Great Mediterranean Coast Hike in Costa Brava, Spain | Day 4 – Cerbère, Portbou, Colera

The night was extremely windy with the wind fiercely blowing up our tent so it was quite disturbing to our sleep. The reason for that most probably was the location of the Camping Municipal de Cerbere where we stayed. It is situated right at the edge of the cliff where nothing can block the wind from any side. But we tried hard to sleep as much as we could cause the long day was expecting us.

We planned to pass by the town of Cerbere, crossing the border to Portbou in Spain and walk all the way to the little town at the coast Colera. So we got up really early at 6:00 am and we could met the beautiful sunrise right from the sea, had our breakfast and were ready to go.

We were really hungry cause the evening before we couldn’t find any open supermarket (on Mondays, you know) and our food supplies were close to zero.

So we were heading to the town – that was a 3 kms walk going along the cliffs. And even though it was quite hard to hike when starving we really enjoyed the beautiful views and breathing the fresh morning breeze.

After one hour hiking we got to the town Cerbere, found the supermarket on the central square and were out to find the spot for the breakfast. We bought quite a lot of fruits and veggies so the breakfast was promising to be very nutritious.

The town of Cerbere seemed quite a small boarder town with lots of railway lines. We decided to walk out of the town to the lighthouse at the edge of a cliff where we hoped to find a nice place to eat. It was a scenic place with the views over the town and a nice resting area with lots of benches. The lighthouse itself was very interesting as it was charging and working from the solar energy.

So we had our very tasty breakfast at one of those benches and started to hike up the mountain to the border crossing. And there were two options to take from the Cerbere town: one going to the peak which looked quite steep but has more potential of great views and the other one going around the mountain partly on the car road that was easier but at the same time less interesting…

Right from the start on the way up we felt like it’s going to be the hot and exhausting day. When we got to the top of the mountain we saw the two towns from above the French town Cerbere and the Spanish Portbou that were very similar looking with two huge railway stations.

Then after a steep uphill no less steep downhill was waiting for us. On the way we had to get through lots of cactuses, spiky plants and bushes, crawling down the rocks and balancing on the little falling rocks on the trail. So with the heavy backpacks it was a very challenging task to do. But we were happy we took it because it was a unique and scenic trail going at the edge of a cliff and offering the best views possible. This challenge we’ll remember for a long time.

When we were getting close to Portbou the trail started to go right at the sea level and we had to jump and climb several rocks before we came out to the town beach. And we were wondering how this part of the trail will look like in a stormy weather, surely enough it would have been impossible to walk cause it will be all underwater.

We didn’t spend much time in Portbou that seemed to us bigger but still very similar to Cerbere and got off on the new trail leading us to Colera.

We climbed up the mountain still suffering from the hot weather, had a quick break at the top and already seeing our destination on the horizon started to go downhill.

It was around 5 to 6 kms walk along the side of the mountain full of bright yellow blossoming bushes and cow pastures. On the way we were lucky to meet and to capture some cute little birds that lived in this rocky environment. We loved this part quite a lot.

At the entrance to the town we found a tree of mulberry that had the most delicious and sweet berries that we had for a snack right away and grabbed some with us. So very satisfied with our day we were stepping into a small town of Colera…

Here is the link to Google map to follow the hike: