Plaça de Can Fabra

If you’re looking for the Barcelona of the postcards—the one with the glittering mosaics and the overpriced sangria—you’ve taken the wrong metro line. Sant Andreu doesn’t care about your selfie stick. This is a neighborhood that was its own village until the city swallowed it whole in 1897, and it still carries that fierce, independent streak like a chip on its shoulder. At the heart of this unvarnished reality sits Plaça de Can Fabra, a sprawling public square that serves as a monument to the city’s industrial soul and its refusal to become a theme park.

This place used to be the Fabra i Coats textile factory, a massive complex that was once the 'Manchester of Catalonia.' For over a century, thousands of workers—mostly women—toiled here, spinning the thread that clothed half of Spain. When the looms finally went silent in the 70s, the neighborhood didn’t let the developers turn it into luxury lofts. They fought for it. They wanted a space that belonged to the people, and Plaça de Can Fabra is the result. It’s a massive, open-air living room built on the bones of industrial sweat.

The anchor of the square is the Biblioteca Ignasi Iglésias-Can Fabra. It’s housed in one of the original brick factory buildings, and it’s a masterclass in adaptive reuse. Inside, the soaring ceilings and iron columns remain, but instead of thread, the shelves are packed with one of the most impressive comic book collections in Europe. It’s called the 'Comicoteca,' and it’s where the local subculture thrives. You’ll see teenagers hunched over manga next to old men reading the daily papers, all of them sheltered by the same bricks that once housed heavy machinery.

Then there’s the fountain. The Font de Can Fabra is a 'cybernetic' fountain, a piece of 90s tech that still manages to charm. When it’s fully operational, it’s a choreographed dance of water, light, and music. It’s not the Bellagio, and thank God for that. It’s a local spectacle, something for the kids to chase and for the grandparents to watch from the shade of the trees. It feels honest. It feels like a city taking care of its own.

Walking through the square, you’ll notice the lack of English on the menus of the surrounding cafes. You’ll hear the clatter of dominoes and the rhythmic thud of a football hitting a stone wall. There’s a playground that’s always swarming, and plenty of benches where the neighborhood’s elders sit in judgment of the passing world. It’s a place of transition—where the grit of the industrial past meets the mundane, beautiful reality of modern Catalan life.

Is it 'beautiful' in the traditional sense? Maybe not. It’s brick, stone, and water. But it’s authentic. It’s one of the best things to do in Sant Andreu if you want to understand how Barcelona actually breathes when the tourists aren't looking. It’s a reminder that a city’s greatest landmarks aren’t always its cathedrals; sometimes, they’re the places where the people simply exist together. If you’re tired of the crowds at Park Güell, take the L1 to Sant Andreu, walk a few blocks, and sit here for an hour. You might actually learn something about this city.