Village
Badalona is a coastal city in the Barcelonès county, north of Barcelona, of Roman origin — the ancient Baetulo — with a rich Modernista and Roman heritage; its founding is placed around 100 BC, although remains found in Llefià and Sistrells trace its history back to the Neolithic. With 231,542 inhabitants (INE 2025), it is the fourth most populous city in Catalonia; it obtained city status in 1897 and lies 10 kilometres from the centre of Barcelona, occupying part of the Besòs delta and the foothills of the Serra de la Marina, whose Coscollada hill, at 466 metres, is its highest point. It enjoys a sub-humid Mediterranean climate, and the Serra de la Marina, which surrounds it to the northwest, serves as its main green lung, with holm-oak groves, pine forests and riparian woodland along its rieras (seasonal streams).
Monument
The monastery of Sant Jeroni de la Murtra, also called Nostra Senyora de la Vall de Betlem, stands in the Vall de Poià, in the Serra de Marina, within the Canyet neighbourhood of Badalona. A former Hieronymite monastery in the Gothic style, it was declared a historic-artistic monument of national interest in 1975 and, in 2014, a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Spain's highest level of heritage protection) together with the whole Vall de Poià, which also includes the hermitages of Sant Climent and Sant Onofre, the former hermitage of la Miranda and the Dosrius aqueduct. It occupies first place among Badalona's so-called seven treasures of cultural heritage, chosen in 2010 on the occasion of the city's status as capital of Catalan culture, and local tradition places here the reception of Columbus by the Catholic Monarchs.
Monument
Godmar Castle, also known as Cal Comte, is a fortified farmhouse located in the Pomar de Dalt neighbourhood of Badalona, listed as a cultural asset of national interest. Probably built on an ancient Roman villa, it has been documented as an allod since 1030, a date linked to the acquisition of the site by the bishop of Girona, Godmar III, in 989. It preserves Romanesque elements from the 12th-13th centuries, although its current appearance mostly dates from the 15th century, when Gothic elements were incorporated and it functioned as a fortified enclosure with a defence tower; in the 19th century it was refurbished in a neo-medieval historicist style, with walls, battlements and towers. Inside, the courtyard and the chapel of the Santo Cristo are preserved, with a carving attributed to Ramón Amadeu.
Monument
The Torre Vella is a building in the Dalt de la Vila neighbourhood of Badalona, next to the church of Santa Maria, which for centuries was the residence of the lords of Badalona and which has housed the Col·legi Cultural since 1939. Its origins go back to the 13th century, when it belonged to the Montcada family; in 1260 the allod passed to the Sentmenat family and in 1280 to the Santcliment family, a Barcelona family that turned it into the most important feudal house in the area, thanks above all to Pere de Santcliment, notary and secretary to Peter the Great, who was responsible for the base of the current building. Over the years it passed to the Pinós family, marquesses of Barberà, who gave their name to the square where it stands. It preserves Gothic elements, such as a 13th-century hall and a 15th-century cellar with five brick barrel vaults, along with renovations from the 16th to the 19th centuries; the defence tower was demolished in 1967 to develop Carrer del Temple.
Monument
A 15th-16th-century farmhouse in the Montigalà neighbourhood of Badalona, former family seat of the Busquets family, listed as a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection). Its most characteristic feature is a square, three-storey defence tower with cannon-shaped gargoyles, built when piracy in the 16th-18th centuries forced farmhouses like this one to be fortified; the house has a ground floor and an upper floor, with a voussoir-arched entrance and windows with arrow slits. It was left uninhabited in the 1970s because of the Montigalà-Batllòria Partial Plan, and vandalism reduced it almost to ruin. In 2015 the town council transferred it to the Fundació Privada Llegat Roca i Pi for social inclusion projects. According to legend, Christopher Columbus rested there on his return from America, on his way to be received by the Catholic Monarchs.
