continue eastwards, the land opens out. Hedgerows and sinuous lanes give way to open road and farmland. Three miles east of Bisbal, I encounter Quim Alemany. Dressed in a waterproof jacket and trousers, he’s using a pressure hose to clean a wheelbarrow of huge leeks at the roadside, the spray splintering the sunlight into a glistening halo.

He smiles warmly from beneath a thick, greying moustache as I greet him. We get chatting and he enthusiastically talks me through the bounty around him: the leeks, which go to Bisbal market on a Friday; carrots in a rainbow of colours; cabbages; spring onions; and some of the dozens of varieties of tomato he grows, which, he insists proudly, are in demand as far south as Barcelona.

Quim is no ordinary Catalan rural worker, it transpires. An “almost retired” investor specialising in US stocks and AI, he’s rented the handful of acres that surround him to reconnect with the land of his birth. “I’ve worked all my life sitting in front of a screen,” says the 65-year-old. “Now, I work in the open air and I work for pleasure. It can be hard but every day I see the sun come up and in the late afternoon I see it set. It’s good for the soul.”

He talks of Spain as a foreign country, and of his pride in Catalonia — where his family have lived for more than a millennium. I ask him what he feels defines this part of the country. The fertile soil? The independence of spirit? “Hospitality,” he says, with barely a pause. Tapping his heart, he adds: “We have it in here to welcome people. I think you’re finding this, no?”

Leaving my enlightened stockbroker to his leeks, I push on, with the hilltop towns of Peratallada and Pals my target. The former, a stout labyrinth of ivy-coated arches and slender passageways through which I carefully wheel my bike, takes its name from the Catalan for ‘carved stone’. The moniker is apt — in places it seems less a town, more an eruption of molten sandstone that’s hardened over the centuries and become habitable.

As I’m departing, the wind picks up and I can detect the faint scent of sea in the air. The frothy fringe of Catalonia’s coastline duly reveals itself from the summit square of Pals, a 15-minute ride east. The town is arranged in an elegant spiral with a narrowing corkscrew of cobbles that demands my e-bike’s strongest setting to scale. Popping out at the lofty Plaça de l’Església at the top of the town, I pull my bike on to its stand amid the cypress and olive trees and follow the sound of animated laughter to family-run El Pedró.

The restaurant commands a shaded backstreet near the pinnacle of the town. I take my place at one of the parasoled tables and mirror the menu choices of the multi-generational Catalan family next to me. Succulent snails, served with a tomato sauce and aioli, arrive. This is followed by an indulgent terra i mar (surf and turf) casserole the colour and texture of melted chocolate, bobbing with cuttlefish, prawns, braised beef and plump rice that’s grown nearby.

Beyond sated, I tackle the eight postprandial miles to coastal Llafranc ­— my final base — at a pace best described as geological. It’s been a dozen years since I was last on the Costa Brava and I’m apprehensive. Yet I’m reassured to find all is as it was: the hand-painted fishing boats, hauled up on the sand; the whitewashed cottages gleaming in the sunshine; the precipitous cliffs and teetering pines entwined in their precarious union.

At the advent of Spain’s great costa holidaying experiment in the 1950s, landmark hotels such as mine — Llafranc’s century-old Hotel Terramar — attracted A-listers such as Sophia Loren, Kirk Douglas and Elizabeth Taylor. Today, the little resort town, bookended by steep headlands barely half a mile apart, is refined rather than starry.

I pedal through the umbrella pines on the seafront and past the dinky marina, and use the last bar of my e-bike battery to reach Far de Sant Sebastià, a 19th-century lighthouse perched 560ft up on the town’s northern promontory. The views up and down the neatly serrated coastline are as cheering as they are stirring, the imprint of civilisation effortlessly eclipsed by a deep-pile carpet of green.

On my final morning I venture south, past the low-rise cubist houses of neighbouring Calella de Palafrugell and on to the wild Cap Roig peninsula. I’m heading to Cala Estreta, a fabled beach a couple of miles beyond. It’s some of the toughest cycling of the trip, as smooth asphalt gives way to a sandy cycle path veined with roots. At one point, I have to get off and push. But at length, I’m greeted by a modest sign and a little bike rack.

A shoulder-width path through the pines leads me to the water’s edge and a perfect ‘m’ of interlocking sandy coves. They’re stroked by cyan waters so clear I can pick out individual pebbles from the depths. The beach is deserted but for a figure in a salt-encrusted white fedora. He leans against a makeshift driftwood bench, ankles crossed, hands behind head, staring out to sea. He has a chalk-white beard and a manner of impregnable contentment.

This is Francesc Cots; Quico, for short. A notable local figure, as it turns out. For the past 15 years, Quico has lived on the beach, bedding down on the sand, or in the southern corner in an old fisherman’s hut with a vaulted brick ceiling. The 62-year-old lives off unsolicited donations of food, water or a few euros from locals and travellers passing through — trusting in the region’s benign climate and generosity of spirit to get by.

Quico offers me a coffee and I join him on the sand. He tells me about the all-pervading peace and the nights when he sits, mouth agape, beneath what he describes as a “dome of thousands of stars”. He’s relegated the rapacious materialism of 21st-century life to an irrelevance, and it’s hard not to feel a pang of envy.

Loneliness never troubles him, he insists. “Here,” he says, swinging his arm in an arc that encompasses forest and beach, sea and sky. “Here, I have everything I need.”

Cycling trips for beginners

Where to start

Cycling trips can be a rewarding way to widely explore a region while still immersing yourself in its culture and cuisine — but choose with care. Most itineraries will be badged according to the strenuousness of the terrain and/or distances; go for ‘easy’ or ‘moderate’ as a beginner and consider the e-bike option even if you’re a seasoned cyclist. It’s better to have the power at your disposal and not need it than vice versa — particularly in hilly landscapes.

How to prepare

Only consider bringing your own bike if you’re fastidious about your set-up or are driving to the destination and well versed in transferring bikes. It’s costly and stressful to fly with one, while bike space on trains is usually meagre and oversubscribed. Take a puncture repair kit and know how to use it. If possible, rent a GPS unit with preloaded routes, as this is preferable to reading from route notes. Safety gear is essential: bring a helmet and reflective gear as a minimum, to make yourself conspicuous on narrow rural or mountain roads.

What to expect

Catalonia’s cycle-friendly reputation is well deserved. The climate ensures year-round biking is a pleasure — spring and autumn have optimal temperatures and fewer crowds. Surfaces are well maintained and motorists are generally understanding. Most cafes and bars will be happy to fill your water bottles, which you should do at every opportunity. Cycling-themed cafes, often offering mechanical assistance, are also springing up all the time, and hotels and guesthouses commonly offer secure storage.