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Winter in Barcelona is really very pleasant. With an average temperature of between 4º and 17º, the first months of the year are usually mild and often sunny. This climate is ideal for walks, taking full advantage of the daylight hours. The city has many routes and today we are proposing four of the best plus a bonus track.
The walks are so special that we wanted to link each one with music on a winter theme. Have your device ready for the Playlist that we have prepared just for you, for walking around Barcelona in winter .
Playlist for walking around Barcelona in winter
1. Walk along the Breakwater
Beyond the emblematic Hotel W is a new walk on the Mediterranean Sea, the Paseo de la Escullera. Constructed to protect the area from sea storms, during the 20th century it has undergone various renovations. The last, extended the Barceloneta promenade by 400 metres. At the end you will find steps where you can stop and contemplate the beautiful winter sunsets.
For this walk we could have chosen a fragment of Winter from Vivaldi’s famous Four Seasons, but feeling that was too predictable we opted for another, not so well-known work by the same composer. As much as anything this is to discover a new repertoire. Within the same collection of violin concertos is number 5, called The Tempest at Sea. Listening to the first movement we notice how Vivaldi wrote this concerto in a programmatic way, that is, expressing a theme with music without the need for any words. The same is true of the Four Seasons, it is all about recreating elements of nature with the sounds of the baroque orchestra. In this case, the fast-paced rhythm clearly evokes a storm at sea.
Ideal music to play through your headphones while you stop to watch the waves breaking.
2. Walk through the Collserola
If there is any place in the city of Barcelona where you might just see snow in winter, it is the Collserola hills. Just 30 minutes by public transport from Plaza Catalunya lies one of the largest metropolitan parks in the world. To help you choose between one of the 239 routes in this area, there are maps from the town hall and even a visitor’s centre to consult all the information you may need. In addition, the official website of the natural park has a list of activities planned for winter.
Of all the hills that are part of the Collserola, the highest point is Tibidabo. It has been the site of great snow falls throughout history, at least once a year we can enjoy the snow there.
The music we have chosen for walking through the Collserola on a cold winter day is a work by the impressionist composer Claude Debussy. A delicate piece called Des Pas sur La Neige (Footprints in the Snow). It is part of the first book of Preludes for solo piano. The composer wrote it between the end of 1909 and the beginning of 1919, and was possibly inspired by a painting of a snowy landscape typical of Impressionist painters such as Claude Monet or Alfred Sisley.
The tranquillity of the piece and the constant rhythm of two notes repeating again and again as if they were steps on the snow is really relaxing, increasing your enjoyment of the walk.
3. Walk along La Rambla Catalunya
The next walk we suggest is a path along the Rambla de Catalunya Between Avenida Diagonal and Gran Vía, it is less touristy than the end of the Ramblas. Even in the centre of the city there are natural spaces and the most important streets are flanked by different species of trees. The Eixample district alone boasts more than 21,000 trees. The most common are plane trees, followed by almond and limes. It will be the tree that will accompany us on our walk along the upper part of La Rambla. These self same trees have been in place since the end of the 19th century and there are currently about 320 between Diagonal and Plaza de Catalunya. They belong to three different species, but very similar at first glance: the Crimean Lime, the European Lime and the Silver Lime.
A search for a link between winter, classical music and lime trees, results in one of the songs from Franz Schubert’s Winterreise (Winter Journey). The complete cycle on your playlist is an ideal companion for your walk around Barcelona in the cold, but piece number 5 of the collection is ideal for this tour. Its title is precisely “Der Lindenbaum” (The Lime Tree).
A young man in love, the protagonist of the entire story, walks around a lime tree at the entrance to the city. He remembers nostalgic moments. The branches of the tree invite you to rest under them. It is a work full of the usual symbolism of romantic literature.
4. Stroll through the gardens of the Laberint d’Horta
The Laberint d’Horta is the oldest garden in the city. Located in the neighbourhood of Horta-Guinardó at the foot of the Collserola. Its design dates to 1794 and the first phase was completed in 1808. The marquis Juan Antonio Desvalls was responsible for the creation of the garden, commissioning the Italian architect Domenico Bagutti to develop land that he had bought in 1791.
Today you can visit the entire site and stroll through both the 18th century neoclassical garden and the 19th century romantic garden. Inside the neoclassical space is the famous labyrinth that gives the park its name.
Our recommendation for a walk with classical music leads us to a work by the composer Joaquín Rodrigo. It is a small piece called ‘Berceuse de Invierno’ part of the work ‘Music for a Garden’.
The whole cycle is made up of four pieces, a prelude and a postlude. It can be considered his particular version of the four seasons showing the passage of the year in a garden. The maestro composed this work originally as two lullabies, ‘Berceuse de otoño’ and ‘Berceuse de primavera’, written for piano and later arranged for chamber orchestra. Later, Rodrigo received a commission: to write the music for a documentary about Madrid’s Parque del Retiro. This is when he added the ‘Berceuse de verano’ and the ‘Berceuse de Invierno’ , our proposal as a soundtrack to the walk through another historical garden. Once the work has been orchestrated, each of the seasons corresponds to a specific group of instruments. Spring is represented by the violins, summer by the cellos, autumn by the oboe and English horn and winter by the clarinet over a horn.
BONUS TRACK – Skate ride on the Barça ice rink
We couldn’t finish this proposal of walks related to the winter without something a little more lively. We took off our shoes and put on our skates so as to feel lighter to dance to the rhythm of a typical music of the season, the Waltz.
Barcelona has different ice skating rinks over the Christmas holidays, but during the rest of the winter visit the Barça rink to give free rein to your artistic capacity or at least to try to keep your balance.
Completing our Playlist and to accompany this activity we have chosen the famous ‘Vals de los patinadores’ by the composer Emile Waldteufel. The title may not be familiar, but when you listen, the melody may ring some bells. It has been played on numerous occasions in the traditional New Year’s Concert by the Vienna Philharmonic and this the melody has been used in dozens of films.
If you enjoyed these four fantastic Barcelona walks and the soundtrack that accompanies each one, don’t miss the article: If Barça had had Spotify from the beginning.
