Barcelona walking tours - Barcelona views: walk along Collserola ridge to Tibidabo

Photograph © Trevor. More featured photographers here.

Basics

grade	leisurely
base	Barcelona
location tags	Barcelonès, Tibidabo,
theme tags	coastal, ecclesiastical, gypsy,
walking distance	13 km / 8.08 miles
walking time, excluding breaks	4 hr
total return travel time from base to walk	0.50 hr
total time from "hello" to "goodbye"	5.90 hr
fiestas and markets in places we go through - combine a walk and some partying or shopping!	end of June (Andalusian-style fiesta mayor) Note that there are also events in most places on January 6 (Three Kings), Carnival, Easter, April 23 (St George), June 23 (St John), and September 11 (Catalan regional/national day)

The walk

This walk along the long high ridge behind Barcelona gives you spectacular views of Barcelona and the Mediterranean, as well as north along the Serra de Marina litoral range, south over the Garraf massif, and inland towards the peaks of Montseny, Montserrat, and the Pyrenees.

We start with a climb through a hillside neighbourhood composed of Andalusian (gypsy) immigration from the end of the dictatorship. Despite harassment from the council, the top end of the neighbourhood is still substantially self-built, with a couple of interesting bars, some well-kept gardens, quite a lot of poultry, and the occasional pig (1/2/3/4/5/6).

The walk along the ridge mixes classic Mediterranean coastal scenery with a lusher environment, basically depending whether we’re on the sunny side or not. There are also a couple of isolated bar/restaurants with good food and wine. The partner-swapping club has, however, closed.

The standard edition of the walk finishes at the grand 1880s-1950s basilica (Gothic chapel built on top of Catalan-Byzantine one) at Tibidabo, the 512m peak you can see from the centre of town. There’s a rather strange funfair pioneered by money-laundering snakeoil salesman, and there’s a nice bar with good snacks and light meals nearby.

The final bit takes us past Norman Foster’s massive 1992 telecom tower and some very pretty modernist and Swiss-style early 20th century villas to the next village, and we then take the funicular 158m down to town via one a 1906 gem of a station.

Optional extension

Instead of taking the funicular, we can extend several more kilometres south, with yet more views of Barcelona and of the Llobregat delta to the south. The descent takes us through some superb rose gardens to the metro stop nearby FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou stadium and its trannies carpark attendants, ahem.

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