Barcelona’s Seven Hills – an easy urban hiking route

October 6, 2024

Barcelona, as you are surely aware, was built on seven hills.

Just like Rome – and a long list of other cities – it has seven hills within the urban area.

Unless you count Montjuïc, which would make it eight. Or Tibidabo, nine – but why would you count that? That’s all the way up in Collserola – technically within Barcelona, it seems more like the country than the city proper.

mount tibidabo barcelona
Mount Tibidabo, as seen from a hill in Barcelona.

So, seven. That is the number of hills upon which Barcelona was built. And in fact, I recently found out that energetic hikers can connect all 7 hills in one route – a route which can be done in half a day, or less.

And so, waking up early one morning, and kissing my sleeping wife Morena goodbye, I catch the metro towards the northwest, and the (for me) unexplored areas on the montaña side of town.

It’s time to climb Barcelona’s seven hills…

Nou Barris and Plaça Bacardí

The first hill of the seven is Turó de la Peira, in the Nou Barris neighborhood. Turó being the Catalan word for hill, and Nou Barris meaning “nueve barrios”.

These days, there are 13 neighborhoods making up the district of Nou Barris – one of Barcelona’s ten districts according to the current city plan.

I’ve seen census data that says there are a lot of people from Ecuador and Honduras who live up here.

Rent prices seem cheap. Otherwise, this area hasn’t made much of an impression on me – mostly I’ve just biked through it on my way somewhere else.

Turó de la Peira is small and there’s a large metal cross on top. Also on top, a couple making out and a few younger guys who look like they’ve been up drinking all night.

I stand for a few minutes in the morning breeze. But I’ve got a lot of climbing to do today – this is just one turó out of seven. Onward!

Walking down the other side of the hill, I’m soon at Plaza Bacardí.

I consult my watch. I’ve been walking for about 20 minutes. Seems like a good time for some coffee.

A brief digression about famous Catalans

Bacardí might be the most famous Catalan surname in history. This plaza is named after the owner of the land around it, back in the late 19th century.

A lot of places around town, actually, are named after long-dead landowners: Bacardí just named the streets around his house after members of his family.

I can’t find any evidence that Alexandre de Bacardí i de Janer is related to Facund Bacardí i Masso, the founder of Bacardi Rum, who moved from Sitges (about 35 kilometers down the coast from Barcelona) to Cuba in 1828. But I guess it’s possible.

Facund Bacardí i Massó, in any case, made the surname into a global brand. Despite supporting both Cuban independence and the Revolution of 1959, the Bacardí family and their company were exiled from Cuba in 1960 – Facundo L Bacardi (great-great grandson of the original) is still Chairman of the Board of Bacardi Limited, which is now based in Bermuda.

Other famous Catalans include the surrealist Salvador Dalí, Pep Guardiola (who’s somehow involved in football, I believe) and Rosalía – the MotoMami herself – whose last name is Vila. There are more, but I doubt they’re very famous outside of Spain: Joan Miró (the painter), Pau Casals (the cellist) and Ferran Adriá (the chef) spring to mind.

I sit on a terraza and order some coffee. Nine old bald guys are having cava for breakfast next to me. I hope I have that many friends when I’m in my seventies.

Turó de la Rovira and the Carmel Bunkers

The second hill is Turó de la Rovira.

At 262 meters above sea level, it’s still small, and not a hard climb. You can see the whole city from the top: the towers and cranes of Sagrada Familia, the pickle-shaped Torre Glòries, and all the apartment blocks in between.

rovira hill barcelona
The view from Turó de la Rovira.

Walking on, I come to the Carmel Bunkers. These were the site of some anti-aircraft guns active during the Spanish Civil War, when fascist planes were bombing Barcelona.

The Bunkers have recently been a source of controversy around town, as part of the never-ending debate over mass tourism. Having become a popular spot to watch the sunset, they were attracting enough people that the neighbors started to complain.

City Hall finally responded by fencing off the area and closing it every evening. But nothing’s stopping the tourists from gathering on the part of the hill outside the fence – the neighbors now say there are more people than ever, having a sort of open-air picnic and enjoying the views every evening.

A sign explains some of the area’s history: after the war, the artillery command post was torn down and the materials were used in the construction of a shanty-town which occupied the area until the era of the ’92 Olympics, when Barcelona received its great urban facelift.

