Ripollet

The 25-minute train ride from Barcelona’s Plaça Catalunya ends with a polite beep and a set of automatic doors hissing open onto a platform that smells faintly of diesel and pine. Step off, and the city’s hum drops by half. This is Ripollet—population just under 40,000, altitude 79 m, and barely ten kilometres from the Sagrada Família as the crow flies. No one pretends it’s a chocolate-box town; the first thing you see is a four-storey car park and a branch of the supermarket chain Mercadona. Yet the place works. People who can’t face Barcelona prices rent flats here, walk their dogs in Parc de Can Clos at dusk, and still make it back for last orders in the Gothic Quarter if the mood takes them.

A church, a farmhouse and the illusion of countryside

Ripollet’s oldest bones are grouped around the parish church of Sant Esteve, rebuilt so often that only the base of the bell tower looks medieval. Inside, the paintwork is municipal magnolia and the baroque altarpiece is flood-lit like a museum piece nobody quite knows what to do with. Across the small plaça, Can Clos—an 1840s farmhouse—now hosts weekend pottery classes and occasional exhibitions of local photography. The building is handsome enough, but the real draw is the adjacent park: flat gravel paths, a modest adventure playground, and enough bench space for grandparents to hold court while children chase pigeons. On Saturdays a small farmers’ market unfurls beside the park gates; expect tomatoes that still smell of leaf, and a cheese stall whose owner will press a sliver of goat’s milk formatge into your hand even if your Spanish stops at “gracias”.

The green corridor that isn’t on the postcards

The Riera de Ripollet is a dry riverbed for most of the year, but the town has turned its banks into a 3-km walking and cycling strip. Joggers in luminous Lycra pound the path at 7 a.m.; by late afternoon the pace drops to push-chair speed. The route links up with the footpaths of the Serra de Collserola, the forested ridge that keeps Barcelona from sprawling right across Catalonia. From Ripollet you can be under holm oaks in twenty minutes, following marked loops of 5–12 km. None of the climbs will trouble anyone who has tackled the Lake District, but carry water—shade is patchy and summer temperatures sit in the low thirties.

Eating: where calçots meet chicken nuggets

Catalan culinary orthodoxy says you should eat calçots (fat spring onions) charred over vine shoots and dipped in romesco. Ripollet obliges between January and March, when the local peñas (social clubs) hold weekend barbecues behind the sports centre. Visitors are welcome; expect to pay €18 for a portion of onions, lamb ribs, wine from a porró and a bib to protect your shirt. The rest of the year, choices are more suburban. Taverna Enovin on Carrer Major does textbook patatas bravas and will produce an English menu if you look lost; mains hover around €14. Maverick Tapas, two doors down, tones down the garlic for cautious Anglo palates without slipping into full British-pub mode. Children who have reached peak tortilla can defect to Cheer Ripollet, a bright café whose burgers arrive with a tiny Catalonia flag stuck into the bun. Beer drinkers should know: most bars serve Estrella on tap at €2.80 a caña, but ask for a “birra de barril” if you want the cool local craft option—La Pirata’s APA turns up in a couple of places.

Trains, tolls and why you might still want a car

Ripollet’s railway station is a single-platform halt on the R4 Rodalies line. Trains to central Barcelona run every 15 minutes at peak times, and the €2.40 single ticket is covered by the T-Casual multi-journey card. Last service back leaves Barcelona at 23.15—fine if you’re eating at 21.00, useless after a late gig at Palau Sant Jordi. Night buses (N62) take over, but the journey drags to 50 minutes. Drivers escape this curfew: the C-58 motorway skirts the town, reaching the airport in 25 minutes outside rush hour. Parking is free on blue-zone streets after 14.00 on Saturdays and all day Sunday; hotel guests get a residents’ scratch card for €6 a day. Hire cars booked at Girona airport should factor in €7.45 of AP-7 tolls each way—worth it if you’re using Ripollet as a base for day trips north to Vic or the quieter Girona beaches.

Festivals: fire runs and three-kings sweets

The Festa Major (second weekend of September) is when Ripollet remembers it is still a Catalan town rather than a Barcelona overspill. Towers of castellers rise in Plaça de l’Ajuntament, the local drummers’ tabalada shakes the windows, and a correfoc (fire run) sends devils with spinning sparklers down Carrer Barcelona. Visitors are handed old jumpers and told to cover their hair—health-and-safety here is refreshingly Iberian. December’s Sant Esteve celebrations are lower-key: a craft fair, a seniors’ sardana dance, and free hot chocolate thick enough to stand a spoon in. The highlight for families is 5 January, when the Three Kings disembark from a fire engine at 18.00 and lob 40 kg of boiled sweets at anyone under twelve. Bring a tote bag; the adults fight for the black liquorice ones.

Where to sleep (and why you probably won’t)

Ripollet’s only branded hotel is the Ibis, a concrete slab behind the police station whose 112 rooms were refurbished in 2022. Doubles start at €65 mid-week, including Wi-Fi and air-con sturdy enough for August. Reviews on British sites praise the free car park and 24-hour snack bar; they also warn of thin walls and the 11 a.m. checkout sharp. Alternatives are scarce—there’s one pension above a bakery that closes at weekends—so most visitors treat Ripollet as a pit stop rather than a destination. Book here when Barcelona is full, or when you need to catch a 07.00 flight out of El Prat without paying city-centre prices.

An honest verdict

Ripollet will never make the cover of a Catalan tourist board brochure. It has no beach, no medieval walls and only one building older than the steam railway. What it does offer is a functioning small-town rhythm: neighbours gossiping in the bakery queue, teenagers practising skateboard tricks outside the library, and a Tuesday-morning market where the stallholder remembers how you like your oranges peeled. Use it as an affordable dormitory for Barcelona if you must, but stay a second day and you’ll notice something the guidebooks don’t list—an ordinary place that has quietly worked out how to live well.