This is a private trip with mainly private tours where these are included. The Gaudí night visit will be shared with other visitors, but we promise they won't bite.

The simplest way is to fly into Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN) and out of Girona (GRO), though it's also easy to fly back from Barcelona with a short train ride.

But we'd also love you to consider going one or both ways by train.

From London St Pancras you can be in Paris within a couple of hours, and from there, it's a six-hour ride through the French countryside and across the Pyrenees to reach Barcelona. Whilst it can be done in a day in either direction, we find it nicer to stay a night or two in Paris if you can, and we work with a lovely hotel right by the Gare de Lyon station to make life easy.

Equally, you can do it on the way back by boarding at Girona.

If you'd like to know more or discuss ideas, just let us know when you send an enquiry.

Whilst Barcelona and Girona are year-round destinations, the Costa Brava is best visited between April and October. Spring and autumn are always going to be the very best times, with warm weather, consistently low rainfall, fewer crowds and fairly long days. The summer can be hot, hot, hot and it's also when the Spanish holidaymakers are on the move, so it can be busy too. So we prefer to steer clear of July and August.

We spend a great deal of time visiting, staying in and getting to know the best hotels in each area we visit. The hotels we have selected for this trip tend towards the premium end of the scale, which is to say they are all very lovely without being overly luxurious or expensive for the sake of it.

Please enquire for full details of where you stay.

The activity level on this trip is generally decided by you as you go, but it's designed to get you out and about exploring, with plenty of downtime in between.

In Barcelona, you'll put a good few kms on the clocks of your shoes. We provide a self-guided route which can be a half or full-day activity. We also give instructions on how to download a rather brilliant audio tour on your smartphone, which sends you down sidestreets and round corners using your phone's GPS. In both cases, you can walk as much as you want and take a break whenever the mood takes you. If you just want to watch the world go by from a bustling terrace or seaview hangout, you can go do just that.

The eBike excursion is designed for everyone. As long as you can ride a bike in a straight line, you'll be fine. Having a private guide means you can adapt things to you, so if you want to cover less ground and spend more time in one specific area, that's usually just fine.

On the coast, we still provide plenty of ways for you to get out and about walking, but generally the pace is a little slower. The walks we provide notes for are around 6-10km in length, and all relatively flat. They typically take around 3-4 hours each, but it's nice to stretch them over the course of a day with stops to swim in the sea and have a bite to eat on a terrace.

Once you get out of Girona, which you'll do pretty quickly, the roads tend to fall quiet and traffic is usually very light. We love driving in Spain because of the freedom it gives you. That could mean changing plans over breakfast, or simply pulling over at the side of the road to soak in a view you might otherwise have sailed straight past.

As the roads are generally quiet, smooth and scenic, it's designed to be a pleasurable part of the experience, rather than a price to pay for said freedom.

Some vehicles have sat nav built in, but we find the best way to navigate is simply to use Waze or Google Maps on your smartphone. These can both be used offline to avoid data charges and your phone can easily sync with your car's Bluetooth so that it talks to you through the radio. All in all, it's not really much different to navigating in a part of your own country you've not been to before.

Oh yes, absolutely. In many ways, this trip is designed to put you in the company of local people at every stage. That might mean a pedal through one of Barcelona's old 'village' neighbourhoods with our man on the ground there or seeing Cadaqués from a local's perspective with your guide.

No, though you'll find that Catalan is actually the lingua franca in these parts. In Barcelona and Girona, you'll be just fine. The only time you might struggle is if you go to a local neighbourhood restaurant away from the tourist centre (there's a good one by Sants station). The language might be in Catalan only, though everyone speaks Spanish so if you've got some of that, this would be the time to use it.

On the coast, in smaller restaurants and villages, English is less commonly spoken. But with some basic Spanish and some pointing and gesturing, again you'll have no problems. Part of the charm is going to places where English is not the dominant language in our experience.

As part of the creation process, we have designed an 8-day version of this trip. So if you have less time to play with, the first step is simply to look at this alternative itinerary. Beyond that, we can tailor the trip in certain ways, making sure that we retain the essence of this itinerary through the pacing and content.

Using the high-speed train network, it's also easy to add time in cities such as Madrid, Seville or Paris (as mentioned above) to either end of the trip.