Destination - Barcelona City Beaches (Sant Sebastià beach to llevant beach)
Location - Barcelona, Spain
Review duration - A weekend during October 2015
Official link - N/A
Brief review
Brief background
- Many of the beaches in this stretch, including Barceloneta and Sant Sebastià beaches, are among the city's oldest.
- Being topless is said to be common in all the beaches in Barcelona and nudity is said to be practiced on on some sections of La Mar Bella beach, as per this and this.
- Complete nudity and semi nudity (even being topless for males) in places other than beaches, has been banned in Barcelona since 2011. Interestingly, excluding a few cities, Spanish law does not have any article that prohibits public nudity, and it is therefore always allowed.
Detailed Review
Weather
- It was a mostly cloudy evening, with temperature around 18 degrees Celsius, I knew it was not a good day for the beach.
Visitors
- A hundred or more would be the approximate total of people, including all the beaches from Sant Sebastià beach to llevant beach.
- Roughly 50-70 of them were involved in some sports like volley ball or some physical activity like open air workout.
Entry
- Entry to beach was free and open to all.
- There was an open air workout section in one of the beaches and many volley ball courts in at least one beach. I did not inquire but the open air workout section, but it was probably open for all. Beach volleyball courts were also probably available based on group booking.
Nudity rules
- It was not clear as to which beach and which section exactly was designated for nudism. There was no noticeable sign board and hence it was confusing.
Gender ratio
- Overall, a healthy ratio of females to males of roughly 1 : 3 could be seen (guess).
- Out of this, the open air workout section and the volley ball courts had a ratio of roughly 1 : 4.
- The remaining, regular beach goers had a ratio of roughly 1:2.
- I could not note down the ratio specifically in the so called nudist section because, as mentioned, I was not sure which one was it.
Age bracket ratio
- Young crowd involved in games and physical activities was a major section.
- People less than 40 were roughly more than 50% among the regular beach goers.
- Ratio of 0-40 : 40+ was roughly 9:2 in workout section.
- Majority of the people playing sports seemed to be less than 40.
- So, overall ratio of (0 - 40) : 40 + would be roughly 5 : 2.
States of undress
- Most people were in regular dress, i.e. not beachwear.
- Nobody was naked, no woman topless.
- People doing workouts in an open air workout section were in revealing clothes - many men were topless.
- Hardly 5 women in the entire crowd were in bikini.
Racial & Ethnic composition
- Mostly whites, no information on ethnic composition.
Body sizes ratio
- Ratio of slim to plus sized was roughly 6 : 1 or higher towards slim people (Note considering athletic people also in the bunch of slim).
- Lot of people were involved in playing games like beach volley ball and physical activities like open air workout so a major part of the crowd was in great shape.
Solo visitors present?
- Yes, many.
Sexual activities observed?
- No
Interaction level
- Medium - there were sections for workout and games.
- These modes of interaction were probably available given the off season. In a proper beach season, I guess more space would be taken up by sun bathers and hence so many of these facilities may not be available.
Difficulty level
- High, because nobody was naked and no woman was even topless.
- Adding to this, as already mentioned, there was no noticeable sign board demarcating nudist section and hence it was really confusing in this season.
Road towards beaches
Sea view
People working out in the open air workout section
View of the W Hotel
People playing beach volley ball