In other words, “gentrification” didn’t start yesterday: it’s been around for a long time – longer, in fact, than many of its critics have been alive.

It’s early enough that there are only a few people at the Bunkers. And I’ve never been here in the evening, so I don’t know. It might get pretty wild later on.

Turó de Carmel and Parc Güell

A bit further along is Parc Güell – designed (like the Sagrada Familia) by that most famous of Catalan architects, Antoni Gaudí.

This park, famous for its tile mosaics, also used to be open to the public, but now costs money to get in – although Barcelona locals can sign up for a program offering free entry to Parc Güell and a series of other museums and monuments. It’s called Gaudir Més, which means “enjoy more”.

carmel hill barcelona
Graffiti murals on the back side of Turó de Carmel.

The crossing before Turó de Carmel has cafés catering to both locals and tourists, and a lot of bus activity. When I wrote about the Barcelona bus that was deleted from Google Maps after being overrun with tourists, it was supposedly in this area somewhere.

The trail up the hill isn’t marked or in any way obvious – I’m just following a Wikiloc route here, past the church that gives the hill its name.

(The church, the hill, and the El Carmel neighborhood, as well as all the women you know named Carmen, are named after Mount Carmel, in northern Israel, where the Virgin Mary appeared in the 13th century. Our Lady of Mount Carmel is now the patron of fishermen and sailors, celebrated in many coastal towns on July 16th.)

Turó de Carmel, in any case, is just a few meters higher than the last hill, and there are a few people up here walking very loud, energetic dogs, as well as a scrawny guy with a man bun carrying a baby in a sling.

Turó de la Creueta del Coll

Next up is El Coll, a hill that was once a quarry supplying Barcelona with stone. On the way to the top, there’s an old house with a large jasmine plant spilling over the fence. It smells amazing. The guy with the man bun and the baby is here, too – although he must have come up some other way.

I check out the view from the hilltop – it looks like theres an open-air wading pool in the old quarry part of the hill. According to the Consorcio de Turisme de Barcelona, “the jewel of the park is Eduardo Chillida’s claw-shaped sculpture, ‘In Praise of Water’… a 50-ton piece of concrete, suspended … over a reflecting pool.”

I’m more familiar with Chillida’s claw-shaped “Peine del Viento” at the edge of San Sebastián, in the Basque Country. Those are impressive because of the scenery: they’re at the end of the beach, where the waves beat against the rocks, and it’s got some ambiance. I’d probably completely miss the claw-shaped piece of concrete here if I hadn’t read about it.

Peine del Viento in San Sebastian. Photo CC 2.0 by Juanedc.

The touristy part of Barcelona ended around Parc Güell and the bunkers. I’ve never seen or heard of these neighborhoods before. In fact, I’m tempted to say that Barcelona’s reputation as a tourist capital is mostly limited to four or five neighborhoods in total, plus the beach. There’s a whole lot of city out here where it’s just normal people living their lives, far from any famous examples of modernist architecture.

Down the hill there’s a large viaduct and a metro stop called Vallcarca. Nearby, a Russian Orthodox church. I’ve never been here, and never heard of these areas at all. In six years of life in Barcelona, nobody’s ever told me they live in Vallcarca i els Penitents, or even that they once had lunch there. It’s like discovering a whole new city.

Barcelona’s Seven Hills: Turó de Putxet

Turó del Putxet has a little calisthenics park on top, where a middle aged couple are doing dead hangs and a girl in a sports bra is doing step ups.

When the middle-aged couple leaves, I decide to do some dead hangs myself, counting slowly in my head to twenty as I grip the pull-up bar.

creueta del coll barcelona
Creueta del Coll.

I’m getting a bit tired here. But these hills are getting smaller – this one was barely a climb at all.

Here’s a street named after William Tell. And here’s Carrer de la Gleva. Catalan street names are always something of a mystery. And there’s nothing special about Gleva. Perhaps it would seem special if I knew what a “gleva” was – it might have some obvious Spanish translation.

Should I learn Catalan?

The rich tapestry of the urban experience could be further enriched by an understanding of street names.

Ah yes, here’s the Spanish translation: it’s gleba, with a B. Apparently, “una gleva” (or una gleba) is a clod of dirt, of the type produced by digging or ploughing. It also referred to the land worked by a serf, back in feudal days – although, apparently, the street is named after a town called La Gleva in the area around Vic.

