Barceloneta Beach

Waterfront · La BarcelonetaBarcelona, Spain

Barceloneta Beach is younger than many of the people swimming off it. Until the city rebuilt its waterfront for the 1992 Olympics, this shore carried rail track, workshops and a line of beach restaurants built out over the water; breakwaters went in, and a bathing beach replaced a working one. The neighbourhood behind is far older: a grid of tight blocks laid out in the 1750s on silt that had banked up behind the harbour wall, to rehouse people whose district was demolished for the citadel. The buildings were kept shallow so every room could reach light and sea air. Today it is one flat strip of pale sand, busiest in the middle of the day and loudest in high summer: volleyball, hand drums, vendors calling mojitos along the waterline, grilled-fish smoke off the terraces. A sail-shaped hotel closes the view to the southwest; the masts of the Olympic marina mark the far end. None of the sand is permanent — winter storms cut metres off the width in a night. Out of season the strip empties into a walkers' beach, wet sand and grey swell, with a few regulars still going in at dawn.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Watch the wind before you swim — A few days of easterly wind pushes jellyfish onto this stretch and churns the water brown for a day or two afterwards.
Keep walking northeast — Barceloneta is the first sand you reach from the old town, so it takes the crush; ten minutes along the promenade the towels visibly thin out.
The bomba belongs to the streets behind, not the promenade — A fried potato ball with meat inside and fierce garlic alioli on top, credited to a bar in Barceloneta's grid of back streets. Eat it standing at the counter.
Cover up before you leave the sand — Swimwear stays on the beach here; the streets behind are somebody's neighbourhood, and walking them half-dressed marks you out immediately.
Take turns in the water so someone always stays with the bags — Bags go missing on this stretch quickly and quietly. Bring only what you could afford to lose.

Things to do

1
Swim before the city wakes
Walk to the far southwestern end, past the swimming clubs, while it is still dark. Leave your things by the wall, get in, and turn to face east as the sun comes up out of the water. Regulars swim this end all year. You will be dry before the first parasol goes up.
2
Walk the whole strip at dusk
Start where the sail-shaped hotel blocks the view and walk northeast with the sea on your right. Stop at the four leaning iron cubes near the waterline, then keep going past the volleyball nets and the last chiringuito until the sand ends at the Olympic marina and Gehry's mesh fish.
3
Turn your back on the sea
Step off the promenade into the grid behind it: streets barely wide enough for two people to pass, laundry strung between balconies, a slot of blue at the end of each one. Find a bar with marble tables, order vermut before lunch, and let the neighbourhood's shopping carry on around you.