Mollet del Vallès

The motorway exit that actually works

Night-time on the AP-7, 470 miles into the haul from Calais, and the Sat-Nav offers a choice: push on to Barcelona’s ring-road with the lorries, or peel off at exit 13. Twenty minutes later you’re parked for free on a quiet residential street, checking into a spotless three-star hotel opposite the police station. Welcome to Mollet del Vallès—no castle views, no tapas trail, just a place that delivers exactly what long-distance drivers need: a bed under €100, a hot meal before 11 p.m. and a 30-minute train ride into the centre of Barcelona if you feel energetic next morning.

That is the city’s selling point, and locals know it. Since the 1960s Mollet has served as an overspill dormitory for people priced out of Barcelona. Sixty-five metres above sea-level, it sits on the edge of the Besòs river plain where the Pyrenees peter out into olive fields and logistics warehouses. The climate is textbook Mediterranean—mild-enough winters, sweaty Augusts—so nothing interferes with the steady rhythm of commuting, school runs and Saturday market.

What counts as “old” here

Start at Plaça Prat de la Riba, a wide rectangle of granite benches and pollarded plane trees. The only genuinely medieval footprint is the church of Sant Vicenç: stubby Romanesque tower, later Gothic façade, interior scrubbed white in the nineteenth century. It’s open 8 a.m.–1 p.m. and 5 p.m.–8 p.m.; turn up during those windows or you’ll find a locked door and a notice sending you to mass on Sunday.

Behind the apse a single alley of ochre plaster walls survives from the original hamlet—about forty metres, ending in a delivery gate for flats built in 1973. That demolition-expansion cycle explains Mollet’s appearance: wherever you stand, the skyline is nine-storey apartment blocks finished in beige render. The castle, mentioned in charters of 1040, is a rebuilt administrative centre beside the town hall; a couple of ground-floor arches may be original, the rest is 1950s restoration. Exhibitions inside are free, but opening hours shrink to Friday afternoon only in low season.

Modernism slipped in before the developers really got going. Walk Carrer de Sant Ramon and you’ll spot Casa Xifré (1907) with its green-ceramic balcony panels, and the torre-topped Casa Roura now housing a driving school. They are solitary houses wedged between banks and chain pharmacies—architectural speed bumps rather than a coherent “route”.

Green patches without the postcards

The river Besòs is technically at the bottom of town, but you’ll smell it before you see it: slow water, reeds and the faint whiff of treated sewage from the upstream plant. A 10-kilometre pista ciclabile follows both banks, popular with joggers and parents pushing buggies. Bikes can be hired from the petrol station opposite the police court—€12 a day, ID required. The surface is smooth, the scenery industrial: warehouses, pylons, the back fences of tyre-fitters. Functional rather than beautiful, yet on weekdays it’s almost empty and you can cover 20 km without traffic.

If you want gradients, head north-west on the GR-177 footpath; after 5 km the concrete fades into pine scrub of the Serralada Litoral. A stiff hour gets you to the Ermita de Sant Mateu (290 m) where benches look south over the Vallès plain—on clear winter days you can pick out the bell towers of the Sagrada Família 20 km away. Carry water; cafés are absent once you leave the urban grid.

Eating like a commuter, not a tourist

British visitors expecting sizzling paella pans will be disappointed—rice dishes appear only at weekends and need ordering in advance. What Mollet does well is three-course fixed-price lunches aimed at office workers. Can Prat (Carrer Major 45) serves €19.95 menú del día: roast chicken, chips and a half-bottle of house red that tastes better than it should. Kids’ fallback is plato combinado—egg, steak, fries—available at every bar; Pitapes does a toasted tuna baguette with crisp bravas potatoes mild enough for primary-school palates.

The covered market (Mon–Thu 8 a.m.–3 p.m., Fri & Sat until 5 p.m.) is the place to assemble a picnic. Stalls offer jamón serrano carved to order, Manchego at €18 a kilo, and seasonal fruit from Lleida orchards. Coffee-and-croissant refuels at Pastelería Lorena from 8 a.m.; handy if you’re back on the motorway early.

Getting in, getting out

Mollet’s transport is its trump card. Rodalies line R8 reaches Plaça Catalunya in 28 minutes; trains run every 15 minutes at peak times, half-hourly off-peak. A T-casual ticket gives ten journeys for €11.35—far cheaper than paying €25 for a hotel garage plus Barcelona parking fees. Last train home is 23:07, so don’t plan a late flamenco show.

Drivers should avoid the C-17 between 7.30 a.m. and 9 a.m.: parents doing the school run clog the single carriageway into Barcelona. Street parking is free after 6 p.m. and all day Sunday; blue-zone meters charge €1.20 an hour otherwise. If the hotel offers underground space for €15, take it—traffic wardens work early here.

A practical base, not a holiday highlight

Come September the town lets its hair down for Fiesta Mayor: fire-run correfocs, brass bands, bouncy castles in every square. For four nights the population seems to triple, and earplugs are advisable if your room fronts the main drag. The rest of the year Mollet is quiet, clean, faintly dull—adjectives British reviewers repeat on TripAdvisor. One Exeter family summed it up: “Perfectly adequate, but we were glad we’d only booked one night.”

And that honesty is the point. Mollet del Vallès will never compete with Girona’s medieval alleys or coastal Cadaqués. It exists for people who need Barcelona access without Barcelona prices, a reliable bed, a safe place to leave the car, and coffee strong enough to face the last 300 km to the Costa Blanca. Use it for what it is—a functional overnight, a springboard into the city, or a base for hikers who don’t mind sleeping in suburbia—and it performs exactly as advertised. Expect charm, and you took the wrong exit.