Located in the North of the Costa Brava in Catalonia, the National Park of Cap de Creus is a very special place, a piece of earth against the sea, a mountain terrain, steep and rocky.
We have visited this magical place many times but never before with our gravel bikes. We already knew that it was not an easy one because it has a lot of difficult paths, especially for cycling, but it doesn’t matter, we wanted to go there for exploring it and that’s the only important thing.
We started the ride from Llançà, a small coastal village and we went through the road that is just next to the sea till Port de la Selva where the first climbs appeared.
After a few meters of climbing, we were into the natural park. The paths became hard and we had to use all our skills to continue pedaling.
Suddenly, our bodies started to get warm but the views were amazing, surrounded by mountains and the sea as a spectator.
Maybe because of the weather, maybe because it was January and it was a bit cold, but nobody was there. Just cows, and us.
When we reached the first climb, we had an easy downhill through a nice groad. After a while, it became more tricky singletrack and, a few minutes later, it became in the first walking path of the day, too technical to be cyclable. Maybe with a mountain-bike but not definitely with gravel bikes.
Once we achieved all the obstacles, we went for the second climb. We were looking for Cala Tavallera, a very small beach where our track should go.
And, finally… we got it! We arrived at a viewpoint where we could see the beach. We were very excited about that but, it was just for seconds because we realized that for going down we will have to walk with the bikes in our backs. Shit happens, but the reward would be nice.
There was no B Plan for this, then we only had the option to walk and enjoy the views.
An isolated beach where you only can access walking or through a boat. Silence, calm water, wild nature… probably, with better weather we had jumped to the sea but not this time.
We spend more time than expected to arrive at this first spot and an extra effort but it was so good.
The bad side was that we had to go up again to the other side and it was through a small walking path again.
Again on the track, pedaling hard, crossing small rivers, beautiful valleys and playing with mud.
Next stop would be reach the most eastern point of the Iberian Peninsula, the light house of Cap de Creus.
Once there, we took a quick coffee and, as we were hungry, we decided to go to Cadaquès and eat something. At that point in the route, it was so windy and we didn’t want to catch a cold.
Cadaqués town is one of the top highlights of Costa Brava. A beautiful fisherman village surrounded by nature and mountains, and very famous to be the place where a lot of painters choose it for living.
After that, we started our way to the cars. We had to change a bit of our initial planned track because of the issues and difficulties of some parts of the route but, in the end, we had a really good day of exploring.
