Costa Brava and Tossa de Mar
A 192 km loop
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Why this ride
Scenery first, traffic last, with checkpoints that make sense on a bike. Out of Barcelona and back again: 192 km, roughly 3 h 30 in the saddle. Much of it runs through woodland.
Roadbook
- Barcelona
start
Start with the grid. Barcelona's Eixample, the nineteenth-century extension designed by Ildefons Cerdà, is a field of identical square blocks with the corners cut off, so that every junction becomes a small octagonal plaza. It was meant to be egalitarian and airy, and for a rider it is wonderfully legible: you can always work out where you are, and the wide avenues let a motorcycle breathe. The city also has more motorbikes and scooters than almost any other in Europe, so drivers are used to them and parking for two wheels is routine rather than a fight.
Gaudí's buildings are scattered among the blocks, with the Sagrada Família still under construction after more than a century, and the Casa Batlló and La Pedrera on the Passeig de Gràcia. Beyond them the old Gothic quarter holds the Roman foundations of the city, and Montjuïc, the hill over the harbour, gives you a view across the container ships to the sea. The traffic is dense, so take your time, watch for tram tracks and wet paint on pedestrian crossings, which are slick when it rains.
Getting out is the real skill. The Ronda de Dalt and Ronda Litoral are fast ring roads that can jam badly at rush hour, and it is best to leave before eight in the morning or after ten. Once through, the hills of Collserola, the large natural park behind the city, offer twisting roads and long views. Further out the Montseny and the Garraf coast give proper riding, with hairpins, cork oak and the smell of pine and dry herbs.
Fuel is everywhere. Eat late: the city does lunch at two and dinner at nine or ten. For a quick coffee stop, any neighbourhood bar will do, with a cortado and a small pastry at a counter. The ride that starts here heads for a prehistoric rock shelter inland, a good reminder that this coast was inhabited long before the Romans arrived.
- Tossa de Mar
food
Tossa is the town that made me understand why people fall for the Costa Brava. A ring of medieval walls and round towers, the Vila Vella, sits on a rocky headland above a curve of beach, and the old town behind it still has the tangled lanes of a fishing village. The walls date to the Middle Ages and were built to keep out pirates, which tells you something about the sea they were guarding against. A lighthouse crowns the point, and the whole thing glows orange in the evening light.
Hollywood found it too. The 1951 film Pandora and the Flying Dutchman was shot here, with Ava Gardner, and there is a statue of the actress on the hillside above the old town that people still photograph. Artists, including Marc Chagall, spent time in Tossa in the 1930s, and the town has been polite about its fame ever since, mostly by being busy in July and August and calm the rest of the year.
For riders the draw is the road. The GI-682 between Tossa and Sant Feliu de Guíxols is one of the best-known coast roads in Catalonia, a narrow ribbon of tight bends cut into cliffs, with pine and holm oak crowding the edge and glimpses of small coves between the trees. It rewards a smooth rhythm rather than speed, since the corners tighten without warning and the surface can be gritty after rain. In peak summer it clogs with coaches and rental cars, so ride it early in the morning or in the shoulder months from April to June and again in late September. Winter days can be wonderfully empty, though you will meet the odd damp patch under the trees.
The other direction, toward Lloret de Mar, is a very different mood: a bigger resort town with long beaches and plenty of traffic. Tossa itself has about five thousand residents, so it has the usual run of fuel, cafes and parking, though parking near the old town is hard on a summer weekend and a bike is much easier to squeeze in than a car. Sit with a coffee or a cold drink down by the beach, look up at the walls, and take a minute before you commit to that coast road, because once you are on it the sea is below you and the cliff is right beside your shoulder.
- Barcelona finish