Spain’s Costa Dorada stretches along the Catalan shore for more than 100 miles from Barcelona’s southern suburbs to the Ebro Delta. There are big names along this golden coast — Sitges, Tarragona and Salou (home to the Port Aventura theme park) — and a series of seaside resorts such as Calafell, Torredembarra and L’Ametlla de Mar, lesser known to the Brits but loved by the Spanish for their laid-back hospitality and quiet beauty.
Then there’s Cambrils: a town with a necklace of nine beaches, acres of green space and a reputation as the gastronomic centre of the Costa Dorada, where you can have two weeks for less than the cost of a high-season return flight to Barcelona.
You’ll spend a fortnight, departing on May 7, in the Apartamentos Costa Verde — simple, self-catering apartments overlooking the blue flag Vilafortuny beach — and it’ll cost you £362pp (thomascook.com). Bus transfers are £22pp return (busplana.com).
A ten-minute walk through the palms to the south brings you to Playa del Cavet: smaller, quieter and with a good chiringuito (beach bar) called Copacabana; and another ten minutes along the boardwalk brings you to the quintessential Spanish urban beach experience of Playa del Regueral, where families set up camp on flat sands, with sheltered, shallow water, busy beach bars and all the toys for rent.
The seaside dining in Cambrils has a reputation to maintain, and perhaps the best of the chiringuitos is Restaurant del Mar, at the back of the beach in the campsite Camping Joan and well worth the 45-minute walk from the port for the arroz negro (£15) and the chipirones or baby squid (£10; xiringuito.campingjoan.com).
Advertisement
For your big night out, book Macarrilla: the fish restaurant next to the supermarket on the Calle de les Barques. Like all the best restaurants, its backstreet location and nondescript exterior reveals nothing of the avant-garde experience that awaits within, with a hero tasting menu that includes langoustine, beurre blanc and caviar; a soft-shell crab suquet; and a dish of octopus, eel and cod cheeks (£73). Otherwise, try the three-course lunch — a bargain at £25 that may disappear when the inevitable Michelin star is awarded (casamacarrilla1966.com).
One minute away, Restaurant Can Bosch already has its star — awarded for “exclusive use of seasonal ingredients and top-quality local fish and seafood, sourced from the fish auction in Cambrils”. The ten-course tasting menu, including pumpkin gnocchi with crayfish and an Ebro rice with boletus and grilled scallop, costs £90 (canbosch.com).
A 20-minute bus ride inland brings you to Parc Sama: an eccentrically beautiful pleasure garden somehow omitted from Monty Don’s recent Spanish Gardens TV series. Acknowledged as one of the finest examples of a romantic garden in Spain, the estate was designed in part by the young Antoni Gaudí and served as the summer residence of Salvador Sama I Torrents, the Marquis of Marianao: a man who’d made his fortune in Cuba and thought the olive-wooded hinterland of Baix Camp county could use a bit of tropical glamour. The result is a fantasy of islands, palms, mandarin and lime orchards, dominated by Gaudí’s enchanting follies. Take a picnic (entry £10; parcsama.es).
This article contains affiliate links that can earn us revenue
What you get for your £362
• Return Gatwick-Barcelona flights with Vueling
• 14 nights’ self-catering accommodation at the Apartamentos Costa Verde (thomascook.com)
The £700 holiday
Advertisement
The four-star Sol Port Cambrils is run by the Spanish hotel group Melia, on the edge of Cambrils’ old town and five minutes’ walk from the central Playa del Regueral. It’s popular with families because Port Aventura theme park is only six miles away in Salou, but in May the clientele comprises mostly couples. There are two pools, a bar and a buffet restaurant, and live music on some nights. Departs on May 7.
Details Seven nights’ half-board from £705pp, including flights and transfers (easyjet.com)
The £1,300 holiday
The best hotel in the Costa Dorada resort of Sitges (once the capital of Spanish counterculture) is the minimalist, white layer cake that is ME Sitges Terramar. Perched at the far end of the Passeo Maritimo, it stands above the Playa de Terramar, an artificial cove created by embracing sea walls, but the place to be, it seems, is on a Bali bed beside one of the pools — preferably the semi-secret one on the roof. As LGBTQ-friendly as you’d expect from Sitges, the property has a spa and offers yoga classes, DJ sets and the feeling you should be dressed all in white. Departs on May 5.
Details Seven nights’ room-only from £1,272pp, including flights and transfers (jet2holidays.com)
Sign up for our Times Travel newsletter and follow us on Instagram and X
