My boyfriend and I are booked on a 7 day Mediterranean cruise out of Barcelona in July and we will be spending 4 days in Barcelona prior to our cruise. When we get back to Barcelona, we do not want to travel far but would like to spend around five days along the coast and we would drive up to an hour or two north or south from Barcelona so we can relax at a charming village that has a nice, not overcrowded beach, with clear, turquoise waters. Any ideas?
Thank you.

Rather than spend the four days before the cruise in Barcelona, why not land in Madrid and see Madrid, Toledo and Segovia, then take the fast train (about two hours) to Barcelona to catch your cruise. I have not been to the beaches on the East Coast, even near Barcelona, so no advice there.

You could also land in Malaga or Seville before the cruise. There are wonderful beaches on the Southern coast.

San Sebastián for those four days! Known for beaches and great food. Look at pictures.

As this will be our first time in Barcelona, we want to take a few days to explore the city. We will travel to Madrid on another vacation. Also, I just checked and San Sebastien, although beautiful, is over 500km away so we would want something a little closer (our flights leave from Barcelona). I appreciate your help, though.

Go north into France and spend 4 days in Collioure. You're not going to find turquoise waters in that part of the world, though.

An hour north to the Costa Brava, Blanes is a lovely beach town and an hour south is another great beach town called Salou. Salou has a lot of young energy and has more of an international vibe with lots of Irish pubs and markets and a beautiful seaside promenade with palm trees and a big theme park nearby while Blanes is more local. Salou has a hip creative food scene and lots of artisan local beers and wine bars. For more "charm" though definitely look up Costa Brava coastal towns.

Most beaches up to 200 miles north and south of Barcelona will be crowded ibetween mid July and mid August.
For arts and culture, Madrid might be one of the best places, just 2 1/2 hrs by train from Barcelona.

I'm glad I spent time on the Costa Brava. You might look at Tossa del Mar. And you might find some useful information about both Barcelona and the Costa Brava in my trip report:
Four Awesome Weeks in the North of Spain and Catalunya

North of Barcelona we enjoyed both Collioure in France and the Spanish Costa Brava where we stayed in Aiguablava.

Thanks for all of your help.

While I completely understand the draw of Madrid, we just want some relaxation time and Madrid will need more time and energy than we will have so we will go there another time.

Collioure looks beautiful, as does both Cadaques and Tosse de Mar. I think out of these three we would choose Tosse de Mar as its sea temperatures in July is warmer and that is very important to us.

A little further away is Valencia. I just read an article about this city and even though it is a bit farther away from Barcelona than Tosse de Mar, it looks very romantic and it has many things to see and even has beaches within its city limits. We could stay in Valencia Old Town. Are the beaches in Valencia nice? Any smaller, nice beaches that are a short drive from the city? We could even stay just outside the city where we can have time to relax and also drive in and visit Valencia during a day trip or two. Any town/villages you could recommend close to Valencia that would be a good base?

We may be able to change our homeward bound flights from Barcelona to Valencia at a small cost.

Thanks

A few miles south of Valencia, you will find Parador de Saler, a very comfortable hotel in a Nature reserve (no noise, except that of birds and other animals) with a long sandy beach, rather empty even in high season. The Parador provides chairs and umbrellas to it's guests as commercial chair renting is forbidden is this nature reserve.
https://www.visitvalencia.com/en/wha...encia/el-saler

Google Sitges to see if you like that town. I enjoyed it very much for a couple of nights. Very close to Barcelona and an easy drive to the airport.

if you want to see my pics of it, click on my name and find the TR from Northeastern SPain. SItges pics will be at the very end.

If you do change your departure flight to Valencia you could go to Alicante or Asia Gardens which is an incredibly pretty Thai/Balinese style resort in the hills.