Your private transfer collects you in Girona or Figueres and drives you out to Sant Pere Pescador, a low white village behind one of the longest, emptiest beaches in Catalonia, Spain. Drop your bag, walk five minutes, and you’re standing on sand that runs out of sight in both directions.

You get your in-person welcome briefing here, in English, Spanish, French or German: how the week works, what the weather is doing, and anything still on your mind. If your flight lands late, the briefing can happen over coffee the next morning instead.

Then the evening is yours. Find dinner, watch the light go pink over the Bay of Roses, and let the week start.

• Included today: private transfer from Girona or Figueres, in-person welcome briefing
• Accommodation: hotel in Sant Pere Pescador, breakfast included

The gentlest opening day you could ask for: 74 m (243 ft) of climbing over 17.3 km (10.7 miles), which you’ll barely notice. You start on the beach, boots in hand if you like, then turn inland onto the GR92 and into the flat farmland of the Empordà.

This is quiet, green, criss-crossed country, cut by narrow canals that are all that’s left of the Aiguamolls, the huge wetland that once covered this plain. Storks, herons, a great deal of birdsong, and the whole place to yourselves.

Then the trail delivers its surprise. You hike into Empúries, which is the only place on the Iberian Peninsula where the remains of a Greek city and a Roman city sit side by side. Greek traders landed here in the 6th century BC and made it one of the great ports of the Mediterranean; the Romans arrived during the Second Punic War, built their own city next door, and this is where the Romanization of Spain began. Mosaics, streets, an amphitheatre, a forum, and the sea just there beyond the walls. It’s worth the entrance fee and an hour of your day.

L’Escala is twenty minutes further on, a working seaside town that has been salting anchovies for centuries and is still not shy about it. Order them. Your hotel is a short stroll from the water.

• Hiking today: 17.3 km (10.7 miles), 74 m (243 ft) ascent, 71 m (233 ft) descent, 4 to 5 hours, easy
• On the way: the Aiguamolls canals, the Greek and Roman ruins of Empúries
• Accommodation: hotel in L’Escala, breakfast included

The big one, and the best one. You leave L’Escala on the GR92 and follow the shoreline south past a string of small coves until the land rears up at Punta Ventosa and the path runs right along the edge of the cliff. This is the stretch that changes people’s minds about the Costa Brava. Wind, pines bent flat by it, and the whole Gulf of Roses behind you.

Then the trail turns inland and starts climbing through the Montgrí massif, a bare limestone ridge that sits on its own between the plain and the sea. It’s a proper climb, and it buys you the best view on this coast. At the top there’s a castle: square, four round corner towers, begun in 1294 on the orders of King James II and abandoned in 1301 with the job half done. Seven hundred years later it’s still half done, and you can stand on it with the Pyrenees to the north, the Mediterranean to the east and the Empordà plain laid out flat below.

The descent to Torroella de Montgrí is quick, and the town at the bottom is a handsome medieval one with arcaded squares and somewhere to sit down.

Prefer a shorter day? There’s a route that skips the climb to the castle: 15 km (9.3 miles) and 367 m (1,204 ft) of ascent instead of 21 km (13 miles) and 649 m (2,129 ft), and it still takes in the Montgrí landscapes. You decide in the morning, over coffee, which is how these decisions should be made.

• Hiking today: 21 km (13 miles), 649 m (2,129 ft) ascent, 628 m (2,060 ft) descent, 6 to 7 hours, the hardest day of the tour
• Shorter option: 15 km (9.3 miles), 367 m (1,204 ft) ascent, skipping the castle
• On the way: the cliffs at Punta Ventosa, Montgrí Castle at around 300 m (984 ft)
• Accommodation: hotel in Torroella de Montgrí, breakfast included

Today is a day of four completely different landscapes, which is an unusual thing to get in 18.4 km (11.4 miles).

