Barcelona with Kids in Autumn

In Barcelona, October 31 is two parties at once. La Castanyada is the Catalan one: roasted chestnuts, sweet potatoes and panellets (little marzipan sweets), with chestnut stands on the street and parties at schools and civic centers. Halloween falls on the same night, so many neighborhoods now mix the two, with costumes and haunted passages next to the chestnuts. In 2026 October 31 is a Saturday, so the whole weekend is open. Below are the family plans we have checked for 2026, from free neighborhood parties to the Halloween season at PortAventura.

La Mercè is Barcelona's patron-saint festival and the city's biggest free party, five days when the streets themselves become stages across all ten districts. The 2026 guest city is Shanghai, the first from Asia, bringing around 110 artists including the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe, and Chinese dragons dancing alongside Barcelona's own gegants. For families there are dedicated children's workshops, theater and circus, the daytime castellers and gegants parades in Plaça Sant Jaume suit small kids, a separate Correfoc Infantil gives a gentler fire run, and this year's closing piromusical moves to Nova Icària beach, visible from along the whole seafront.

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.

Every trip here starts at a station, not a parking lot: calm beaches, Montserrat's clifftop monastery, and Girona's medieval walls all sit at the end of a direct line, and each listing tells you which train to take and how long the ride runs.

When it rains, start with these. Climbat La Foixarda has 2,000 m² of climbing walls on Montjuïc, with kids' day passes from €5. JumpYard in Cornellà has wall-to-wall trampolines, a zip line and a foam pit. Little Makers in Gràcia runs messy, process-first art workshops. And the heated pool at Club Natació Atlètic-Barceloneta stays open all year. Below is every indoor place we cover, from museums and cinemas to bowling, pools and covered markets.