October 31 in Barcelona is two parties in one night! La Castanyada is the Catalan one: hot roasted chestnuts, sweet potatoes and panellets (little marzipan sweets). Halloween lands on the same night, so lots of neighborhoods do both, with costumes and chestnuts side by side. And this year it's a Saturday, so the whole weekend is yours. Here's what we checked, from free street parties and pumpkin patches to PortAventura.
Halloween is one of our family's favorite holidays of the year :). In Barcelona, we get to celebrate with a local twist. Here's my list of places to take the kids.
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 map shows every route found, each with its time. Some still show last year's times, since most shop associations post theirs in mid-October.
Every fall, 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.
The pins show the 2025 stands, because the 2026 list is not out yet. The city usually posts it in late October, and most stands return to the same corner.
A street party 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.
Older kids come for the passatge del terror, a real haunted passage. With little ones, come early for the stalls, and head home before the late band.
Kids in costume go from shop to shop through Barceloneta asking for candy, handed out by the storekeepers themselves. The shopkeepers' association puts it on with the neighborhood's school parent groups and local festival committee.
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. Costumed characters, including a pumpkin-headed Jack, help kids still learning Catalan follow along.
A two-actor mystery play staged outdoors 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, not a big city event.
A family Halloween spread through the streets of Poble Espanyol: 30 costumed characters, two walk-through tunnels, magician acts, games, a scavenger hunt and food trucks. Kids follow clues and solve riddles as they go, and costumes are welcome.
Granja Aventura Park is a farm and outdoor adventure park. For Halloween it adds spider webs, a pretend cemetery, and friendly witches, vampires and chestnut sellers in costume.
The spooky touches lean silly rather than scary, and the same ticket covers the farm animals and the adventure circuits in the trees. Nearly everything is outdoors, so bring shoes that can get muddy.
The Halloween side of PortAventura Park is gentle for younger kids: 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.
Admission covers the whole park and the haunted passages cost extra, so it works best as a full day.
Civic centers, libraries and neighborhood casals all over Barcelona throw small parties for the Castanyada, and many mix in a little Halloween too. Think roasted chestnuts, the Castanyera in her headscarf telling stories, puppet shows and face painting.
These are the neighborhood's own parties, small and friendly. Kids roll panellets, walk through a homemade spooky tunnel, or just eat warm chestnuts with friends.
Masia Vilanoveta, a country house just outside Sitges, turns its grounds into a pumpkin field each fall. Kids walk the rows looking for the one that feels like theirs, then paint and decorate it at the craft tables.
It feels more like a village autumn fair than a ticketed attraction, with food, stalls, a stage, games and bouncy castles. Plan a slow afternoon, not a quick stop.
Catalunya en Miniatura is an outdoor park in Torrelles de Llobregat filled with scale models of the Sagrada Família, Montserrat and other Catalan landmarks. For Halloween, 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.
Món Sant Benet is a medieval monastery in the Bages countryside. Its Castanyada story is about an old chestnut seller who put a spell on her recipe book, 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 of the season. It is spooky in a silly way.
Late October is harvest time in the towns inland from Barcelona. In the Montseny the fair is all about chestnuts, roasted over open fires, and guides lead walks through centuries-old groves. Out on the plains, farmers weigh their biggest pumpkins and kids paint small ones to take home.
Other towns retell their witch legends, with whole villages dressing up for puppets, street theater, music and fire.
Joan's parents have an unusual worry: their son has never been scared of anything. So they book a weekend in a haunted house, hoping the ghosts, monsters and curses will finally teach him what fear feels like.
What follows is a comic musical in Catalan from La Roda Produccions, full of songs, dance numbers and spooky characters who can't quite rattle him. The scares are played for laughs.
The Sitges fantasy and horror film festival has made room for kids since 2023. At the Mercat Vell, the Sitges Family program shows films, cartoons and shorts picked for children and teens, with the audience on giant beanbags.
The other big draw is the Zombie Walk, a crowd in full zombie makeup shuffling through town. 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. In its family workshops, 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.
One workshop, Xoco Trencadís, adds a bit of Barcelona history: kids 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. There are craft workshops, face painting, clowns, and DJ sets with a kids' show.
Food trucks are on site, so lunch can be part of the day, and 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 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.
Alella Green Tech runs this on its Can Picard farm. The patch sits on an open hillside, so kids walk out among the vines, pick a pumpkin, cut it themselves and carve it at the long wooden tables.
Party days are the big version, with the whole hillside busy. On quiet days the patch opens just for picking and carving.
Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos) is the Mexican holiday when families remember relatives who have died, with flower-covered altars, candles and sugar skulls. It is about memory, not a scary night.
The Mexican cultural association MEXCAT marks it here with a parade of catrinas, elegant skeleton ladies in big flowered hats, down La Rambla toward the sea. The painted faces are worth seeing up close.
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.
Expect Halloween games, a photobooth and a snack, with one grown-up joining each child. One morning is given over to decorating monster cookies.
