Kids in Barcelona - Family and parents guide to activities, shopping, holiday apartments, events, health, schools and nurseries, babysitting and childcare, and playgroups in Barcelona.

We currently live in Barcelona city but are toying with the idea of a move out of town. Does anyone live in Castelledefels who can give me a run-down of how you find it, especially with any useful advice on public/concertado schools and public/private guarderias, also which zones are the nicest ones to live in and that have people around all year long? Many thanks.

A friend of mine lives there with her young family. They go to school and guarderia - I will ask her to join up and see if she can give you some tips. I think living by the beach there would be fantastic.

Thanks for your reply. That would be great if your friend could give me a bit of a lowdown.

hi,

I am a friend

Yes, I am living there for over a year now and my two older boys go to the public school and my yungest one is in the nursery - guarderia L'espai own by the Red Cross.

First, best area to leave is where we are Els Canyars, you have a british market there, one public school one private school (where you put your kid on the waiting list when its born!), but British School is just 5min drive. And best thing is a Comercial center, 10min walk from this area, that is open all year round, Sundays as well - whole day! and all the holidays its just closed for the christmas day and new year day, thats it. Right next to Comercial center you have Lidl, Carrefour and Cabrabo, first 2 open on Sundays.

Second: schools are great. public school where my kids are going has English every Thursday, and teachers are very friendly and good, but for any public school you need to have someone to help you with catalan, kids will be fine but you will need a help.

Nursery: I will recomend this one that I am using because they are charging by hours (the more hours bigger discunt) and they are the only one to work from 8 till 20:00. they have a picking up services for the older kids as well as the morning one to take them to school. And during the summer they are having summer casal for the kids up to 12 years of age.

Place is always busy, there are so many restaurants and cafe bars, parks are ok, but there is a picnic are just 15min drive with a big green field, restaurant and paths to walk, cicle or ride trough the wood.

And Gavá (my favorite) is just 5min drive, if you have a small kids you will find the best parks there, and if you have a big kids you have a park with 2 football fieds, basket and basball where they can have fun while you enjoy day in the restaurant that do a menu dl día.

Any way Castelldefels is good cause you have everything close, Sitges, gavá, barcelona, Garraf natural park, beach, mountain, shopping....

If you need more info I will be happy to help. maybe even organize one weekend that we meet in Castelldefels and I can show you around.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write all this down!! I really appreciate it. So looking at a schools map i can see several public schools close to the area where i think you say you live (it doesn't put Els Canyars on the map so i'm guessing by the location of the british market) - Nou CEIP, Frangoal (concertado), CEIP Vista Alegre, CEIP Jacint Vedaguer.... which is the one your sons go to? If you could also let me have the address of the guarderia that woudl be great, as we're going for a look around on Friday morning and while it probably won't be open (assume they'll take teh puente) it would be nice to have a look from the outside.

We're going to have to take our chances with schools as we won't be living there in time for the sorteo, so it will depend who's got a place left for September. But if i choose a private guarderia for my son i can pay the matricula asap to reserve the place for September. Do they speak just Catalan at the guarderia, or Castellano too? The language doesn't bother me too much - they were both born here and although we mostly speak English at home, Milly now 2 is already speaking loads of Spanish as well, and i'm sure she'll get to grips with Catalan before too long once she starts school next September.

Can i please give you my email address and ask you to get in touch, with your phone number if you don't mind (rather than put our phone numbers on the forum), so that i can perhaps give you a call sometime? It's This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

You have so much positive stuff to say about Castelldefels, i'm getting really excited at the prospect of moving!!

Thanks again
Rachel