The name was invented by a journalist. In 1908, Ferran Agulló published an article in La Veu de Catalunya and called the shoreline north of Blanes the "Costa Brava" — the rugged coast — and the label stuck to roughly 200 kilometres of granite headland, pine, and cove between Blanes and Portbou. Access remains free: the region is coastline and open towns, not a gated monument, and the address that anchors any costa brava day tour from barcelona is simply Costa Brava, Girona Province, Catalonia, Spain. Before the name, there were the Greeks. Empúries, founded around 575 BC as Emporion, was the trading colony where Hellenic and later Roman settlement entered the Iberian peninsula; its mosaics and harbour walls still sit above the sand at L'Escala. Inland, Girona layered Roman wall on Carolingian wall, then raised a Gothic cathedral whose single nave, at 22.98 metres, is the widest in the world. The Jewish Quarter, El Call, survives as one of Europe's most intact medieval Jewish neighbourhoods. Further north, Salvador Dalí built his triangle: the Teatre-Museu in Figueres, the whitewashed house at Portlligat, and the castle at Púbol. Costa Brava excursions from Barcelona still trace those three points. What makes the region durable is that fishing villages here were too steep to industrialise. Calella de Palafrugell, Tamariu, Cadaqués — each kept its lime-washed façades and its camins de ronda, the coastguard paths cut into the cliffs to chase smugglers. Those paths now function as public trails. Tossa de Mar retains the Vila Vella, the only fortified medieval town left standing on the Catalan coast, its three towers dated to the 12th century. The modern draw is water clarity. The Illes Medes, a seven-island archipelago off L'Estartit, became a protected marine reserve in 1983; grouper populations recovered so completely that the site is now the benchmark for Mediterranean conservation diving. Cala Sa Tuna, Aiguablava, and Cala Pola sit in coves reachable only on foot or by boat, which is why so much costa brava day tour from barcelona inventory pairs road transfer with kayak, snorkel, or a coastal cruise. Girona is 100 kilometres from Barcelona; Cadaqués, past the Cap de Creus massif, closer to 170. The distance is the point — the coast reveals itself slowly, headland by headland, exactly as Agulló found it.