October 31 in Barcelona is two parties in one night! La Castanyada is the Catalan one: hot roasted chestnuts, sweet potatoes and panellets (little marzipan sweets). Halloween lands on the same night, so lots of neighborhoods do both, with costumes and chestnuts side by side. And this year it's a Saturday, so the whole weekend is yours. Here's what we checked, from free street parties and pumpkin patches to PortAventura.
Halloween is one of our family's favorite holidays of the year :). In Barcelona, we get to celebrate with a local twist. Here's my list of places to take the kids.
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 map shows every route found, each with its time. Some still show last year's times, since most shop associations post theirs in mid-October.
Every fall, 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.
The pins show the 2025 stands, because the 2026 list is not out yet. The city usually posts it in late October, and most stands return to the same corner.
A street party 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.
Older kids come for the passatge del terror, a real haunted passage. With little ones, come early for the stalls, and head home before the late band.
Kids in costume go from shop to shop through Barceloneta asking for candy, handed out by the storekeepers themselves. The shopkeepers' association puts it on with the neighborhood's school parent groups and local festival committee.
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. Costumed characters, including a pumpkin-headed Jack, help kids still learning Catalan follow along.
A two-actor mystery play staged outdoors 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, not a big city event.
A family Halloween spread through the streets of Poble Espanyol: 30 costumed characters, two walk-through tunnels, magician acts, games, a scavenger hunt and food trucks. Kids follow clues and solve riddles as they go, and costumes are welcome.
Granja Aventura Park is a farm and outdoor adventure park. For Halloween it adds spider webs, a pretend cemetery, and friendly witches, vampires and chestnut sellers in costume.
The spooky touches lean silly rather than scary, and the same ticket covers the farm animals and the adventure circuits in the trees. Nearly everything is outdoors, so bring shoes that can get muddy.
The Halloween side of PortAventura Park is gentle for younger kids: 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.
Admission covers the whole park and the haunted passages cost extra, so it works best as a full day.
Civic centers, libraries and neighborhood casals all over Barcelona throw small parties for the Castanyada, and many mix in a little Halloween too. Think roasted chestnuts, the Castanyera in her headscarf telling stories, puppet shows and face painting.
These are the neighborhood's own parties, small and friendly. Kids roll panellets, walk through a homemade spooky tunnel, or just eat warm chestnuts with friends.
Masia Vilanoveta, a country house just outside Sitges, turns its grounds into a pumpkin field each fall. Kids walk the rows looking for the one that feels like theirs, then paint and decorate it at the craft tables.
It feels more like a village autumn fair than a ticketed attraction, with food, stalls, a stage, games and bouncy castles. Plan a slow afternoon, not a quick stop.
Catalunya en Miniatura is an outdoor park in Torrelles de Llobregat filled with scale models of the Sagrada Família, Montserrat and other Catalan landmarks. For Halloween, 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.
Món Sant Benet is a medieval monastery in the Bages countryside. Its Castanyada story is about an old chestnut seller who put a spell on her recipe book, 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 of the season. It is spooky in a silly way.
Late October is harvest time in the towns inland from Barcelona. In the Montseny the fair is all about chestnuts, roasted over open fires, and guides lead walks through centuries-old groves. Out on the plains, farmers weigh their biggest pumpkins and kids paint small ones to take home.
Other towns retell their witch legends, with whole villages dressing up for puppets, street theater, music and fire.
Joan's parents have an unusual worry: their son has never been scared of anything. So they book a weekend in a haunted house, hoping the ghosts, monsters and curses will finally teach him what fear feels like.
What follows is a comic musical in Catalan from La Roda Produccions, full of songs, dance numbers and spooky characters who can't quite rattle him. The scares are played for laughs.
The Sitges fantasy and horror film festival has made room for kids since 2023. At the Mercat Vell, the Sitges Family program shows films, cartoons and shorts picked for children and teens, with the audience on giant beanbags.
The other big draw is the Zombie Walk, a crowd in full zombie makeup shuffling through town. 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. In its family workshops, 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.
One workshop, Xoco Trencadís, adds a bit of Barcelona history: kids 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. There are craft workshops, face painting, clowns, and DJ sets with a kids' show.
Food trucks are on site, so lunch can be part of the day, and 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 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.
Alella Green Tech runs this on its Can Picard farm. The patch sits on an open hillside, so kids walk out among the vines, pick a pumpkin, cut it themselves and carve it at the long wooden tables.
Party days are the big version, with the whole hillside busy. On quiet days the patch opens just for picking and carving.
Day of the Dead (Día de Muertos) is the Mexican holiday when families remember relatives who have died, with flower-covered altars, candles and sugar skulls. It is about memory, not a scary night.
The Mexican cultural association MEXCAT marks it here with a parade of catrinas, elegant skeleton ladies in big flowered hats, down La Rambla toward the sea. The painted faces are worth seeing up close.
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.
Expect Halloween games, a photobooth and a snack, with one grown-up joining each child. One morning is given over to decorating monster cookies.