Mediterranean · Spain
Girona
Spain's most decorated stretch of coast and countryside, where three brothers built the world's best restaurant and the fields still smell of the sea.
Plan this trip →- Suggested stay
- from 3 · 5 ideal · up to 7 nights
- Best season
- May to June and September to early October, when the Empordà is warm but uncrowded, the vineyards and beaches are at their best, and the region's headline tables are easier to secure than in peak August.
The Empordà is the rare corner of the world where the most compelling reason to visit is a dinner reservation. In a quiet street in Girona, the Roca brothers built El Celler de Can Roca into a three-Michelin-star restaurant that has twice been named the best in the world, and in doing so turned a provincial Catalan city into one of the great pilgrimage sites of modern gastronomy. Around it has grown a density of talent, tradition and produce that few regions of any size can match.
But to treat Girona only as a table would be to miss the point of the place. The old town is a stacked medieval palimpsest of Roman walls, a Gothic cathedral with the widest nave in the world, one of Europe’s best-preserved Jewish quarters, and the pastel houses that lean over the Onyar. Half an hour inland, stone villages like Peratallada and Pals sit almost untouched among vineyards and olive groves. Half an hour the other way, the Costa Brava breaks into cliff-hidden coves and the whitewashed Dalí country around Cadaqués.
The luxury here is deliberately understated. There is no Aman, no palace hotel; instead there is a Relais & Châteaux masia in a cypress garden, a genuine fourteenth-century castle, a cliffside all-suite hotel above the sea, and the Roca family’s own small hotel in the heart of the old town. The register is country-house and character rather than marble-and-butler grandeur, and it suits the landscape.
What ties it together is the food, and not only at the summit. The same fields and coastline that feed El Celler also feed the region’s constellation of one-star tables, its market restaurants, its Empordà DO cellars and its fishing-cove seafood. A serious week here often reaches beyond Girona to the Empordà coast and even down to Barcelona, where the current world’s best restaurant, Disfrutar, is run by chefs whose roots run straight back through this same stretch of Catalonia.
Come in late spring or early autumn, base yourself in the countryside or the old town, book the headline tables the moment they open, and let the rest of the days fill with coves, cellars, ceramics and Dalí. It is, quite simply, the most concentrated eating in Europe, set in a landscape worth the journey on its own.
Ideal for
Serious gastronomes and collectors of three-star tables · Couples wanting culture, coast and countryside in one base · Travellers pairing Barcelona with a slower, deeper Catalan week
Where to stay
The Houses
Mas de Torrent Hotel & Spa
Relais & Châteaux (independent) · Country house estate · Torrent, Baix Empordà, inland from the Costa Brava
An 18th-century masia set in landscaped gardens and cypress in the heart of the Baix Empordà, and the region's benchmark country-house hotel. The original farmhouse rooms carry beamed ceilings and antiques; garden bungalows and suites open onto private terraces and a large outdoor pool. A Relais & Châteaux member with a spa and a kitchen built on Empordà produce.
Why The most polished full-service country base in the Empordà, ideally placed for the medieval villages and the coast while feeling entirely rural. Its Relais & Châteaux standard and estate setting put it a clear tier above the region's many charming small inns.
Alàbriga Hotel & Home Suites
Independent (Superior GL) · Seafront design hotel · S'Agaró coast, Sant Feliu de Guíxols
A yacht-inspired, all-suite hotel built into the cliffs above the sea on the S'Agaró stretch, Spain's rare five-star GL (Gran Lujo) rating on this coast. Suites and larger Home Suites run to generous terraces, sea views and full kitchens; there is a spa, seawater-facing pools and a private nautical programme. The most overtly luxurious seafront address on the Costa Brava.
Why For travellers who want the coast rather than the countryside, this is the region's only property at true grande-luxe scale on the water, with suite sizes and a nautical service culture no beachfront rival matches.