The Virgin of La Gleva, in fact, is the patroness of the Plana de Vic, out on the Catalan Central Depression.

Upon learning this information, I briefly feel dumber – does every geographical feature out here have its own virgin? But then I feel smarter. This actually does give a certain depth to the experience of walking around.

A tangent about La Virgen de la Gleva

But wait… there’s more!

Because La Virgen de la Gleva was actually discovered by an ox, under a clod of dirt. And for some reason, she was named after the clod. The town was named, in turn, after the virgin. And this street in Barcelona is named after the town.

Maybe in a parallel universe, somewhere, Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a minor regional virgin. Meanwhile, Our Lady of the Clod is being revered by Catholics everywhere. Nobody would be named Carmen in that universe, but every Spanish speaking person would have an Aunt Gleva.

You see where I’m going with this. In a world without Carmens, Tara Leigh Patrick from Sharonville, Ohio, would have chosen the name Gleba Electra before first appearing in Playboy. Hipsters would be debating whether to spell Gleva with the traditional Catalan V or the more modern Spanish B.

And a podaster named Hcslew Leinad would soon be recording episode 88 of Go to Spain, I don’t know, in Bermuda where he’s also the chairman of the board of a multinational company rather than a ginger guy in cargo shorts and dusty black socks out climbing hills for fun.

Turons de Monterols and Plaça de Castelló

Maybe this is getting a bit too deep, actually.

Okay, here’s Carrer de Balmes – named after the Catalan philosopher and theologian Jaime Balmes. Let’s not go down the rabbit hole on that one: it’s Balmes, y punto. It’s also one of three places on this whole walk I’ve actually been before. I’ve walked through here maybe twice. (People sometimes mention going to a cinema on Balmes to see films in Original Version, if you’re into that kind of thing.)

A bit later, I’m on hill six. Turó de Monterols has two benches at the top and a little fenced-in area for dogs. This is not a big hill – just to give you an idea, the Wikipedia page mentions the ping pong tables located in the park as an attraction.

Somewhere in Barcelona, between el Coll and Carrer de la Gleva.

And finally, Plaça de Castelló is barely a hill at all. It’s an intersection with a church, a health center and a middle school. I wouldn’t notice the incline at all if my hiking app weren’t insisting on it.

From there it’s just a short hop down to Via Augusta, the old Roman road that originally connected with Cádiz and the south of Spain.

According to the GPS route, the whole walk was exactly 12 kilometers, completed in 2 hours 42 minutes of moving time. I didn’t get sweaty, and I barely got tired – all in all, it was a great experience, showing me sides of Barcelona I’d never seen before.

Seven hills in Barcelona and 100 peaks in Catalonia

Recently, in my search for new places to go walking, I found that a Catalan hiking federation has made a list of 100 peaks. The iconic 100 Cims of Catalonia can be climbed, and some are barely more than a short walk uphill. Some of the peaks look pretty difficult, up there in the Pyrenees, so maybe they’re not for everyone. But the list is there.

And now that I know about the 100 Cims, I’m planning on climbing some of them.

In fact, I’ve already started.

Some are very close to home, in the Collserola park just outside town. I’ve done the one called Sant Pere Martir, and the one called Puig Castellar out in Santa Coloma. And technically, I did Tibidabo several years ago as well.

Here in Barcelona proper, actually, Turó del Carmel is not one of the 100 essential peaks. But it does make the hiking federation’s longer list of other peaks which are also sort of important.

The Seven Hills route I did isn’t marked in any way, but each hill is climbable on its own, and it’s just a matter of getting from one to the other. Also, like I said, calling them all “hills” is being a bit generous. You can do the whole thing in a morning, or an afternoon.

That’s about all I’ve got for today.

Next up, some thoughts about my 20th anniversary of living in Spain!

(That’ll be out in a week or so.)

Have a good one,

Daniel AKA Mr Chorizo.

P.S. If you want to follow along, I’ve got (like I said) a podcast called Spain to Go. It’s on Spotify and also on Apple Podcasts. Or you can sign up for email updates here, or look for Hcslew Leinad on Instagram. (Maybe better if you spell it backwards.) Thanks!

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About the Author Daniel

How did I end up in Spain? Why am I still here almost 20 years later? Excellent questions. With no good answer... Anyway, at some point I became a blogger, bestselling author and contributor to Lonely Planet. So there's that. Drop me a line, I'm happy to hear from you.

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