You start in the Montgrí and Medes Islands Natural Park, with the Medes Islands offshore: seven small limestone islets that have been a protected marine reserve since 1983 and are now one of the richest underwater sites in the western Mediterranean. Grouper, moray eels, rays and the occasional sunfish, all of it just out there while you hike past.

Then the River Ter, which you follow through apple orchards on flat, shaded paths until it reaches the sea. Then the sea itself: the long golden sweep of Pals beach, several kilometers of it, with the waves keeping time beside you and space to spread out even in high season.

And then the day’s one real effort, a steady climb up to Begur, a hilltop town of cobbled lanes and a ruined castle above it, built by people who came back from Cuba in the 19th century with money and ideas about architecture. It’s the prettiest overnight on the route. Climb to the castle at the top for sunset if your legs have anything left. They usually do.

• Hiking today: 18.4 km (11.4 miles), 320 m (1,050 ft) ascent, 152 m (499 ft) descent, 5 to 6 hours, easy to medium
• On the way: the Medes Islands, the River Ter, Pals beach
• Accommodation: hotel in Begur, breakfast included

If you only remember one day of this tour in ten years’ time, it’ll probably be this one.

It opens inland, in Mediterranean forest, on a path that smells of hot pine resin and wild rosemary. Then the trees thin and you come out above a cove you can only reach on foot: turquoise water, a few rocks to leave your things on. There’s another one twenty minutes later. And another.

Between the coves you hike into three of the loveliest villages on this coast in a row. Tamariu is tiny and sits in its own bay. Llafranc has a curve of sand and a promenade made for a long lunch. And Calella de Palafrugell, where you stop for the night, is the postcard: whitewashed arcades right on the water, fishing boats pulled up on the sand, and almost nothing built above two stories.

The 497 m (1,631 ft) of climbing comes in a dozen short pulls out of one cove and into the next, which is the nicest way to gain height there is. Pack the swimsuit on the outside where you can get at it.

• Hiking today: 14.7 km (9.1 miles), 497 m (1,631 ft) ascent, 670 m (2,198 ft) descent, 5 to 6 hours, medium
• On the way: hidden coves, Tamariu, Llafranc
• Accommodation: hotel in Calella de Palafrugell, breakfast included

The shortest hiking day of the tour, 11.2 km (7 miles), and the one everybody wishes they’d started later so it lasted longer. More coves, more clear water, and one long unspoiled beach you can only reach on foot, so it’s usually yours. The path runs through pine, holm oak and old olive trees, and the colors and the smell change every few hundred meters.

You finish in Palamós, a working fishing port and all the better for it. The trawlers come back in the late afternoon and the catch goes straight to the professionals’ fish auction, which you can watch on a weekday. The town’s prawns are genuinely famous in Spain, and there’s a small Fishing Museum on the quay that explains, properly and without fuss, what the sea has meant to this coast for a thousand years.

Then you sit on the harbor front with the day’s fresh catch in front of you, and the whole afternoon to enjoy it.

• Hiking today: 11.2 km (7 miles), 321 m (1,053 ft) ascent, 351 m (1,152 ft) descent, 3 to 4 hours, easy to medium
• On the way: hidden coves, an unspoiled beach, the fishing port of Palamós
• Accommodation: hotel in Palamós, breakfast included

Your last hiking day, back on the GR92, and it saves a few tricks for the end. The path threads along the rock above the water, in and out of golden coves and over stone beaches where the waves break hard enough to hear from above, and every so often it disappears into a small tunnel cut straight through the cliff. You duck, you go through, and you come out somewhere better.

It’s an easy day on paper, 106 m (348 ft) of climbing over 14.1 km (8.8 miles), and a slow one in practice because you keep stopping. There are seaside towns along the way to stop in properly, with a coffee and a look at the sea.