Hotel Castell d'Empordà
Castle hotel · La Bisbal d'Empordà, Baix Empordà
A restored 14th-century hilltop castle overlooking the Empordà plain toward the sea, with individually decorated rooms mixing Indian silks and furniture sourced from Italy, Morocco and Asia. Panoramic gardens, an infinity-edge pool and a garden restaurant make it the region's most atmospheric historic stay. Ownership has links to the Dalí orbit, and the setting is pure Empordà theatre.
Why Character no purpose-built hotel can buy: a genuine medieval castle with sweeping views, walking distance to La Bisbal's ceramics workshops and a short drive from the coast and the great tables.
Casa Cacao
The Roca family (El Celler de Can Roca) · Boutique city hotel · Girona old town, on the Onyar riverfront
The Roca brothers' own boutique hotel, a refurbished historic building in the heart of Girona's old town that doubles as a bean-to-bar chocolate house. Nineteen calm, contemporary rooms sit above a café and chocolate workshop, with a rooftop terrace over the medieval city. Small, personal and inseparable from the family whose restaurant anchors the destination.
Why The most direct way to sleep inside the Roca story, in the heart of the old town rather than the countryside, and the natural base for a Celler de Can Roca booking. Intimate and characterful rather than full-service, which is precisely its appeal.
Where to dine
The Tables
El Celler de Can Roca
3 Michelin starsAvant-garde Catalan · fine dining
The reason many travellers come to Girona at all. Chef Joan Roca, sommelier Josep and pastry chef Jordi run what is arguably the most emotionally resonant tasting menu in Spain, and twice the world's number one. Reservations open roughly eleven months out and vanish within minutes.
Disfrutar
3 Michelin starsAvant-garde, El Bulli lineage · fine dining
In Barcelona rather than Girona, but the essential companion piece: the current World's Best Restaurant, run by El Bulli alumni Oriol Castro, Eduard Xatruch and Mateu Casañas, whose Empordà roots run through Compartir. A serious Girona food trip is often bracketed by a night here.
Compartir Cadaqués
Mediterranean small plates · fine dining
The Disfrutar trio's original and more relaxed table, in a whitewashed Cadaqués courtyard by the sea. Shared plates of playful, technically flawless cooking at a fraction of the ceremony, and the reason to build the Dalí-country coast into the trip.
Els Tinars
1 Michelin starMarket-driven Catalan · creative Catalan
A restored farmhouse in Llagostera run by chef Marc Gascons and his sister Elena, cooking rooted, seasonal Catalan food that shows the region's non-avant-garde tradition at its best. The kind of long, generous lunch that defines the Empordà.
Massana
1 Michelin starContemporary Catalan · fine dining
Pere Massana's long-standing one-star in the centre of Girona, respectful of tradition and produce with refined, understated technique. An easier-to-book, in-town counterpoint to the Roca pilgrimage.
Casamar
Coastal Catalan · fine dining
Perched above the fishing cove of Llafranc, Quim Casellas's one-star pairs some of the coast's best sea views with precise Empordà cooking. The dining room that best captures the Costa Brava's fishing-village romance.
What to do
Experiences
Private after-hours tour of Girona's old town
By private arrangementcultural
A licensed local historian leads a walk through the Força Vella, the Jewish Quarter (El Call), the Gothic cathedral with the world's widest Gothic nave, and the Game of Thrones filming locations, timed for early morning or dusk to avoid the crowds.
Why The old town is compact and heavily visited by day; a private guide at the right hour turns it from a busy sight into a two-thousand-year palimpsest you have largely to yourself.
Empordà DO wine estates by private car
Private driver-guidewine
A curated day through the Empordà appellation's leading cellars, tasting Garnatxa, Carinyena and coastal whites among vineyards that run down toward the Gulf of Roses, with lunch at an estate.
Why One of Spain's most underrated wine regions, shaped by the Tramuntana wind and the sea, and best explored with a driver so the tasting is unhurried and the villages between cellars are part of the day.
