June 12, 2026 · 5 min read
The Most Beautiful Coves of the Costa Brava (and What Comes After)
I cook for families along this coastline, which means I spend a good part of summer between the kitchen and the water. These are the coves I send guests to before lunch, chosen for their calm, their colour and the way the light falls. They also happen to sit close to the small ports where I buy what I cook that same evening.
Coves worth the detour
Around Begur, three coves do most of the work. Sa Riera is the easy one, a wide curve of sand with a fishing slipway at one end and clear water that stays shallow for a long way. Aiguablava is the postcard: turquoise over white sand, framed by pines, calm enough that children stop asking to leave. Sa Tuna is the quiet sister, a pebble cove of old fishermen's houses where the sea turns a deep blue by midday.
If you want fewer footprints, Cala Pola sits a little north, reached through a pine wood and worth the short walk down. It is small, sheltered and the kind of place where an hour becomes three. I tell guests to go early, take water, and treat the descent as part of the day rather than an obstacle.
Where the day slows down
Further south the coast opens up. Tossa de Mar has the most dramatic bay on this stretch, its medieval walls of the Vila Vella dropping straight to the water, a town you can swim beneath and then walk through. It earns the photographs, and the old quarter rewards a slow late afternoon once the beach empties.
Platja d'Aro is the lively counterpoint, a long beach with everything a family needs within reach, good for the days when nobody wants to organise anything. A short walk away, S'Agaró is its elegant opposite: a planned seaside enclave of white villas and the Camí de Ronda path threading above the rocks. One beach for the children, one stroll for the grown-ups.
Back at the villa
A morning by the water decides the menu more than I do. Those small fishing ports keep the table honest: I buy whatever came in that day, and a cove near Begur or a beach near Platja d'Aro quietly sets what we eat. Often it is something simple done well, fish grilled over coals, prawns with garlic and oil, a rice that has been waiting for the catch.
By the time the salt has dried on everyone's skin, the table is set on the terrace and nobody is in a hurry. That is the whole idea: the sea in the morning, a long lunch after, and a dinner that tastes of the exact stretch of coast you spent the day on.