The finish is the wide bay of Sant Pol beach in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, where the coast opens up and turns turquoise in front of you and the obvious thing to do is walk straight into it with your boots in your hand. Sant Feliu itself is a proper town with a seafront promenade and a Benedictine monastery, and it’s a good place to finish a week: big enough for a celebratory dinner, small enough to walk everywhere.

• Hiking today: 14.1 km (8.8 miles), 106 m (348 ft) ascent, 109 m (358 ft) descent, 4 to 5 hours, easy
• On the way: the rock-cut tunnels, Sant Pol beach
• Accommodation: hotel in Sant Feliu de Guíxols, breakfast included

Breakfast, and a look at the numbers: six days, 96.7 km (60 miles), 1,967 m (6,453 ft) of climbing, one Greek city, one Roman city, one unfinished castle and an amount of swimming you didn’t plan for.

Buses run from Sant Feliu de Guíxols to Girona in about 50 minutes and to Barcelona in around an hour and a half, or you can add a private transfer and skip the schedule. If you’d rather not leave, stay on: Sant Feliu is a good town to do nothing in, and we can price extra nights for you.

• Today: end of tour after breakfast. Departure transfers can be added, see the prices below

Our Costa Brava hiking tour runs with start dates from March 1st to November 14th, which is the last day you can begin. July and August run as a tailor-made trip rather than the standard program, so ask us and we’ll quote your dates.

March and April are green, quiet and the best value, with wildflowers across the Empordà and cool hiking temperatures. May and June bring warm days and swimmable water. September has the warmest sea of the year and the crowds have gone. October and early November are soft, golden and calm, with excellent visibility from the Montgrí.

We grade this tour Good first trip, the gentlest of our four levels, and our partner in Catalonia rates it medium, level 3 out of 5. Across 6 hiking days you cover 96.7 km (60 miles) and climb 1,967 m (6,453 ft). Children on the tour should be at least 14 and used to regular exercise.

This is sure-footed hiking on good paths the whole way, so you don’t need mountain experience or a head for heights. What you do need is to be in shape for six hiking days back to back, and your free training plan is built to get you there.

What that means in practice: five of the six days climb less than 500 m (1,640 ft), and three of them climb less than 330 m (1,083 ft). The effort here is the repetition, not the steepness. Day 3 over the Montgrí massif is the exception at 21 km (13 miles) and 649 m (2,129 ft), and it has a 15 km (9.3 mile) shorter option you can take on the morning.

The ground underfoot is about 95% trail and 5% pavement. You’ll hike on soft sand, on rocky stone beaches, on smooth stone coastal paths with a wall on the sea side, on dirt trails through pine, oak and olive forest, and on flat farm tracks beside irrigation canals. A few short sections follow quiet roads into and out of villages. The Montgrí climb is open, sunny ground, so pack a hat, sunscreen and plenty of water for that one.

Your luggage is driven between hotels every single day, so you never hike with more than a daypack. Leave your bag at reception after breakfast and it’ll be at the next hotel when you arrive.

In the daypack: plenty of water, lunch or the makings of one, sun hat, sunscreen, a light windproof layer and a first aid kit. And a swimsuit and a quick-dry towel, which on this route count as core equipment.

Days 2, 3, 4 and 7 follow the GR92, the long-distance trail that runs the length of the Catalan coast, and the red and white waymarking on it’s generally excellent. You also get every route loaded into a navigation app built for your trip, with GPS tracks, written route notes and the local information for each stage, all of it usable offline.

Breakfast is included every morning. Lunches and dinners are yours to choose, on purpose, because half the pleasure of this coast is picking where to eat and the answer changes every night. If you’d rather not think about it, half board adds dinner every night for €275 per person, drinks not included.

Things worth ordering as you go south: salted anchovies in L’Escala, which the town has built a reputation on; rice cooked in fish stock anywhere along the coast; the prawns in Palamós, which are a genuinely famous Spanish ingredient and are landed a hundred meters from where you eat them; and a glass of white from the Empordà vineyards you hiked past on day 2.