Museums

Phone: +33 4 68 35 42 05, +33 4 68 66 19 77
Opening hours (1st June to 30th September): every day 10:30 am to 6:30 pm
Opening hours (1st October to 31st May): Tuesday-Sunday 11:00 am to 5:30 pm
Closed on 1st May, 25th December and 1st January.

Phone number: 972 821 575
Please call ahead to confirm the date and time of visit.

Phone number: 972 826 677

Phone number: 972 413 989
E-mail: info@rafaelmaso.org
Visits by appointment only.

Phone number: 972 202 632
Opening hours (October-April): Tuesday-Saturday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, Sundays and holidays 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
Opening hours (May-September): Tuesday-Saturday 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, Sundays and holidays 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
Closed on Mondays (including holidays), 25th and 26th December, 1st and 6th January. Open on 24th and 31st December 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.

Phone number: 972 770 245

Phone number: 972 556 533
Opening hours (October-May): Tuesday-Saturday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, Sundays and holidays 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
Opening hours (June-September): Tuesday-Saturday 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, Sundays and holidays 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
Closed on December 25th and 26th, January 1st and 6th. Open on January 5th 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. Open on Monday, Friday and Sunday of the Holy Week 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.

Phone number: 972 496 261
Opening hours: Sundays 11:00 am to 7:00 pm, other days by appointment only.

If a remake of Blake Erwards’s classic comedy The Great Race is ever considered, the main filming location could easily take place in the Costa Brava: all necessary car props are patiently waiting in the Salvador Claret retro cars museum (Col·lecció d’Automòbils Salvador Claret) in Sils, Girona.

The founder of the museum, Salvador Claret (1909-1984), an accomplished hotelier, bought and restored an old Ford in 1959. After giving it a new coat of paint and taking part in a classic car rally, he sold the car and bought four more old vehicles from the proceeds. Since then, the museum collection has been growing steadily and now includes over 300 cars, the oldest one of which was made in 1883.

The draw of the collection are the automobile makes that are practically unknown outside of Spain: Bonet, Hispano Suiza, Pegaso, Orix, Ricart, David, Bultaco, Montesa, Fusté, Gobern. The visitors to the museum can trace the evolution of the modern automobile from the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century, a long way that saw many changes and challenged many design and technology assumptions about “the perfect car”.

Visitor information

Phone: 972 853 036
Opening hours: the museum is open Thursday to Saturday from 11 am to 6 pm, on Sundays and holidays (except for December 25-26, January 1 and 6) from 10 am to 2 pm.
Admission fee: 6€.

Opening hours: Monday-Saturday 10:00 am to 1:30 pm, Thursday-Saturday 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm (except for the period from 20 June to 10 September).

The museum of barrel taps, or Museu de les aixetes, in Capmany offers a rare opportunity to study and re-discover the form of a familiar object with no hurry or stress. The setting is more than suitable: the green landscapes of the historic region of Empordà, the relaxed walks around small Medieval towns, a growing number of wine bottles purchased at local Costa Brava wineries, and the anticipation of a hearty Catalan lunch all set the perfect scene for exploration.

Barrel taps on show at this Costa Brava museum have nothing to do with dripping sink taps or complicated shower tap systems in fancy hotels that require a user manual to operate. The barrel taps in question have more to do with winemaking than plumbing, but that is to be expected in Capmany, the heart of the wine region DO Empordà. The location of the museum (within a winery) is also a clear giveaway.

The building housing the barrel tap museum was built in 1764, and there is evidence to suggest that winemaking has been part of these walls ever since. In 1947, Josep Oliveda Casanovas, the grandfather of current owners, founded the winemaking enterprise Grup Oliveda that today produces over 1.5 million litres of wine per year. In 1955, Josep Oliveda had an idea to start collecting barrel taps for a small museum on-site.

The museum collection has over 4 thousand taps, most of which have been made locally and had been used at the Oliveda winery itself. There are foreign-made exhibits as well, brought in from elsewhere in Europe or gifted by colleagues in the industry, like, for example, the four antique taps donated by a liqueur factory in Rostoсk, Germany. The oldest items date back to the 18th century — these are the taps from Lombardy, an Italian region famed for its artful metallurgists. Size-wise, the largest and the smallest taps were made in the French county of Anjou.

Turns out that you can often tell the origins of a tap by its build and design. For example, a handle shaped like a lily betrays tap makers from France — the flower, a symbol of the French monarchy, was frequently present on the French coat of arms. Lilies on taps made before the French Revolution had three petals, while the taps made during Napoleon’s rule had only two. Another example is the shape of a military beret of the First Carlist War, popularized by Che Guevara — before the Cuban revolutionary, this headwear had inspired the casters from Navarre to create a tap called txapela, “beret”. Visitors of the barrel tap museum will easily identify the origins of the taps of that shape.

Besides countless taps, the museum is home to many other objects that surround a winemaker in her everyday life, from fun accessories to complex mechanisms — oak barrels, glass bottles, tin pitchers, machine tools and their parts, antique carpenter and locksmith tools, grandfather clocks, sewing machines, irons, diplomas commemorating wine awards, family photos… Everything but wine bottles themselves, which can be found aplenty in the next room.

Leaving the museum of barrel taps in Capmany, you may think that anyone could organize a similar museum dedicated to his or her work. Free space aside, finding and collecting things for the museum is the easy part; it is the founding of a successful multigenerational business that is able to weather the competition and various external cataclysms while sustaining the interest of the future generations in maintaining the collection that is the hard part! The Oliveda family can declare a resounding success in all of the above.

Visitor information

Address: Carrer de la Roca, 3 | Capmany
Phone: 972 549 012
Opening hours: Monday-Friday 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, Saturdays 10:00 am to 6:00 pm.

The Can Mario Museum in the Costa Brava was opened in 2004 by Fundació Vila Casas, a non-profit organization founded in 1986 to support modern arts and medical research led by Antoni Vila Casas, a pharmacist and a philanthropist.

The museum occupies an old factory, built in 1901, that once had been the world leader in cork production. The factory was known as Can Mario.

The Can Mario Museum houses more than 200 artworks of sculptors who had lived and worked in Catalonia. One part of the permanent collection is located outdoors, in the garden Jardí de Can Mario right next to the museum entrance.

For the museum opening hours, visit the official website of Can Mario.
Phone: 972 306 246

Phone number: 972 412 777
Opening hours (September-June): Tuesday-Saturday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm, Sundays and holiday Mondays 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
Opening hours (July-August): Monday-Saturday 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, Sundays 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.
The museum operates on a special schedule during Holy Week.
Closed on 25th and 26th December, 1st and 6th January.

Phone number: 935 091 620
Please call ahead to confirm the date and time of visit.

Phone: 669 411 940, 972 830 253
Please call ahead to confirm the date and time of visit.