Hello travel enthusiasts. We visited Calella last week. This small city is situated between the Costa Brava and Costa del Maresme. While it's often considered part of the Costa Brava, it's actually located on the Maresme coast. Calella is quite a touristy area, filled with restaurants, cafes, apartments and hotels. Visitors can find everything they need to enjoy a perfect vacation here.
The city is flat, with no hills or mountains. So you can easily walk in any direction. We first strolled along the main streets. Naturally in a tourist city, there are plenty of souvenir shops. Here you can find a variety of gifts, plates, magnets, umbrellas, toys and even ice cream for every taste. In addition to the usual tourist attractions, you can also buy lottery tickets, which are quite popular. The tickets for the Christmas draw start selling as early as July or August. There’s even a stand where you can buy lottery tickets right on the street and there's often a line.
Calella has railway lines where Barcelona's commuter trains pass through. This means you can reach Calella from Barcelona in about 40 minutes, return to Barcelona or go a bit further to Blanes. These railway lines connect the city to Barcelona and other coastal towns. The train station is located right in the city center, but the tracks are slightly hidden from view, not running directly along the beach.
We headed down to the beach, where there is quite a long parking area along the shore. The local coastline is at least 50 meters wide.
For those planning a holiday with children, there’s a very large playground right next to the beach. It features various slides, swings and a soft, rubber-coated ground. There's even a sprinkler for kids to play in, just a few steps from the beach.
The beach itself, with its extensive shoreline, offers a great area for dogs. The dog-walking area is nicely fenced, with special taps for washing dogs and trash bins. This wide beach is definitely worth a visit.
Unlike other tourist cities Calella doesn’t have many active young people. Instead it’s mostly families, older European couples and a peaceful atmosphere. The beach is relatively empty and quiet, making it ideal for a relaxing vacation. If you’re looking for entertainment, Blanes is just 10 minutes away and accessible by commuter train. From there you can reach Tossa de Mar in another 10 minutes. Everything is quite close. You can get to the fun spots by train, taxi or bus.
There’s a ticket booth for boat tours. These boat tours can take you to Blanes and Tossa de Mar. Tickets go on sale at 9:15 am and cost 39 euros. If you want to make a reservation, you can put your phone number in this box. When we visited, all reservations for the next day were fully booked.
These boat tours have glass windows that allow you to observe the underwater world. And you can hike up a slope from the city center to reach a working lighthouse built in 1959. Next to the lighthouse, there are two ruined towers from the 19th century. This walk starts from the city center and leads to these two attractions.
As evening approached, around 7:00 pm, the beaches emptied out completely. In Calella you can also take a tourist train. We found out the prices: 3 euros for adults and 1.5 euros for children and seniors over 65. The tourist train departs from the main street and square and starts its journey once it’s full.
There are various ice cream shops, tourist stores, places where you can get braids and temporary tattoos, shops selling leather and non-leather bags and sunglasses stores. By dinner time, the restaurants fill up quickly. Cafés with terraces are full with no empty tables available. The restaurants with good food were completely booked. We walked around a bit more and browsed through the shops, looking at what we might buy. I really like this street. It has a lovely holiday atmosphere with tourist shops and people sitting in cafés. I really enjoy this city.
There is also a charming square here where you can see an interesting character on the walls.
We reached the church square, where the atmosphere is very nice. Although the beach is empty, the city is bustling with people.
Here you can buy a hat and have it personalized with any text, your name or a date. There’s a shop that offers this service.
Across the square there’s an ice cream shop and a place for strolling by the beach. We decided to end our evening at a pizzeria, where we had a salad and a BBQ pizza. Overall you should budget around 20-30 euros per person for a meal here. The salad options were quite limited.
We finished our meal at a pizzeria called "Mama Mia". It was clearly a tourist spot. The beer glass was almost empty, filled only with foam, which wasn’t very pleasant. Although we generally don’t focus on such details, here there was 2-3 centimeters of foam. When we pointed this out, the waiter acknowledged that there was indeed too much foam and added a bit more beer. The beer was 3.90 euros, the wine 3 euros, the salad 11 euros and the BBQ pizza 12 euros. The meal was quite expensive, but the drinks were reasonably priced.
Calella really impressed us. The direct train connection to Barcelona and Blanes is very convenient. It has a large beach where you can bring your dog and a big playground for children. The city is flat so walking around is very easy. There’s a lighthouse and the ruins of old towers here. That’s all for today. See you on our next trip.
