Badalona

The first thing you notice is the quiet. Thirteen minutes on the L1 metro from Barcelona’s Plaça de Catalunya and the carriage doors slide open onto a platform that feels like the end of the line. It isn’t – the train continues another stop – but the city buzz stays behind the tunnel walls. Step out into Badalona and the decibel level drops, the pavements widen, and the sea glints two streets away without a souvenir stall in sight.

Badalona has been the overspill for Barcelona since Baetulo, its Roman predecessor, sent grain and garum up the coast to Tarraco. The grid of stone shops, baths and mosaic-floored houses still lies underneath the modern town, and the Museu de Badalona will hand you a hard-hat and lower you into the cryptoporticus by torchlight. The air is cool, damp, scented with mortar two millennia old. From down there you look up through a glass panel at today’s pedestrians scuffing across the same flagstones, unaware.

Climb back to street level and the contrast is immediate. The Rambla – a broad pedestrian avenue that marches straight to the beach – is lined with 1950s apartment blocks whose ground floors hide butchers selling botifarra the width of cricket stumps and bakeries that price pa de pagès by the kilo rather than the baguette. On Wednesdays and Fridays the middle section becomes an open market: pyramids of artichokes, stalls that will steam a kilo of mussels while you wait, and elderly women who still ask for change in pessetes out of habit. English is thin on the ground; a smile and a pointed finger work faster than GCSE Spanish.

Seafront Without the Stag Parties

Five kilometres of sand stretch north from the harbour wall. The city has raked it, cleaned it and installed showers every hundred metres, yet on a June morning you can walk the entire length and share the surf with only a handful of locals doing their daily caminar ràpid. The water is warmer than Barceloneta – shallower too – so families prefer it. Lifeguards whistle at 17:00 when the shift changes; the older ones pack up their folding chairs and head for the chiringuito that sells Estrella at €2.50 a caña, half the price of anything central Barcelona dares to print on a menu.

The trouble starts in August. Spanish school holidays empty Madrid and Zaragoza onto the regional train, the sand turns towel-to-towel, and hotel rates leap to match the capital. Book May or late-September instead and you’ll still swim at 24 °C but pay 40 % less for the same room facing the marina.

A Pier You Can’t Walk – Yet

The Pont del Petroli used to carry fuel pipes out to tankers; now it carries Instagrammers. A storm snapped the decking in 2020 and the council keeps postponing the reopening. From the promenade you can photograph its iron ribs stretching 250 m into the swell, Barcelona’s skyline stacked behind. Locals swear it will return “next spring” – the same promise repeated since 2022. Treat it as a landmark to navigate by rather than a stroll, and you won’t be disappointed.

What you can do is keep walking. A paved path continues north past the last high-rise, curls around the yacht club and becomes a dirt track into the Serra de la Marina, a low coastal range that separates Badalona from the Vallès plain. Thirty minutes uphill and the city thins to toy size; pine needles replace diesel fumes. The summit is only 250 m above sea level – enough for a panorama that takes in the Pyrenees on a crisp December morning and gives phone reception back to Barcelona if you need an Uber home.

Rice, Rabbit and Micro-brews

Badalona’s restaurants rarely make the international lists, which keeps prices tethered to neighbourhood wages. Down at the port, Espai Versàtil does a arroz caldoso – soupy rice loaded with cuttlefish and prawns – that arrives in a metal pan sized for two yet costs €18 per person. They’ll split it without fuss if you ask. Closer to the metro, Balsamic Gastrobar turns out truffle croquettes and a mini beef burger that tastes like Sunday roast浓缩 into three bites. Catalan craft beer has taken hold: Garage Beer and Montseny pour on tap at La Conejera, a rabbit-warren bar whose English menu still lists “conill” in error, to the perpetual amusement of Erasmus students.

If you want to cook, the MercaBadalona on Carrer Pau Claris opens at 07:00. Fish arrives from Blanes auction at 09:00; by 10:30 the hake is gone and the fishmongers are hosing down scales. Buy a quarter-kilo of gambes and the man will ask “Per avui o per demà?” – today or tomorrow? Answer honestly; he’ll choose the crate accordingly.

Getting In, Getting Out

Zone-1 on the T-casual ticket covers the entire journey from Barcelona airport: R2 Nord to El Clot, change to L1, ride nine stops. Total time 45 min, no airport surcharge. Trains run every six minutes at peak; the last service back leaves at 00:30 on weekdays, 02:00 at weekends. Miss it and a taxi is €35 – still cheaper than staying in Barcelona’s old town.

Road access is simpler than the map suggests. The C-31 coastal highway deposits you at the beachfront, but parking meters operate 09:00-20:00 and Saturday rates match weekday ones. Hotel Neptuno offers underground spaces for €18 per 24 h; the municipal car park under the Rambla is €12 but closes at 22:00. Motorcyclists park free on blue bays – one of the few Spanish towns that still tolerates the practice.

The Honest Verdict

Badalona will not change your life. It has neither the medieval drama of Girona nor the modernist whimsy of Barcelona. What it does offer is a breathing space where you can swim at dawn, eat well for under €25, and be back in the airport departure lounge before lunch. Come for the Roman cellars, stay for the unruffled seafront, and leave before August – or bring earplugs and patience.