Dalí triangle: Figueres, Portlligat and Cadaqués
Private guided daycultural
The Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, the artist's labyrinthine house at Portlligat, and the whitewashed seaside town of Cadaqués, arranged as a single private day with pre-booked museum entries.
Why The most complete way to understand Salvador Dalí, in the exact landscape that formed him, and it folds naturally into a lunch at Compartir Cadaqués.
Costa Brava coves by private boat
Private charterbeach
A skippered day along the Baix Empordà coast, from Calella de Palafrugell and Llafranc to hidden calas reachable only from the water, with swimming stops and a seafood lunch ashore.
Why The Costa Brava's finest coves are cliff-hidden and often crowded from land; a private boat delivers the coastline as it was meant to be seen, on your own schedule.
Medieval villages and the ceramics of La Bisbal
Private itinerarycultural
A slow circuit of the stone-built villages of the Baix Empordà, Peratallada, Pals and Monells, with time in La Bisbal d'Empordà, the region's centuries-old pottery town, to meet working ceramicists.
Why The inland Empordà is a landscape of near-untouched medieval villages; pairing them with La Bisbal's living ceramics tradition is the quieter, deeper side of the destination.
Shopping
The Maisons
Girona old town
Independent boutiques, artisan food shops and design stores threaded through the medieval lanes of the Barri Vell, anchored by the Rambla de la Llibertat.
La Bisbal d'Empordà
The historic ceramics town of the Empordà, lined with workshops and showrooms selling hand-thrown and hand-painted Catalan pottery.
By appointment
Empordà cellar-door wine and olive-oil purchases arranged through estates · Bespoke ceramics commissions from La Bisbal workshops
Arrival & departure
Coming & Going
Airports
Main international gateway, roughly 1h30 by car to Girona; full private-aviation and premium-cabin infrastructure.
Small regional airport under 20 minutes from Girona; mostly seasonal and low-cost scheduled service, but usable for private aviation.
Private terminals
- Barcelona-El Prat general-aviation / private terminal for business jets
- Girona-Costa Brava handles private and business aviation on request
Meet & greet · gate escort
- Private meet-and-greet and fast-track can be arranged at Barcelona-El Prat through VIP-service providers
First-class & arrivals lounges
- Sala VIP Miró and Sala VIP Pau Casals at Barcelona-El Prat
- Priority Pass and airline lounges at El Prat
Private transfers
- Chauffeured car transfer Barcelona-El Prat to Girona / the Empordà, approximately 1h30
- Chauffeured transfer Girona-Costa Brava Airport to the Empordà coast, 20 to 45 minutes
Private aviation
- Business jets via Barcelona-El Prat (BCN) general aviation
- Girona-Costa Brava (GRO) accepts private and business jets
- Helicopter transfer available for coastal and estate access
Good to know
Questions & Answers
When is the best time to visit Girona? +
May to June and September to early October, when the Empordà is warm but uncrowded, the vineyards and beaches are at their best, and the region's headline tables are easier to secure than in peak August.
How many nights should you spend in Girona? +
5 nights is the sweet spot; 3 at a minimum, and up to 7 if you want to take it slowly.
What are the best luxury hotels in Girona? +
The Grand Index ranks 4 houses in Girona. The ultra-premier tier: Mas de Torrent Hotel & Spa, Alàbriga Hotel & Home Suites. Each is bookable through our advisor at the same rate as direct, with VIP perks layered on.
Which airport do you fly into for Girona? +
Barcelona-El Prat (Josep Tarradellas) (BCN); Girona-Costa Brava Airport (GRO).
Can I book Girona hotels through The Grand Index? +
Yes. Our advisor books every house featured here through Fora, a Virtuoso member agency, at the same rate you would pay direct — with VIP perks such as room upgrades, daily breakfast and a property credit layered on at no extra cost. Begin at the enquiry page.
Where to next
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