Sitges and the Garraf coast road: a day ride from Barcelona on the C-31

South of Barcelona the mountains run into the sea, and someone built a road along the cliffs. It is the best day ride out of the city that most visitors never hear about: curves above the Mediterranean, lunch in Sitges, and home again before dark. This is what it is like to ride it.

Leaving the city, heading south

The route is simple, and that is part of why it works. You leave Barcelona to the south, past the airport and the beach towns of the Llobregat delta, and then the land tilts up and the C-31 turns into a cliff road. This stretch, the Costes del Garraf, is cut into the side of the Garraf massif, a limestone range that drops straight into the sea. On one side there is a wall of rock; on the other, a low barrier and a very long way down to blue water.

The surface is asphalt the whole way, and the road is built for views rather than speed. Long sweeping curves, a few tighter bends, and almost always a bay or a headland coming into sight on the next corner. It is the nearest thing Barcelona has to a classic coast road, and most people who fly in never find out it exists.

Lunch in Sitges

Sitges is the reward at the end of the first half. It is an old seaside town with whitewashed streets, a long promenade and a church on a point above the beach that you can see from the coast road before you arrive. We stop for lunch between the old town and the sea, and then there is time to walk, swim in season, or simply sit with a coffee and look at the bikes.

Vilanova and the ride home

After lunch the road continues south to Vilanova i la Geltrú, a working fishing town with a quieter, more local feel than Sitges. Then we turn around and take the same cliffs home in the afternoon. It is a different ride in the opposite direction: the sea is on your other side and the light on the rock has changed. In the late afternoon the whole coast turns gold, and you are back in Barcelona in time for dinner.

Why ride it with a guide

You can follow the C-31 on any map. What a guide adds is the day around it: when to leave so that the cliffs are quiet, where to stop for the views, where to eat in Sitges, and how to get back to Barcelona on time. Ride your own bike behind your guide, follow our GPS route on your own, or sit behind one of our pilots with no licence at all.

Prefer the mountains and the city views? Read about riding Tibidabo and Montjuïc, or see the longer weekend out of Barcelona into the Pyrenees.