Castanyada and Halloween with Kids in Barcelona 2026

Street trick-or-treat routes can be a lot for a one-year-old. Kids&Kafé, a play cafe in Les Corts, runs small Halloween sessions sized for the youngest ones instead.

On Saturday, October 31 there is a morning party for babies and toddlers from 8 months to 3 years, and a family party in the late afternoon for kids 3 and up. The Saturday before, a Mini Chef morning has kids 2 and up cooking Halloween treats. Places are limited and you book by sending a message on Instagram, so it helps to ask early.

Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos) is the Mexican holiday on November 1 and 2 when families remember relatives who have died, with flower-covered altars, candles and sugar skulls. It is a celebration of memory, not a scary night. Its best-known figure is the catrina, an elegant skeleton lady in a big flowered hat, first drawn by the Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada.

In Barcelona, the Mexican cultural association MEXCAT marks the day with a parade of catrinas down La Rambla toward the sea. Dozens of people in full skeleton face paint, long gowns and flower crowns walk together, and the painted faces are worth seeing up close.

Alella Green Tech runs this on its Can Picard farm, half an hour up the coast from Barcelona. The patch sits on an open hillside, so kids walk out among the vines and the pumpkins, pick one and cut it themselves, then carve it at the long wooden tables. There is wood-fired pizza at the lounge and a lawn to sit on for the afternoon.

Two things run side by side. The party days are the big version, from lunchtime until late, with the whole hillside busy. On quiet days in late October the patch is open for picking and carving, with a cheaper pass. Everything is booked online ahead of time and there are no tickets at the gate. The 2026 dates are not posted yet. Last year the parties were the two Saturdays either side of Halloween.

The Castanyera is the chestnut seller who turns up in Catalonia every autumn. For this workshop she has filled La Pedrera with autumn objects, and kids solve challenges in the building's best-known spaces to find them, seeing Gaudí's house up close along the way.

It runs in Catalan, so it suits kids who follow Catalan at school and gives them a nice chance to use it somewhere new.

Shopkeepers in neighborhoods all over Barcelona turn their streets into trick-or-treat routes for Halloween and the Castanyada. Kids in costume go from shop to shop, look for the sign in the window, and ask for candy. The routes are free, and most run in the early evening around October 31.

The map shows every route found, each with its time. Four have posted 2026 dates so far, all on Friday, October 30: Sant Gervasi, Guinardó, Mercat del Carmel and Barceloneta. The rest show last year's times, and most shop associations post theirs in mid-October.

From October, roasted chestnut stands pop up on street corners all over Barcelona. A warm paper cone of chestnuts, or a roasted sweet potato, on the walk home is the easiest way to do the Castanyada with kids, and the stands stay out well past October 31.

The map shows every stand the city licensed in 2025, about 65 across all ten districts. Sant Martí has the most, with 20. Most stands come back to the same corner every year. The 2026 list usually comes out at the end of October, and this page gets updated when it does.

A free Saturday-evening street party on Carrer de Garcilaso, put on by the neighborhood's shopkeepers for the Castanyada and Halloween. Shops and restaurants set up stalls along the street, local groups run activities, and last year there was music, dancing, workshops, face painting and roasted chestnuts.

The big draw for older kids is the passatge del terror, a real haunted passage. With little ones, come early for the street and the stalls, and head home before the late band.

Kids in costume go from shop to shop through Barceloneta asking for candy, on the evening of Friday, October 30. The shopkeepers' association puts it on with the neighborhood's school parent groups and local festival committee.

The 2026 start time and meeting point aren't posted yet. In 2025 it started with roasted chestnuts at 5:45pm and a family music and dance show at 6pm, then the candy route through about twenty shops.

Every autumn the Castanyera comes down from the mountain to roast chestnuts in the city square. This year the kids only want Halloween costumes and candy, so she decides it's time to reinvent herself, and not every idea goes to plan.

It's a gentle way into the two traditions that share October 31 in Barcelona. The show is in Catalan, with costumed characters, including a pumpkin-headed Jack, to help kids still learning it follow along.

A two-actor mystery play for kids 6 to 12, staged outdoors in Plaça Ferran Reyes for the Navas neighborhood's Castanyada party. One rainy night, two young detectives spot something moving in a garden tree, and the audience helps them work out what it is.

It's a small local party in Sant Andreu, not a big city event. It's free, but places are limited, so sign up at the civic center before you go.

A family Halloween spread through the streets of Poble Espanyol: 30 costumed characters, two walk-through tunnels, magic shows, games, a scavenger hunt and food trucks. Kids solve riddles as they go, so it works best if you plan on most of a day.

It runs on six weekend days only, from October 17 to November 1.

Granja Aventura Park is a farm and outdoor adventure park in Viladecavalls, next to Terrassa and about 35 minutes by car from Barcelona. On ten weekend days this fall, the park adds Halloween decor across the grounds, with spider webs, a pretend cemetery, and friendly witches, vampires and chestnut sellers in costume.

The spooky touches lean silly rather than scary, and the regular park comes with the same ticket, including the farm animals and the adventure circuits in the trees. Nearly everything is outdoors, so bring layers and shoes that can get muddy.

PortAventura Park, about 1h15 south of Barcelona by car or train, runs its Halloween season from September 19 to November 15. The side for younger kids is gentle: Sesame Street shows, Truco o Trato (a walk-through with friendly ghosts that ends in candy), a soap-bubble show and an evening lake show with fire and fountains.

