Hello
We are in Barcelona for 4 days (not travelling days)Family of 2 adults and 2 kids.. and have been here 2 times before however we have not see Girona or Costa brava and really want a dip in the beach.. maybe just Costa Brava?
Are these 2 doable in one day if we take the train? Should we rent a car instead? We are staying in Barcelona.
Im not really wanting to do the tour bc #1 - its expensive and 2 - we will spend a lot of time in a bus..
Thoughts?
SItges, just south of Barcelona by commuter train, is a nice beach town.
Vilanova i la Geltrú is 45 minutes south on train from Barcelona. It has a few beautiful beaches, that are practically empty (especially compared to Sitges, and beach towns north of Barcelona). The town is also lovely, with a good selection of restaurants, plus a gorgeous 0.5 mile long tree-lined Rambla that runs from the harbour up into the town. Sitges is nice, and very pretty, but very crowded with tourists, whereas Vilanova is laid back, and you'll get a great sense of Catalan / Spanish life.
We took a "minivan" tour to Girona/Costa Brava in October 2017 and really enjoyed both elements. Even without a tour, I would say that they are both doable in one day. Here is a link to the tour we took. Spanish Trails offers other tours to the Costa Brava as well. If I had to pick one, I would pick the Costa Brava. I realized that the Costa Brava is what I wanted the Cinque Terre to be.
https://spanish-trails.com/tours/costa-brava-medieval-girona-day-trip/
I spent 2 1/2 days in Girona and absolutely LOVE it. In regards to your question regarding doing both in a day, well, some Girona is better than none at all! I'm not sure about a train to Costa Brava, but we took a train to Girona. It was super easy and took about an hour. The train station was about a 10 minute walk to the interesting park of town.
