Cadaqués Old Town & Church of Santa Maria
Cadaqués is one of the few Costa Brava towns that escaped the concrete boom of the 1960s — its road access was so tortuous that developers gave up, leaving a tight cluster of whitewashed houses, cobbled lanes and bougainvillea-draped stairways essentially intact. At the centre of it all, the 16th-century Church of Santa Maria rises in pale stone above the bay, its baroque altarpiece by local artis
Wandering the lanes
The old town rewards aimless exploration: duck into Carrer de Vigilant, one of the narrowest alleys, or climb the stepped streets behind the church for framed views of the bay and the moored fishing boats below. Many of the blue-shuttered houses still belong to families who have lived here for generations.
The village attracted a remarkable constellation of artists and intellectuals in the 20th century — Picasso, Duchamp, Man Ray and García Lorca all passed through, drawn by the same clarity of light and sense of remove from the world that still defines the place today.
Santa Maria church and the waterfront
The Church of Santa Maria (open daily, free entry) dates from the 16th century and contains a gilded baroque altarpiece that took local sculptors and painters nearly a century to complete. It is disproportionately grand for such a small village, a testament to the wealth generated by the cork and anchovy trades.
Below the church, the Passeig del Carme is the village's main waterfront promenade — lined with café terraces, small galleries and the occasional fisherman mending nets. In the evening it becomes the natural gathering point for the passejada, the slow Mediterranean evening stroll.
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