Besalú sits in good day-trip territory. Banyoles (12km) is the most natural pairing — a handsome lake town on the same bus route from Girona, easy to combine into a single day without a car. The lake is one of the largest natural lakes in Spain and the setting is lovely.
Girona (35km) is the obvious base for the area and well worth its own visit: a Jewish quarter that rivals Besalú's for depth of history, a Gothic cathedral with a spectacular single nave, a well-preserved medieval wall circuit, and a Rambla that functions as the town's living room.
Olot (20km west) is the capital of the Garrotxa volcanic zone. The town itself is pleasant if unremarkable, but the Parc Natural de la Zona Volcànica de la Garrotxa immediately outside it — a landscape of wooded volcanic cones — is one of the more unusual landscapes in Catalonia, and the volcanic soil is the reason local vegetables taste the way they do.
Sant Joan de les Abadesses (45km) has a fine Romanesque monastery with an exceptional 13th-century Descent from the Cross — a group of polychrome figures that is one of the great works of medieval Catalan art.
