Autumn in Barcelona starts with La Mercè, the city's big festival in late September, and builds to the Castanyada on October 31. It is also when the first rainy weekends arrive and when day trips get easier without the summer heat. This page puts our autumn collections in one place: the Castanyada and Halloween plans, day trips by train or car, rainy-day backups and this weekend's kids' events.
October 31 in Barcelona is two parties in one night! La Castanyada is the Catalan one: hot roasted chestnuts, sweet potatoes and panellets (little marzipan sweets). Halloween lands on the same night, so lots of neighborhoods do both, with costumes and chestnuts side by side. And this year it's a Saturday, so the whole weekend is yours. Here's what we checked, from free street parties and pumpkin patches to PortAventura.
The shows, festivals, workshops and open-air events running this Saturday and Sunday, refreshed every week so the list is always the coming weekend.
Water parks, beach towns, and historic stops within easy reach: Marineland and PortAventura for slides and coasters, Sitges and Tossa de Mar for calm-water beaches, and Montserrat, Girona, and Cardona for monasteries, walled old towns, and a salt-mine cave tour. Most are reachable by train, and the listings note travel times and how to get there without a car.
Rain is the best excuse to go to the places kids beg to go back to. We kept this list short on purpose: every pick is fully indoors, built for kids, and good for a whole morning or afternoon, not a quick stop. Here's what we checked, from the flooded rainforest at CosmoCaixa to the trampolines and zipline at JumpYard.
Autumn in Barcelona starts with La Mercè, the city's big festival in late September, and builds to the Castanyada on October 31. It is also when the first rainy weekends arrive and when day trips get easier without the summer heat. This page puts our autumn collections in one place: the Castanyada and Halloween plans, day trips by train or car, rainy-day backups and this weekend's kids' events.
October 31 in Barcelona is two parties in one night! La Castanyada is the Catalan one: hot roasted chestnuts, sweet potatoes and panellets (little marzipan sweets). Halloween lands on the same night, so lots of neighborhoods do both, with costumes and chestnuts side by side. And this year it's a Saturday, so the whole weekend is yours. Here's what we checked, from free street parties and pumpkin patches to PortAventura.
The shows, festivals, workshops and open-air events running this Saturday and Sunday, refreshed every week so the list is always the coming weekend.
Water parks, beach towns, and historic stops within easy reach: Marineland and PortAventura for slides and coasters, Sitges and Tossa de Mar for calm-water beaches, and Montserrat, Girona, and Cardona for monasteries, walled old towns, and a salt-mine cave tour. Most are reachable by train, and the listings note travel times and how to get there without a car.
Rain is the best excuse to go to the places kids beg to go back to. We kept this list short on purpose: every pick is fully indoors, built for kids, and good for a whole morning or afternoon, not a quick stop. Here's what we checked, from the flooded rainforest at CosmoCaixa to the trampolines and zipline at JumpYard.