Cabrera de Mar fits two very different lives inside one small municipal border. Down by the coast there is a compact old centre, a station and the flats that come with it. Up in the hills there are urbanitzacions where the houses have pines, views and far more square metres than you would get for the same budget in Vilassar or Barcelona. Around 5,000 people live here.
Roughly 25 km up the coast from Barcelona, on the C-32, with Vilassar de Mar on one side and Mataró on the other. By car that is 25 to 35 minutes into the city if you leave early, and a lot more if you try it at nine on a Monday. The C-32 toll is worth pricing into your monthly budget before you decide.
The train station is called Cabrera de Mar – Vilassar de Mar, and it serves both towns, which tells you how close they sit. On the R1 you are around 40 minutes from Plaça Catalunya, with frequent trains through the day. If you live up in the hills, add a drive or a bike ride to reach the platform, because the urbanitzacions are not walkable from the station.
The centre is small and old. A church, a couple of squares, the ajuntament, a few bars where the same men sit every morning with the paper. This is not a resort and it does not pretend to be one. The beach, Platja de Cabrera, is modest next to the long promenades of Vilassar or Mataró, and that is exactly why some families choose the town over its neighbours.
Behind the centre the ground climbs quickly into the wooded slopes that lead up to the Castell de Burriac. There is an Iberian settlement on that hill as well, and much of the land around it is protected, which is why the hills here still feel empty while other Maresme towns have filled in every gap between houses.
People talk about Cabrera as if it were one place. It is not, and where you land changes your daily routine completely.
Published averages for the town run somewhere between 11 and 15 €/m² depending on the source and the month, which for a 90 m² flat lands roughly between 1,100 and 1,400 a month. A villa with a pool goes well above that once you pass 200 m², and in the hills the price is set less by the metre than by the plot, the view and whether the pool is heated.
Supply is thin. Cabrera de Mar is the kind of town where only a handful of decent long-term family houses come up in a season, and the good ones rarely reach the portals at all. Worth knowing before you set your heart on one address.
The British School of Barcelona opened its Maresme campus in Cabrera de Mar in September 2026, at Carrer Sant Sebastià 2. It started with Nursery through Year 6, so roughly ages 3 to 11, and Secondary is planned from September 2027. The finished campus is designed for around 700 pupils.
If that school is the reason you are moving, two practical notes. Ask about the specific year group you need rather than assuming a place, because the campus is still filling up. And drive the school run at 8:20 rather than at noon, before you commit to a house on the far side of the hill.
It suits families who want forest, bigger gardens and a small-town morning rhythm, and who are comfortable driving. It suits people who work from home three days a week and go into Barcelona on the others.
It does not suit anyone who wants to walk out of the door into café life, or who needs the platform at the end of the street. For that, Vilassar de Mar one town down does it better, and you will pay for the privilege.
One warning if you are looking up in the hills: check the road access and the internet, not just the house. Some of the older urbanitzacions have narrow lanes and fibre that stops two streets short, and both matter more than they sound when you are signing for two years.