Park tickets for two adults and two kids aged 4 to 10 start around €190, before any haunted passages, so it works best as a full day.

In the last week of October, civic centers, libraries and neighborhood casals all over Barcelona throw small parties for the Castanyada, the Catalan chestnut festival, and many now mix in a little Halloween too. Think roasted chestnuts, the Castanyera in her headscarf telling stories, puppet shows, craft tables and face painting, often out on the square in front of the center.

These are the neighborhood's own parties, put on by local ludotecas, casals and families, so they feel small and friendly rather than staged. Kids get to roll panellets, the little almond sweets of the season, walk through a homemade spooky tunnel, or just eat warm chestnuts with friends from school.

For three days each October, Masia Vilanoveta, a country house just outside Sitges, turns its grounds into a pumpkin field. Kids walk the rows looking for the one that feels like theirs, then carry it over to the craft tables to paint and decorate it.

It feels more like a village autumn fair than a ticketed attraction. Parents can eat, have a drink and browse the stalls while kids move between the stage, the games and the bouncy castles, so it works best as a slow afternoon rather than a quick stop.

Catalunya en Miniatura is an outdoor park in Torrelles de Llobregat, about 25 minutes by car from Barcelona, filled with scale models of the Sagrada Família, Montserrat and other Catalan landmarks. Every weekend from October 3 to November 1 it dresses up for Halloween, and costumed characters hide around the models to give families a small scare. The frights are mild, which makes it a good pick for younger kids who find bigger Halloween events too much.

Without a car, Rodalies sells a combined ticket that covers the train, a short bus ride and park entry.

Món Sant Benet is a medieval monastery in the Bages countryside, and for Castanyada season it tells the story of an old chestnut seller who lived in its woods. She brewed herbal cures, roasted chestnuts to keep bad spirits away and wrote her best recipes in a book, then put a spell on them, so the ingredients now read like troll nails, giant dandruff and bat blood.

Kids follow the clues to decode the recipe, then turn it into a panellet, the small almond sweet Catalan families eat around All Saints' Day. It is spooky in a silly way rather than a scary one, which suits the younger end of the 3 to 10 range.

Late October is harvest time in the towns inland from Barcelona, and each one celebrates in its own way. In the Montseny the chestnut is the star: they roast over open fires, guides lead walks through centuries-old chestnut groves, and for generations Barcelona's street chestnut sellers wanted only Viladrau's. Out on the plains, farmers bring their biggest pumpkins to be weighed, and children paint smaller ones to take home.

Other towns lean on their legends. About 400 years ago, women in these hills were tried as witches, and today whole villages dress up to retell those stories with puppets, street theater, music and fire. For kids it sits somewhere between a fairy tale and a history lesson, and it makes for a very Catalan way into Halloween.

Joan's parents have an unusual worry: their son has never been scared of anything. So they book a weekend in a haunted house through an adventure agency, hoping the ghosts, monsters and curses will finally teach him what fear feels like. What follows is a comic musical full of songs, dance numbers and spooky characters who can't quite rattle him.

La Roda Produccions has been making family musicals in Catalan for 25 years, and this one was nominated for Best Family Musical at the Premios de Teatro Musical. The company bills it as terrifyingly fun, with the scares played for laughs.

Sitges has hosted a fantasy and horror film festival for 59 years, and since 2023 it has made room for kids too. At the Mercat Vell, the old market hall in the center of town, the Sitges Family program shows new fantasy films, cartoons and short films picked for children and teens, with the audience sprawled on giant beanbags in front of the screen.

The other big draw is the Zombie Walk, now in its 18th year: a crowd in full zombie makeup shuffles through the streets of Sitges on a Saturday night, starting with a dance show that kicks off the invasion. Anyone can dress up and join in, and free makeup stations turn kids into the undead earlier in the day.

Castaween is the Museu de la Xocolata's mix of the Castanyada and Halloween, and for two long weekends it runs spooky chocolate workshops for families. Kids and parents work side by side, piping melted chocolate into spiderwebs, witch hats and pumpkin faces, or decorating butter cookies with ghosts and bats.

Most sessions start with a short explanation of where cacao comes from and how chocolate is made, then move straight to the hands-on part. One workshop, Xoco Trencadís, adds a bit of Barcelona history: kids learn about Modernisme and build a broken-tile mosaic, the style Gaudí made famous, out of colored chocolate.

Plaça Monumental is Barcelona's old bullring, and on Halloween its open ring turns into a party for kids up to 10. There are craft workshops, face painting, clowns, and a DJ set with a kids' show by Siamiss DJs, then DJ Xau later on.

Doors open at 12pm, and food trucks are on site, so you can make lunch part of the day. Tickets are cheap and kids under 3 go free, so it is an easy plan to pair with trick-or-treating later in the evening.

Every autumn the old amusement park on top of Tibidabo, the tallest hill over Barcelona, dresses up for Halloween. The moment kids remember is nightfall, when a new zombie show called The Last Dance (L'Últim Ball) takes over the Plaça dels Somnis, with a dance number that nods to the King of Pop.

Between rides, younger kids can look for the park mascots Ti, Bi, Da and Bo in their Halloween outfits, and costumed characters wander the paths around the park.