Jardins de Marià Cañardo Lacasta

Horta-Guinardó is where Barcelona stops trying to impress you and starts being itself. It’s a neighborhood of steep inclines, laundry hanging over balconies, and a stubborn refusal to cater to the cruise ship crowds. If you’ve made it this far up the L3 metro line to Mundet, you aren't here for a selfie with a mosaic lizard. You’re here because you want to breathe. The Jardins de Marià Cañardo Lacasta aren't your typical manicured European gardens. There are no gravel paths lined with petunias or statues of forgotten dukes. Instead, you get the raw, honest edge of the city meeting the Collserola hills.

Named after Marià Cañardo, a man who won the Volta a Catalunya seven times back when bikes were made of heavy steel and roads were mostly prayer and dust, these gardens serve as the green lungs for the nearby Velòdrom d'Horta. It’s a place that smells of pine needles and hot asphalt—a visceral mix of scents that tells you you’ve left the humidity of the coast behind. The park wraps around the sleek, white curves of the velodrome, a relic of the 1992 Olympics that still feels like a spaceship that landed in the woods. While the tourists are suffocating in the Gothic Quarter, here you’ll find old men in tracksuits discussing the day’s stage of the Tour and kids learning that gravity is a cruel mistress on the paved slopes.

Walking through these gardens is a lesson in Barcelona’s verticality. The terrain doesn't ask for your permission; it demands effort. But the payoff is a quiet that feels almost illegal in a city this loud. You’re standing in the shadow of history—both the sporting kind and the architectural kind. The velodrome itself is a masterpiece of late-century design, but the gardens are what ground it. They provide a buffer of green that makes the transition from the urban grid to the wild mountain scrub feel earned. It’s a place for strolling, sure, but it’s also a place for contemplation. You look out over the city from here and realize just how small the 'must-see' attractions really are.

There’s a certain grit here that I respect. It’s not 'pretty' in the way a postcard is pretty. It’s functional. It’s a place where people actually live, sweat, and drink a cold beer after a long ride. If you’re looking for a café with oat milk lattes and English menus, keep walking. But if you want to sit on a bench, watch the light change over the Horta valley, and feel the pulse of a neighborhood that doesn't give a damn about your travel itinerary, this is it. It’s one of the best parks in Barcelona for anyone who values silence over spectacle.

Is it worth the trek? If you’re a cycling nerd, it’s a pilgrimage. If you’re a traveler who finds beauty in the peripheral, it’s the real deal. It’s the kind of place that reminds you that the best parts of a city are often the ones they don't bother to put on the cover of the brochure. Come here late in the afternoon when the sun starts to dip behind the Tibidabo mountain, grab a can of Estrella from a nearby bodega, and just exist for a while. No queues, no tickets, no bullshit. Just the wind in the pines and the distant hum of a city that feels a million miles away.