Hot Air Balloon Flight over the Costa Brava: sunrise above the Mediterranean and the Medes Islands

The hot air balloon experience — flying over the Empordà at sunrise

You arrive at the meeting point before dawn. The light is still blue and the crew is setting up the balloon in the field: the envelope inflates with the fan, the burner fires its first roar and, suddenly, that coloured sphere rises in front of you. You need to climb into the basket before it decides to leave without you.

The activity begins in the Baix Empordà, near Jafre. The crew welcomes you, gets everyone settled in the basket and runs through the essentials: posture at take-off, posture at landing, what to do if the balloon shifts. The briefing is brief because the flight is smooth: the balloon doesn’t pitch, it has no rudder — it rises, descends and lets the wind choose the direction.

The flight lasts one hour. We climb to 500 metres and drift with the currents over the Empordà plain. Below, the medieval villages of Pals and Peratallada, the rice fields, the River Ter. To the left, the Medes Islands mark the edge of the Mediterranean. And in the background, the Pyrenees as a backdrop. No engines. Just the intermittent breath of the burner and the sound of the wind as it passes. This is the kind of silence the Costa Brava simply cannot offer at sea level.

We land in an open field. The ground crew arrives to collect everyone and the post-landing ritual calls for a toast with cava and pastries, the morning’s photos and a certificate signed by the pilot. We’ve been doing this for 30 years and it’s still hard to climb out: the ground, after an hour floating, feels strange.