35 min
5 min
40 min
L1 · L4
18.2 / km²
5
16
1,448
City average
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in Sant Martí
Sant Martí is where Barcelona put its old factories, then its tech offices, and it now has the best beaches in the city with none of the Barceloneta crowd. Poblenou is the part to look at: the Rambla del Poblenou is a real neighbourhood street, the flats are newer and larger than anything central, and prices per square metre of hotel room are the best in this list.
The reason it is not green is distance. From most of Sant Martí you are 20 to 35 minutes from the Gothic Quarter on the L4, and that adds up over a short trip. The 22@ business district is also genuinely dead in the evening, blocks of offices with nothing open, so the specific address matters a lot more here than in Eixample.
Avoid the stretch immediately behind the Fòrum unless you have a reason. It is windswept, unfinished in places, and a long way from anything.
What works
- The best beaches in the city, without the Barceloneta crowds
- Newer, larger rooms than anywhere central, for less money
- Rambla del Poblenou is a real neighbourhood, not a tourist strip
What does not
- 20-35 minutes to the Gothic Quarter, every single day of your trip
- The 22@ office blocks are dead after 19:00 and on weekends
- The area behind the Fòrum is windswept and still half-built
Developed from the former industrial areas of Poblenou, medieval district of Clot and suburbs of Sant Martí, it became a place of large-scale ambitious urban redevelopment.