What's on in Costa Brava

The Costa Brava is the rugged northern end of the Catalan coast, running from Blanes up to the French border in a string of pine-backed coves, working fishing harbours and Greco-Roman ruins. The name means "wild coast", and it earns it: between the busier resort towns of Lloret de Mar and Tossa de Mar you'll find Cadaqués, the white town where Dalí kept a house, the ancient port of Empúries, and dozens of tiny calas reached only on foot or by boat. It feels older and greener than the Costa del Sol, with the Pyrenees never far behind the beaches.

The fiesta calendar leans hard into the sea and the seasons. June peaks with the Fira de la Gamba de Palamós, the town's celebration of its famous deep-water prawn, and with Sant Joan on 23 June, when bonfires and fireworks light up every beach for the shortest night of the year. Through July and August the old Catalan dances come out of hiding — look for Sardanes a la Fresca, the open-air evening sardana sessions, and the town festa majors that take over Palamós and the fishing villages with concerts, processions and late-night verbenes.

Getting here is straightforward: Girona–Costa Brava (GRO) sits right behind the coast and takes plenty of UK flights, while Barcelona (BCN) is an hour or so south with far more choice. The local buses cover the main towns well enough, but a hire car is what unlocks the Cap de Creus headland, the inland villages of the Empordà and the coves you can't otherwise reach.

Whether you're in a Palamós apartment, a Lloret hotel or a stone farmhouse in the Empordà hills, this page tracks what's actually happening while you're on the Costa Brava — the festivals worth building a day around and the village fiestas worth wandering into.