3 June 2026
Beyond the city: the Mediterranean coast as a second home
An hour from Barcelona, the coast changes register. A look at the Costa Brava and the Balearic Islands - their protected landscapes and quiet character - for those weighing a second home by the sea.
A city home and a coastal one answer different needs. Barcelona is the working capital of Catalonia; the coast, an hour or two away, is where the pace changes. For many of the people we work with, the two together are the point - a base in the city, and somewhere by the sea to return to.
The Costa Brava
The Costa Brava is the coastline of the province of Girona, running north from Blanes - about sixty kilometres from Barcelona - to the French border. The name, meaning “the rugged coast,” was coined by the writer Ferran Agulló in 1908, and it still fits: some two hundred kilometres of cliffs, pine woods that run down to the water, and small coves tucked between headlands.
It is a landscape people have long guarded. The Cap de Creus Natural Park, on the coast near Cadaqués, was established in 1998 as the first maritime-terrestrial natural park in Catalonia. The area is also Dalí country: the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation keeps his house at Portlligat, near Cadaqués, the Theatre-Museum he built in Figueres in 1974, and the castle at Púbol - the three points of what is officially called the Dalinian Triangle.
The Balearic Islands
Offshore, the four main Balearic Islands each keep their own character. Mallorca is the largest and most varied; its north-west coast, the Serra de Tramuntana, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2011 as a cultural landscape - valued for the terraces, dry-stone walls and old water systems that centuries of work built into the mountains.
Menorca has been a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 1993, recognised for the balance it has kept between livelihood and land. Ibiza carries its own World Heritage inscription, “Biodiversity and Culture,” from 1999, spanning its walled old town and the seagrass meadows offshore. And Formentera, the smallest, has no airport at all - it is reached only by sea, a short ferry from Ibiza, which is much of its quiet.
Choosing a coast
A second home is a different decision from a first. Access, season and the character of a place weigh more heavily than square metres. Much of what gives these coasts their value - the protected parks, the island designations - is precisely what cannot be built again. That is worth understanding before you choose where to look.
If a home by the sea is part of what you are weighing, we would be glad to help you read the options.