Monument
The Enric Pavillard house, protected as a Bien Cultural de Interés Nacional (Catalonia's highest level of heritage protection), is one of the most notable Modernista buildings in Badalona. It stands in the city's eixample, where the new industrial bourgeoisie settled in the early twentieth century, and was one of the first works by the Badalona-born architect Joan Amigó i Barriga, built in 1906 for Enric Pavillard, a French industrialist who ran a dye factory in the city. Conceived as a residential house with an enclosed garden, according to the critic Oriol Bohigas its Modernista character lies more in the details than in the overall composition; notable features include the iron and leaded-glass bay window and the wrought ironwork of its balconies. Declared a monument in 1981, it today houses the offices of an optician's.
Monument
A fortified farmhouse in the Canyadó neighbourhood of Badalona, which was a working farm until the mid-twentieth century and today houses a civic centre devoted to traditional culture. It is documented from a land donation of 5 May 1483; the present house took on its two-storey appearance in a 1595 renovation, and a tower was added in 1648 and a wine cellar in 1661. It belonged to the Canyadó family until 1718, then passed to the Salavert, Tàpies and Ventós Mir families; the last tenant farmers, the Camps Grau brothers, were evicted in 1956 when the owners planned, unsuccessfully, to demolish it. Declared a monument in 1974, it was bought by the city council in 1987 and has been a civic centre since 1995. Notable features include its 12-metre defensive tower, with machicolations, battlements and cannon-shaped gargoyles, and an eighteenth-century wrought-iron gate.
Nature
Badalona's urban shoreline (Barcelonès), north of the mouth of the Besòs, is divided into nine separate beaches. The longest is Barca Maria, at 660 metres, in the Manresà neighbourhood, near the boundary with Montgat; next come Pont d'en Botifarreta (620 m), with the Club Nàutic Bétulo, and La Mora (585 m), the southernmost, closed since 2019 due to heavy-metal contamination from the former Cros factory. Pescadors beach, the most central, was the first to be awarded the Blue Flag, a distinction now shared by five of the nine beaches.
Activity
The Festa Major de Badalona is one of the city's patronal festivals, alongside the Festes de Maig and the festivities of Sant Roc and Sant Sebastià. It is celebrated around 15 August, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, patron saint of Badalona. For many years it was the main event on the festive calendar, until the late 1970s, when it began to lose strength with the new leisure model of the late Franco era. That decline coincided with the rise of events linked to Sant Anastasi and the Festes de Maig, such as the Cremada del Dimoni, which gained prominence especially from the return of democracy onward. Even so, the Festa Major remains Badalona's second celebration of the year, with fewer activities and shorter than the Festes de Maig.
Nature
Historic park of Badalona with gardens and an old Modernist building, in the Casagemes neighbourhood, considered today the city's great green lung, both for its size and for its historical and landscape value and its plant and animal richness, within the network of metropolitan parks. It occupies 10.8 hectares divided between the former estates of Can Solei, already documented in 1565, and Can Arnús, which changed owners on numerous occasions over the centuries. Inside it there are the historic gardens, the former orchard area now unused, an upper esplanade used for public events, and a central promenade flanked by century-old plane trees that connects the two estates.
Historical milestone
Founded around the year 100 before our era beside the Via Augusta, Baetulo exported wine in amphorae throughout the Mediterranean. Beneath the old town the decumanus, the baths and the wine shop excavated since 1954 are preserved.
Food and drink
Anís del Mono is an anisette brand founded in Badalona in 1870 by the brothers Vicente and José Bosch y Grau, who set up their factory by the sea and turned it into one of Spain's most important distilleries. It is made by traditional methods, using anise, water, refined sugar syrup and alcohol, distilled in 19th-century copper stills, in a dry version with a green label and a sweet one with a red label. The Modernista building, with period furniture by the Badalona architect Joan Amigó y Barriga, was declared historic heritage in 2007. Several theories circulate about the monkey on the label, popularised by a poster by Ramon Casas: that it was the factory's mascot, or that it alluded to Darwin's theories, published barely eleven years before the distillery was founded.