Plaça d'Albert Badia i Mur

If you’re looking for the Barcelona of the glossy brochures—the one with the sparkling mosaics, the overpriced sangria, and the endless parade of selfie sticks—you’ve taken the wrong train. Get back on the L9 and head toward the center. But if you want to see the city’s calloused hands, the parts that don’t care if you like them or not, then stay right here in Bon Pastor. Plaça d'Albert Badia i Mur isn’t a 'destination' in the way the tourism board defines it. It’s a neighborhood lung, a slab of urban reality tucked away in the Sant Andreu district, and it’s arguably more important than any monument with a gift shop.

To understand this square, you have to understand the ground it sits on. This is the heart of the old 'Cases Barates'—the Cheap Houses. Built in the late 1920s to house the influx of workers for the city’s growing industries, these single-story dwellings were the backbone of a fierce, tight-knit community. For decades, the people here lived in a village within a city, fighting for every scrap of dignity and every paved street. Today, those old houses are mostly gone, replaced by modern blocks as part of a massive urban renewal project. This square is the result of that transformation, a modern space carved out of a storied past.

The name on the sign matters. Albert Badia i Mur wasn’t a general, a saint, or a wealthy industrialist. He was a neighbor. He was a leader of the Associació de Veïns de Bon Pastor, a man who spent his life agitating for the rights of the people who lived in those small houses. In Barcelona, naming a square after a community activist is a political statement. It says that the history of the struggle is just as valid as the history of the crown. When you stand here, you’re standing on a site of hard-won progress.

Visually, it’s a study in modern minimalism. You’ve got clean lines, sturdy benches, and a playground where the local kids burn off energy while their grandparents watch from the sidelines, probably complaining about how much the neighborhood has changed. There are trees, but they’re young, still finding their footing in the Sant Andreu soil. It’s a place of transition. On one side, you see the new Barcelona—efficient, vertical, clean. On the other, you can still feel the ghost of the old Bon Pastor, the smell of the nearby Besòs river, and the lingering echo of a working-class identity that refuses to be gentrified out of existence.

Is it 'beautiful'? That depends on what you value. If you find beauty in the way a community reclaims its space, then yes. If you find beauty in the sound of a ball hitting a chain-link fence and the sight of laundry flapping on a balcony five stories up, then this is your place. It’s a spot to sit with a cheap coffee from a nearby bar, watch the light change over the rooftops, and realize that the real Barcelona isn't a museum—it's a living, breathing, sometimes messy organism.

Don't come here expecting a tour guide. Come here to walk. Walk down to the river, look at the industrial skeletons on the horizon, and then come back to the square to see how the city is trying to do right by its people. It’s honest, it’s quiet, and it’s entirely devoid of bullshit. In a city that often feels like it’s being sold off piece by piece to the highest bidder, Plaça d'Albert Badia i Mur feels like a small, stubborn victory for the locals.