Montornès del Vallès

The 08:13 Rodalies train from Barcelona pulls in and unloads a tide of laptop bags and reusable shopping totes. By 08:25 the platform is empty again, the passengers swallowed by low-rise apartment blocks that look more Croydon than Costa. Welcome to Montornès del Vallès, a town whose greatest virtue—according to the handful of British visitors who have left TripAdvisor reviews—is that it is “convenient for the circuit” (the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is ten minutes up the road). Expectations should be adjusted accordingly.

Altitude here is a modest 88 m, so the air feels only fractionally cooler than downtown Barcelona 18 km away. What you do notice is the silence after dark: no mopeds bouncing off medieval stone, no club beats. The Besòs river, little more than a reed-fringed stream, slides past new-build flats and 1970s arcades. Elderly men in flat caps still patrol the pavements at dawn, but they share the zebra crossings with parents shepherding scooter-riding children towards the British School of Barcelona’s satellite campus on the edge of town.

A Centre That Takes Five Minutes to Cross

The guidebooks call it a “nucleus” rather than a centre, and they are right. From the single-screen bakery on Carrer Major to the 13th-century church of Santa Maria takes all of four minutes at shuffle pace. The church’s bell tower, rebuilt piecemeal after an 1830 lightning strike, is the closest thing the town has to a landmark. Step inside and you will find a Baroque altarpiece gilded so heavily that it seems to sag under its own optimism. Free entry; lights come on automatically when you step on the mat, so no fumbling for one-euro coins.

Round the corner, two streets of ochre plaster and wrought-iron balconies survive from the farming village that existed before commuter trains and polystyrene factories arrived. Housewives lower baskets on rope so the Correos postman can deposit letters without anyone climbing the stairs. It is a pleasant vignette, but blink and you are back among four-storey blocks whose ground floors host kebab shops and estate agents advertising mortgages at 1.9 %.

Thursday is market day. Stalls sprout on Plaça Major from 08:00 till 14:00, selling everything from razor clams to knock-off Arsenal shorts. Little English is spoken; prices scribbled on cardboard are non-negotiable. Fill a reusable bag with seasonal fruit for under four euros, then queue at Bar Central for a bikini—toasted ham-and-cheese sandwich—if the sight of tripe stalls turns you vegetarian.

Green Corridors and Bicycle Therapy

The Besòs floodplain has been tamed into a 12-km gravel track that links Montornès with neighbouring Mollet and Sant Fost. Hire a bike from the Rodalies station’s automatic dock (€6 for a day pass; credit-card only, no chip-and-PIN) and you can pedal to the coast in a little over an hour, ducks and irrigation ditches giving way to warehouses and, finally, the tramuntana wind whipping in off the sea. The gradient is almost flat; heart-rate monitors will register embarrassment rather than exertion.

For something hillier, head west on the BV-5101 until the tarmac thins and pine woods start. After 5 km the road tilts skywards; calves burn as you gain 250 m to the Ermita de Sant Bartomeu, a stone chapel wedged between radio masts. The view eastwards takes in the whole Vallès plain: a chessboard of cereal fields and logistics parks ending at the bruised silhouette of Montserrat. On a hazy August afternoon the chapel’s shaded porch is five degrees cooler than the valley floor—bring a jumper if you plan to linger.

Eating, or Why Sunday Lunch Matters

British stomachs expecting all-day breakfasts leave disappointed. Kitchens close at 16:00 and reopen, if at all, at 20:30. Your best insurance is the menu del dia, served Monday to Friday between 13:00 and 15:30. Can Xarau on Avinguda de la Generalitat does a three-course fallback of soup, grilled chicken with chips, and crema catalana for €14.50; wine and bread included, butter replaced by olive oil without apology. Vegetarians get escalivada (roasted aubergine and peppers) and a sympathetic shrug.

Sunday is when locals dress up. Extended families occupy every table at Cal Ferrer, a farmhouse restaurant on the edge of the industrial estate. Their calcots—long spring onions charred over vine shoots—are served on roof tiles, accompanied by romesco sauce that stains collars crimson. A bib is provided; refusal marks you out as either brave or British. Book ahead; even with 120 covers the place empties by 17:00 when grandparents demand their sofas.

Festivals: Gunpowder, Giants and a Queue for Doughnuts

Late August brings the Festa Major. Brass bands march at decibels outlawed in the UK, followed by capgrossos—papier-mâché giants whose painted heads wobble six metres above the pavement. At 22:00 sharp the correfocs start: devils with firework-spinning pitchforks chase screaming children down Carrer Verge de Montserrat. British parents reach for the fire-safety guidelines; Catalan toddlers laugh and light sparklers. Bring natural fibres, cover hair, do not wear flip-flops unless you fancy a free pedicure with gunpowder.

January’s Sant Antoni is tamer. Horses are blessed outside the church, then led to a bonfire fuelled by old Christmas trees. The council hands out free hot chocolate so thick it coats the plastic cup like asphalt. Queues stretch 30 minutes; nobody complains. If you miss it, doughnut vans reappear for the Diada de Sant Jordi in April, when the streets turn into an open-air bookshop and every woman sports a single red rose tucked into her handbag strap.

Getting There, Getting Out

No airport bus exists. From Terminal 2 at Barcelona-El Prat take the airport train to El Clot-Aragó, then change onto the R2 Nord towards Granollers. Alight at Montmeló and switch to the S2 or S6 line for the final seven minutes to Montornès. The whole journey runs roughly hourly; miss a connection and you will cool your heels for 50 minutes on a platform with no café. A T-Casual multi-journey ticket (€11.35 for ten trips) covers the lot, but remember to validate every segment—ticket inspectors love day-trippers with luggage.

Accommodation choices are slim. The three-star Hotel Montornès has 51 beige rooms overlooking a petrol station; doubles hover around €75 with breakfast. Its main clientele is engineers servicing the nearby Nissan plant. Airbnb lists barely a dozen properties, mostly spare rooms in family flats. British visitors tend to day-trip from Barcelona or base themselves in Granollers where the medieval centre at least provides photo opportunities.

Should You Bother?

Montornès del Vallès will never compete with the honey-coloured villages of Andalucía or the cava-crowned cellars of Sant Sadurní. It is a working town where tourism is an afterthought, and that, paradoxically, is its appeal. Come for a bike ride, stay for lunch, eavesdrop on Catalan grandmothers arguing over cauliflower prices. Leave before dusk and you will have seen a slice of metropolitan Spain that package brochures ignore. Expect nothing monumental and you will head back to the airport with change in your pocket and soot on your shoes—proof you caught a correfoc and survived.