The heart of Cadaqués is the arc of the bay, the whitewashed houses stepping up the hillside behind it, and the church of Santa Maria at the top — a composition that has been the subject of more paintings, photographs, and postcards than can reasonably be counted. The visual coherence of the village is partly the result of genuine age (the core is mostly 17th and 18th century) and partly the result of decades of strict planning rules that prevented the concrete apartment blocks that disfigured other Costa Brava towns.
The waterfront promenade is busy in summer but manageable, and wandering into the lanes behind it — narrower, steeper, quieter — quickly reduces the crowd. The Església de Santa Maria at the top of the village has a fine gilded Baroque altarpiece. The fishing boats still moor in the cove below the church, though they share it now with pleasure craft. In the evening, the tables at the waterfront bars fill with people watching the last light on the water, which is the right thing to do.