Lloret de Mar: A Day Trip from Barcelona, and the Cove Most People Miss

Lloret de Mar: A Day Trip from Barcelona, and the Cove Most People Don't Know

Barcelona's beaches in summer are a particular kind of experience. At three in the afternoon on Barceloneta the towels are touching. Bogatell is good, Mar Bella better, and this season Sant Sebastià was better still — but only up to a point. Whichever beach you pick, somewhere in the middle of summer Barcelona wears you down and you start looking for a cove that's close but different, something along the lines of Sitges. This is for anyone looking for that cove. If you're one of them, or if you want to find the places not everyone knows on your trip to Barcelona, you're in the right place.

Lloret de Mar is an hour up the coast. It has a reputation, and the reputation isn't wrong — the centre is loud, fast, built for people who came here to be loud and fast. But Lloret has a coastline, and the coastline has a path, and the path has a cove at the end of it.

That's the trip. Here's how to do it.

Getting there

Buses leave from Barcelona Nord, the terminal near Arc de Triomf, roughly every half hour. The journey takes about an hour. It's the fastest way, and unless you want to spend your day changing trains in Blanes, it's also the simplest.

One thing matters more than everything else here: buy your ticket in advance.

The buses fill completely, especially in summer and on weekends. Turning up at the terminal hoping to get on the next departure means watching two or three leave without you. That's ninety minutes of your day gone before it started. Book online at destinos.moventis.es, or walk to the terminal the day before and buy it there.

If your schedule allows it, go on a weekday. It won't empty Lloret out, but it definitely thins the crowd.

Walking away from the centre

From where the bus drops you, it's about ten minutes down to the sea.

The first beach you reach is the long one, the main one. It's well set up — loungers, kayaks, ice cream, plenty for families with kids. If that's what you came for, you've already arrived.

If it isn't, keep going. At the right-hand end of the beach a small path starts climbing into the rocks. It's narrow, a little uneven, nothing difficult. Walk it for ten minutes.

The sound goes first. Music, traffic, the general noise of a beach in season — it thins out, and then it stops. That silence is how you know you're getting close.

Cala Banys

The path opens onto a rocky cove. Below, the water. Above, built into the rocks, a cocktail bar — @barcalabanys.

That's all of it, and it's more than enough. You swim, you sit on the rocks, you climb up for a drink and take in the view from the terrace. There are toilets, which sounds like a small thing but makes the difference between an hour and a full afternoon.

There's just no food. Beyond the Catalan standards — green olives and crisps, tinned fish, almonds and peanuts — there's nothing. Plan around that.

Where to eat

Two options, depending on what you want from the rest of the day.

You can walk back into the centre and eat on Plaça de l'Església, the old square beside the Church of Sant Romà. It's touristy — properly touristy — but the tapas hold up. The patatas bravas are good, the calamares a la andaluza are better, and sitting under the awnings with the church in front of you is a fair trade for the crowd.

Or, if you've had your fill of tapas in Barcelona, go to Pizzeria Marghe — open since 1889. Tiny place, warm people, very good pizza. This is my recommendation, without question.

What to bring

Water shoes, if you have them — the cove is rock, not sand. Something to sit on. Sun protection, because the shade is limited and the rocks hold heat. Cash isn't necessary.

And so you don't have to leave earlier than you'd like, buy a return ticket in advance. The last buses back to Barcelona fill up the same way the outbound ones do.

What it comes down to

Lloret isn't a quiet town. Nobody should go expecting one. But a ten-minute walk takes you to the one place the crowd doesn't follow.

The real reason to come is the sea. There's no sand here — you get in from the rocks, and with no sand there's nothing to cloud the water. You can see the bottom from the surface. Bring a snorkel if you have one; between the rocks there's a whole world down there, enough to keep you in the water for an hour without noticing.

Barcelona's sea doesn't come close. That's not an easy thing to say about a city I love, but an hour up the coast the difference is obvious the moment you put your face in.

And Barcelona is still only an hour behind you. That's part of it too.