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My wife and I visited Barcelona for a few days in October 2005. The weather was warm, so we decided to visit the beach.
Barcelona's naturist beach is the bottom end of Mar Bella. The nearest Metro station is Poblenou on line 4 - about a 20 minute walk away. One of the Barcelona tour bus routes goes past the beach, but this only runs over summer and finished at the end of September.
The middle section of the naturist beach is hidden behind about 100 yards of dunes, while the two edge sections are exposed to passers-by on the promenade. The whole area is marked with tall blue and yellow signs reading 'naturist beach' in four languages. We preferred the edge sections as there was more space to spread out and the sand seemed cleaner. The beach drops away very sharply into an extremely rough sea. It seemed obvious we wouldn't be going for a swim. As we walked along the sand towards the naturist section we saw a number of dead rats that had been washed onto the beach. Thankfully these were limited to the waters edge, but it was another reason not to go into the sea!
Our first visit was on a Sunday. The beach was quite well used, although males outnumbered females about 4 to 1. The second visit was Monday, and as you'd expect there were far fewer people, in this case almost exclusively males. A good number of the beachgoers were homosexual couples.
There was a beach bar on the naturist section, although it was closed during our visit. A few hundred yards down the beach there was another beach bar, very pleasant for a cool drink. All in all, the beach was fairly pleasant, but I've been to nicer, cleaner beaches in the UK and overseas. I'd say it was worth a visit if you're in Barcelona and the weather is good, but not worth planning to visit just for the beach.
I think Andrew and his wife were maybe a bit unlucky when they visited the naturist beach in Barcelona late last year.
I was in Barcelona on business a little while ago (May 2006) and managed to slip down to the beach for a couple of hours on a Thursday afternoon. It was quite sunny, with the temperature being quite pleasant and a light breeze.
Their basic description of the location and facilities was accurate, although when I was there the beach bar was open! The 'Bus Turistic' (green loop) runs past the beach but does not stop immediately at it. One either needs to get off at Poblenou (the stop just past) or the one before, Platja del Bogatell. Poblenou is nearer, less than 10 minutes walk from the naturist beach at Platja Mar Bella. It's actually a very pleasant walk all the way back from Mar Bella to Port Olimpic (lots of good restaurants) where you can pick up the Bus Turistic blue loop bus. (The Bus Turistic loops are one way). The walk will take you between 45mins and an hour.
Back to the beach: the sea was running, but not rough, no worse than many a day at Morfa Dyffryn. The beach was very clean, certainly no dead rats. Quite a lot of folk were swimming, although I did not go in as I had no towel with me and it's too steeply shelving at the edge to paddle. The beach was well populated, with a density akin to that on the other beaches nearby. It was well mixed, both by age and sex, comprising couples, groups and singles, each of a wide range of ages from late teens upwards. There were no children, but it was a school day. The mix was very similar to the nearby textile Platja del Bogatell. I only saw two or three obviously homosexual couples.
The beach is of a fine grit rather than sand, but quite comfortable to sit and lie on, even without a towel or mat. Just spread out tee-shirt to protect the more delicate parts!
I agree with Andrew that it is probably not worth going to Barcelona just for the beach, but if you are there for a few days anyway, then it is worth the walk or bus ride out of an afternoon.
If you have any comments about this report or wish to add further information about Barcelona
please email them to:
neffupdate @ ada-augusta . demon . co . uk
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