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.
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 giants and castellers perform in daylight in and around Plaça Sant Jaume, a separate Correfoc dels Petits 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.
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.
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 giants and castellers perform in daylight in and around Plaça Sant Jaume, a separate Correfoc dels Petits 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.