Hi!

A first time poster here.

My parents are moving to Spain in the autumn and they asked to find a town/city for them. They said it should be within 100 km of Barcelona and rather a real spanish (smallish) town than a touristy/expatty place. First I checked out Sitges, but that seems to be really touristy… right?

My parents used to live in Fuengirola, but that is obviously too touristy.

Do you have any suggestions? I am imagining this picturesque small town with some services and a nice ambience…but I cant come up with anything using Google. Any help would be much appreciated!

Mr S

Girona is fabulous. Big enough for city sophistication and small enough to be really friendly, both the old and new parts of town are beautiful, very Catalan, fast train connection to Barcelona.  It may be too big for your parents, in which case you could try pretty Olot, or the genteel lake-side Banyoles. There are lots more pretty small towns and villages inland in Catalunya - I think only the coast is touristy. Or, if they want to be near the seaside but in a real working community, how about the Tarragona area?

Thanks a lot for the tips! I’ll check them out…!Much appreciated!

hi martin, I noticed you talked about Tarragona as a working community - what do you mean by that? is it very industrial? are there lots of businesses there? I have been looking at that area (online) and will visit it in the next 2 weeks for a short trip with the family ..
I hope to move somewhere nearish to barcellona, maybe inland a bit where i hope villa/finca/house rent will be cheaper but need to be close to a fairly big city

regards

claudio