There’s a way of getting to know Catalonia that has nothing to do with guidebooks or the most photographed spots: following the trail of its seasonal markets. Fruit that still smells of earth, cheeses you won’t find outside their own valley, the same faces buying the same things for generations. Taking the bike and chasing these markets, one after another, is one of the best excuses to leave Barcelona behind in summer.
Costa Brava: the rhythm of the coastal villages
On the Costa Brava there’s almost always a market happening somewhere, which makes it easy to build a route around wherever you’re passing through: Wednesdays it’s Begur, Fridays Platja d’Aro, Sundays Roses or Palafrugell. In Torroella de Montgrí the market runs on Mondays, and in l’Estartit, one of the busiest in the area, on Thursday mornings.
Summer adds night markets to the mix, made for a slow walk once the heat has dropped: Món Empordà rotates on Saturdays between Rupià, Corçà and Torroella de Montgrí with local, organic produce, and in l’Escala, from July to August, the Riba Market Night fills the seafront with craft stalls, vintage fashion, and the odd local product, with a lively evening atmosphere until midnight.
For getting between these villages, with narrow coastal roads and tight curves, an agile bike like the Honda NX-500 handles it better than anything else in the fleet.
Inland Empordà: the market as an excuse to slow down
If the coast pulls you toward night markets and a strolling pace, inland Empordà invites the opposite: arriving in the morning, unhurried, at a farmers’ market where the produce comes first. This is where you feel the difference between buying fruit and buying fruit from the person who grew it; between just any cheese and the one recommended by the shepherd who made it.
It’s also the stretch of the route worth leaving the main road for — a side track or a bit of dirt to reach the hidden farmhouses that never make it onto any tourist map.
For those unpaved stretches, the Honda Africa Twin is the natural choice: proper adventure riding, built for exactly the moment you leave the main road.
Cerdanya and the Pyrenees: the market that smells of mountain
Riding up to Puigcerdà changes the tone completely. Its weekly market, every Sunday from 8am to 2pm on the Passeig 10 d’Abril, has been one of the liveliest dates in the Catalan Pyrenees for decades: local producers alongside others from across the French border, high-mountain cheeses, regional potatoes, and a cross-border atmosphere you won’t find in any lowland market. In summer the promenade fills up early, so it’s worth arriving before mid-morning and, as in most markets in the area, bringing some cash.
This is also the point in the route where the reward isn’t just the produce, but the air itself: climbing from the Barcelona heat up to Cerdanya’s 1,200 meters is, in the middle of August, reason enough on its own.
For the curves and altitude on the way up to the Pyrenees, the Aprilia Tuareg 660 performs especially well.
How to build your own market route
You don’t need to do it all in one trip. A long weekend is enough to combine, say, a coastal market on Saturday with a ride up to Puigcerdà on Sunday — or to spend a whole day moving slowly through inland Empordà, market to market, with no plan beyond whatever hunger dictates.
All you need is the right bike for each stretch — and that’s where we come in.
Book your bike at MoMOTO Barcelona and build your own route of flavors through the Catalonia no guidebook ever shows you.
