Area description for Palafrugell

Calella de Palafrugell

Calella de Palafrugell is a small holiday resort and fishing village in Catalonia, Spain on the Costa Brava, near Palafrugell and a short distance along the coast from Llafranc. It should not be confused with the larger, more commercialised resort of Calella, which is further south towards Barcelona.

Calella de Palafrugell has an excellent setting and, whilst busy in the summer season, it does not have the large hotels and mass tourism of other Costa Brava resorts such as Lloret de Mar. The coastline of the town stretches some two kilometres south to the El Golfet beach - part of the Cap Roig headland where beautiful Botanical gardens are located.

Like much of the picturesque section of the Costa Brava, north of Palamos and south of L'Estartit, Calella has moved steadily upmarket in recent times and offers some very high quality restaurants at prices to match. The beaches are Blue Flag standard.

Palafrugell

This is why we have tried to capture the spirit of the Costa Brava and the Pirineu de Girona through a selection of the places that best summarise the personality of the Girona regions. In these places, visitors can enjoy the chance to get close to the essence of this small country, washed by the sea and protected by the mountains, without having to spend a lifetime here.

This selection of the places that could summarise the identity of our area is materialised in those we consider to be the 25 main attractions of the Girona regions, that bring together various aspects of the territory, from cultural to landscape features, without forgetting gastronomy or social events.

Costa Brava

Cap de Creus Natural Park
Sant Pere de Rodes
Cadaqués
Aiguamolls de l’Empordà Natural Park
Archaeological site at Empúries
The Medes Isles and the Montgrí massif
The mediaeval villages of Pals and Peratallada
Pottery in La Bisbal
Old Town Centre of Girona
Iberian settlement at Ullastret
The small bays of Begur and Palafrugell, and Sant Sebastià lighthouse
The Old Town of Tossa de Mar
The Botanical Gardens of the maritime Selva
The Dalinian Triangle
Banyoles Lake
Torroella de Montgrí and Peralada music festivals

Palafrugell has a very broad network of shops. Most of them are family establishments which have been open for many years and which prioritise personal service.

They usually open from Tuesday to Saturday, mornings and afternoons, and Sunday morning (making the most of the weekly market) and they close on Mondays. In July and August they also open on Mondays.

There is also a daily market where you can buy fruit and vegetables, meat and fish, and which is open Tuesday to Saturday mornings. The weekly market is held on Sundays.

Girona

The region of Griona is made up of 8 counties, in turn nowadays comprising a total of 221 municipalities.

The Cerdanya, Garrotxa and Ripollès are the three counties in the Pirineu de Girona, where one can visit typical mountain towns and villages with mediaeval buildings, such as Besalú, Santa Pau, Beget, Ripoll, Camprodon, Sant Joan de les Abadesses, Molló and Queralbs. We should also mention the city of Olot itself, with its intense commercial and cultural life.

The Costa Brava includes the Alt Empordà, Baix Empordà, Gironès, Pla de l’Estany and Selva counties. The diversity of landscape has shaped the different town typologies in this part of the region. Accordingly, one can find small nuclei with a charm of their own such as Peratallada, Peralada, Monells, Ullastret and Pals, seafaring towns such as El Port de la Selva, Palafrugell and Cadaqués, major tourist centres such as Roses, Empuriabrava, Blanes, Lloret de Mar, L’Estartit, Platja d’Aro, Sant Feliu de Guíxols and Palamós, and characteristic towns and cities such as La Bisbal (the pottery capital), Figueres (with its original and unique Dalí Museum) and Girona (with one of Europe’s most widely visited Jewish quarters).

All these municipalities, connected to each other by a good communications network, await you so as to show you their historical and cultural heritage and their cuisine and involve you in the activities that can be carried out in them.

Costa Brava/Catalonia

Like a canvas where nature has intended to combine with exquisite delicacy the intense green of the pine groves, the massive steadfastness of the rocks, the softness of the golden sands and the deep, dazzling blue of the sea - that is the Costa Brava.
From Blanes to Portbou, the list of things to do includes the Cap de Creus Natural Park, with the monastery of Sant Pere de Rodes and the village of Cadaqués, the marshes of the Aiguamolls de l’Empordà Natural Park and the Medes Islands Marine Reserve, and unique settings such as Roses bay, the ruins of Empúries, the coves of Begur and Palafrugell, Sant Sebastià lighthouse, Cap Roig gardens, the Old Town of Tossa de Mar and the Santa Clotilde, Pinya de Rosa and Marimurtra botanical gardens, between Lloret and Blanes.

Do not forget to visit the shopping and leisure centres at Roses, L’Escala, L’Estartit, Palamós, Platja d’Aro, Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Lloret de Mar and Blanes.

Our route will lead us to discover places such as Peralada – with its castle and casino –, Figueres, with its museum devoted to the universal artist Salvador Dalí, medieval villages such as Pals, Peratallada and Púbol, the pottery shops at La Bisbal, the scenery of the Pla de l’Estany county with its capital Banyoles, and the city of Girona, with its cathedral and internationally famous Jewish Quarter.

And on top of all this, one of the features we can display with greatest pride is the quality of our beaches and coastal waters, the result of considerable work put into quality monitoring and water treatment which has over and over again been accoladed for its quality by the European Environmental Education Foundation, as seen from the many blue flags which flutter in the breeze along our coastline.

In addition, the beaches of Lloret de Mar and Fenals have obtained the “Q” certificate of tourism quality awarded by the ICTE, and the beaches of Santa Margarida, Salatar, El Rastell, La Nova, La Punta, Canyelles-Bonifaci and L'Almadrava (in Roses) and those of Sant Antoni, Cala Cristus-Ses Torretes, Torre Valentina and Es Monestri (in Calonge) have won the EMAS environmental quality certificate.