A confession. I can be delusional. If you’d tapped me on the arm as we set off as a family of six for the Costa Brava and asked what I was doing, I would have told you I was on a quest to discover the Spain only the Spanish themselves knew.

There would have been a little truth in this. A Spanish friend had fed me memories of her childhood spent camping near the sea among the great stretches of pine woods around Cadaques; of a coastline dotted with ancient villages, coves and harbours, not high-rises.

I had a list of towns where locals danced in the squares; of secret casinos – not the gambling variety – where Catalans went for good food at low prices.

In making this claim, however, I was giving in to the temptation to make a well-established holiday destination, and myself, sound more mysterious than either it or I really am.

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So, having confessed, let’s get to the truth. I was really on a quest to discover the Spain a million tourists have visited and loved before me. What’s wrong with that?

There were plenty of Spaniards doing their own thing, for sure, but there were many Brits, French and Germans, too, all enjoying Spain’s wealthiest costa – its old towns and thriving nighttime markets, its lovely beaches, its invitation to idleness. Or to be as idle as you can with four children – aged between 10 and 17 – and the arrival of a brother and sister-in-law, newly settled and working in Spain, and their three children aged between 3 and 11.

You need specific equipment to survive in these circumstances. Recommended: a pool, water wings, so nobody drowns when you’re not looking, and a big car, hired at the airport and perfect for throwing wet little bodies into and taking off along winding hillside roads. You should also have a plan to get rid of the 17-year-old, who is going to find having her tan time interrupted by younger siblings “proper silly”, and has been hyperventilating since discovering that there’s no Ibiza-style partying on the Costa Brava.

This is where the niche holiday came into its own, many miles from where we were. She was allowed to bring a friend and fly off to Mallorca from Girona airport, to do unthinkable things in Magaluf. At least, that was the plan. More of that later.

For the moment, picture the peaceful scene: the pool, a dining table under a wicker awning, an endless view across pine forest and, circling around high above us, flashes of extraordinary birdlife: hoopoes, bee-eaters, hawks and buzzards.

Our villa had a large family room-cum-kitchen with a table that could accommodate the remaining 10 of us with room to spare. We nestled between the lovely medieval town of Pals, perched high over former marshland, with pretty cobbled streets, a castle and a fine 8th-century church, and the long bay of Pals, a beach perfect for playful children – just be careful of the jellyfish. (One of ours did get stung, but a good first-aid station soon made her feel better.) Beware the pedalos, too. Brother-in-law became seasick on one. He claimed it was choppy out there, though quite how he found himself in a turbulent microclimate when all around was sleepy stillness remains a mystery.

The coast had its own delights: we sat for hours at the tables outside the Hotel Llevant in Llafranc, watching the world go by, a rather genteel world more suited to the French Riviera of 30 years ago. Nearby, the French influence was also apparent in the seaside town of Tamariu, a delightful cove with a fine, pebbly beach. Our first visit there had been at that awkward time of day when the children were hungry, but the prospect of feeding all of them in the rather fine restaurants along the front appeared prohibitively expensive. Confident that children are never a problem for the Spanish, we ordered drinks and a few snacks at the Restaurant Redondo, on the curve of the bay, thinking we’d eat at home – but were made all too aware by a rude waiter, as he flung plates before us, that our intention not to stay for a three-course meal wasn’t welcome.

He was so hostile, we nearly didn’t go back to the town, but when we did find ourselves there again, we were glad we had returned. Our next visit saw the quiet beachfront transformed, with a live local band playing a Catalan/Cuban fusion as dusk fell.

At the Hotel Tamariu, we were made welcome and sat happily all evening, the children coming and going along the seafront, even bringing fresh little delicacies to our table from local stalls without the waiter having a heart attack.

There were other memorable evenings. Sitting in the hillside town of Begur, at a cafe overlooking its central fortress, the cobbled streets packed with chichi market stalls selling handcrafted baubles. And, when we’d run out of time and money, dashing off to one of the many local rotisseries, cheap chicken-and-chips joints packed with locals, particularly on a Sunday, for a hearty Catalan fast-food treat.

We went further afield, too. Off the road leading to Girona and the airport, hidden in a tiny walled town surrounded by fertile fields, is a little jewel. Elegant despite its innate oddity, a little suburban, even, is the bijou castellated home Salvador Dali bought for his wife, Gala – the Casa-Museo Castillo Gala Dali de Pubol. She repaid this devotion by insisting, to his delight, that he could visit her only by written invitation, and went on to entertain her lovers there, and cater to his masochistic tastes, into her seventies. She is buried in the mausoleum beneath this wonderfully intimate home. Dali kept his distance even in death – he is buried elsewhere.

Pubol also proved to be a good stop-off point en route to retrieving the errant 17-year-old. Remember her? She and friend fell out big time in nonstop party land, so she had to be picked up, having made her own way back by plane and train from Mallorca to Flaca, a shortish drive from Pals. So delirious with gratitude was she for this rescue, something miraculous happened: she started enjoying the peace and the family as much as we were.

Trains are good in Spain. From the station at Flaca, we left the coast to journey to Barcelona, but hadn’t understood that sometimes there aren’t trains back to the town in the evening, despite the timetable indicating otherwise. Late at night on a platform, when your temper is fraying, it’s hot and your Spanish is poor, this isn’t good. We had to get a train to somewhere dark, then cabs through the night back to where our car was parked, in order to get home. By then, though, we’d experienced Gaudi’s Barcelona, enjoyed a wonderful meal in a baroque square, watched street dancing and had a taste of city life before returning to the calm of the costa.

Ah, the Costa Brava. The quest didn’t result in a discovery of a Spain only the Spanish knew, because what it has to offer is already much appreciated outside Spain. Like the Spanish, the French and everyone else, we’ll be going back.

— Cathy Galvin was a guest of PCI Holidays (0845 130 1440, www.pci-holidays.com), which has a week at Casa Milly, a villa sleeping up to eight, with a private pool, from £915, villa-only. Or try Vintage Travel (0845 344 0460, www.vintagetravel.co.uk) or Holiday Lettings (01865 312000, www.holidaylettings.co.uk).

Ryanair (www.ryanair.com) flies to Girona from 14 UK airports, as well as Dublin and Shannon. Airlines flying to Barcelona include EasyJet (www.easyjet.com), BMI Baby (0871 224 0224, www.bmibaby.com) and British Airways (0844 493 0787, www.ba.com)

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