Ciutat Vella
El Raval
If you live here, you live in the middle of everything, eat the best cheap food in the city, and learn what a street that never sleeps really means.
Narrow medieval streets behind La Rambla, hollowed out and rebuilt around the MACBA. Half the population was born outside Spain. Genuinely multicultural rather than touristically so, with the best cheap food in Barcelona and a street life that does not stop.
The densest, most mixed, most argued-about neighbourhood in the city. Cheap for how central it is, and central in a way nowhere else is - but it is loud at every hour and has Barcelona's highest recorded petty-theft pressure.
Our read
The verdict
Best for
Keeping rent down
Nightlife on the doorstep
Café-working days
Think twice if you want
Quiet streets
Feeling safe at night
Your commute
Your trip to campus.
Explore on the map
Supermarkets here are well above the city norm.
Nearest of each
within 1.2 km
Supermarkets
Counting…
Corner shops
Counting…
Pharmacies
Counting…
ModelledDistances are from the middle of El Raval rather than from a specific flat, and venues come from OpenStreetMap, which under-maps small independents, so read a count as a floor rather than a total. Data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
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