I'm staying in Barcelona for 3 nights and 2 days, and can't decide which district I should stay in.
I will be seeing the biggest attractions in the area, so central locations is important. I'm most interested in experiencing local culture, eating great food, and fun nightlife (particularly dive bars and local music). Not really into the club scene and definitely not looking for hookups.
Budget accommodations are preferred. Where should I stay?
Both obviously have merits, hence your indecision. Raval is possibly a little more ‘out there’ with some fantastically ‘distinctive’ venues. I would choose El Born which is more convenient for the visitor in terms of sightseeing, but then is perhaps a little more mainstream, a little bit touristy
.... then again, most of Barcelona is touristy these days.
El born.
Something between touristy and local. Lots of charm
El Raval felt a bit « rougher » to me.
Fell in love with this district.
I second El Born. We stayed in an apartment right behind the Picasso museum. We loved that area. Great ambiance and restaurants. Could walk many places.
None of the above are "districts". Districts = http://bit.ly/BCNdistricts Neighbourhoods = http://bit.ly/BCNhoods This is important when you look up for accommodation as the later is the typical classification used in most reputable websites. El Born is neither though. El Born is just a short 300-yard boulevard located in the neighbourhood of La Ribera. Still, there's this stubbornness in some operators (especially foreign but and also some expats located in the city) to keep propagating this misleading concept and continue referring to "El Born" as a neighbourhood, or worst, as a district. Saying so because you won't find references as such in any official publication.
After this "scolding", LOL!, I should add I also believe "the area around El Born" would suit your requirements better. El Raval neighbourhood is indeed to be visited, to wander, to go for a drink or a meal, but IMHO not necessarily to be based on. While the northern part, that closer to Plaça Catalunya is ok, the southern part, that closer to the Old Port, can be a bit rougher (not unsafe, just rougher), especially in the evening. One of the "Red Light Districts" is located in the narrow streets to the right of Rambla del Raval, in and around Carrer d'en Robadors. Important: this doesn't mean one should "avoid that area", one just needs to know, so one doesn't feel "uncomfortable" when passing. Period.
Hi Bill... aquesta és pregunta d'examen, eh! :)) Well, "technically" the city only has 10 districts divided in 73 neighbourhoods.... period.
However, there are still indeed some other unofficial "names" used by the longtime residents of certain areas of the city. This is mainly due to the historical evolution of the administrative divisions of the past. Over the centuries, the city has been divided over and over into different "areas" as it grew and expanded. Also, when absorbing the neighbouring villages and towns in the plain of the current city, names were changed. Note that current places like Poblenou, Sarrià or Gràcia were independent towns until fairly recently (the last merging took place between 1897 and 1921)
Once can still find street plaques showing this evolution, especially in the Old City, ie this one -from the era when the Spanish didn't allow us to use our mother tongue and local language, Catalan, and everything had to be labelled in Spanish. In the era of this particular plaque -probably late 1800s-, subdivisions were referred in numbers as you can see in the image.
Anyway... summarizing, yes, some of us locals use certain names to refer to certain areas, but they're not official --either they are no longer official or they never were but popular use made them... popular. In any case, for visitors' sake, I think it's best to stick to the official denominations in order not to confuse them since the unofficial names are not to be found in any website/publication. Just my opinion, of course.
Btw Bill... if you were to say to me to meet in Sant Roc I would probably think you're referring to the neighbourhood of BADALONA -to the north of Barcelona, for those not familiar- and would likely think to myself: "WTF!" because it's not precisely a "nice" neighbourhood to wander, LOL!
PS: Yes, yes, I know you're referring to the extinct Sant Roc "neighbourhood" in the Old City in Barcelona, haha! The Festival of Sant Roc, for those visiting in mid-August is, of course, a must. You'll see a lot of a typical Catalan Festa Major bits there. And it's free, of course.
El Born is a nicer area. El Raval is frankly a bit seedy, especially at night.
Sorry for calling it a district, my first language is french, I don't know the english translation for it. In french I'm say "quartier". But I think everybody understands what people mean and want when they say district.
I walked through parts of El Raval several times in August 2016, often thinking "Some American tourists would be uncomfortable here." I imagine a lot depends on whether you're a resident of a city or live in a middle-class suburb.
