How to find a place to live in Zaragoza, Spain?
I am going to try to answer a question that comes up a lot in my inbox. People who come from abroad are often stressing about figuring out where the good neighborhoods are and where the good schools are. Sometimes, these two things are not the same! For example, I might send my kids to school in a neighborhood that I would not prefer to live in, while they could also go to a school in a really nice area, but the school turns out to be not a great place or have a good reputation after all.
Fortunately, most of Zaragoza is fairly safe, especially compared to other cities around the world. Spain is known for it’s relative safety. I will say that the longer I am here, the more my perspective changes, and probably becomes more like the local perspective. When you first arrive in Spain, you will naturally compare everything to where you came from- but eventually, you will compare it to other cities in Spain or compare the city to itself.
As a result of the above, there are some areas in Zaragoza that I would not want to live in at all. This is based on local input (thank you to my fabulous instagram community), and to my own reading of local news. These areas are El Gancho, a majority of Delicias, Oliver, Las Fuentes, Arrabal, and the Torrero/La Paz sections of town.
I am not going to post news articles here, but I *ALWAYS* start researching a new country or city by going to google, searching the name of the city/country, and then clicking “news”. I find this search very informative to the relative crime level and crime types in a city. Things can vary from petty theft to shootings, so it’s good to have an idea of what you could be up against in a given city. Some types of theft are easier to mitigate than the other.
In this post, I am going to try to give you the local perspective, which is not the rose colored glasses perspective. Just like my youtube videos, my writings are organic and “real”. They are not fluffy and curated. :).
When you are choosing a place to live in Zaragoza, you will benefit from living in a centralized part of the city. Zaragoza, Spain is a fairly compact city. If you live centrally, you can get almost anywhere, on foot or by bus, in about 15 minutes. As such, if you live centrally, any school or business that you may want to access can be reached relatively easy. After you have yourself established, you know where the places are that you or your family are going to be frequenting regularly, THEN you could move to be more centrally located to THOSE areas, but when you are starting out, these things are not obvious.
The following areas have good reputations in the city, but they are not all centrally located: Actur, Centro, Miraflores, Ruiseñores, Universidad, Romareda, Casablanca, Miralbueno, Los Sitios. I am not listing Casco Historico because of it’s noice level due to tourism. If you think this list needs adjusting, please send a comment or a message. I rely on the local community for accurate information. Many of these barrios are located within the general area of “Centro”.
Romareda, Miraflores, and Universidad are areas which are known for having good schools in the community. The idea is that almost any public or concertado school chosen in these areas is going to be good. Health care is also good in these areas. This does NOT mean that schools and healthcare are bad in the other zones. It only means that these are the areas that people tell me have good healthcare and good schools. The area that I refer to as Miraflores, is near or around Parque Miraflores, which is a part of the Centro Zone, I am simply narrowing it down a bit. This also applies to Los Sitios. Ruiseñores and Universidad are both part of “Distrito Universidad”.
Now, I will tell you that we do not live nor go to school in any of these zones. You can find good homes in other areas, and you can commute to schools outside of your immediate zone fairly easily. We live in a very central location, and we commute to school and church, about 20 minutes with walking + a bus ride.
Every major city in Spain, including Zaragoza, will have grocery stores, barbers, bars, restaurants, cafes, dentist, pharmacies, and doctors nearby. By nearby, I mean they will be within walking distance. You do not really need to worry about these things, as long as you are within the city limits of major city. If you leave the city limits for the “suburbs”, you are going to lose a lot of access, and I strongly suggest that you do not do this. You will not only lose access to a variety of food shops, but also to doctors and hospitals.
In Zaragoza, the buses are very reliable (in my opinion!). You do not need to live near the tram line. You will pay more for doing this. If you will go out to a 7-10 minute walk from the tramline, it will still be accessible, but the rent will be a little less.
Quironsalud is known as the best private hospital in Zaragoza. There is also a second private hospital called Hospital Miraflores. I always suggest people live near private hospitals when they first move to a new city or country, due to the fact that you will have private insurance, and not public insurance. However, if you happen to be on the public health care system, then this is not as important. You need to remember when you move to Spain, that your access to things is going to depend on your feet, a taxi, or a bus. The days of running out to your car will be gone. You can count on an ambulance here, but if you have private insurance, then you need to call their ambulance, which is not the same as the public system, which you can reach with 112. Please be sure to consider these things when you choose a barrio to live in. These hospitals are located in the barrios that I have listed above. You can search them on google maps to find their exact locations.
There are sports centers all over Zaragoza. You can find them by googling “centro deportivo” or “sports center”. I don’t have a problem with getting them to populate whether I type in english or spanish. There are public and private centers. All of the private centers that I know of also have pools. The public centers do not all have pools, however there are many public centers with pools around the city. The public pools are affordable to access during the open season. Private sports centers have covered pools open during the winter months. Kids can play sports at public centers, and you will find them in many neighborhoods. I don’t think this is a point to concern yourself with when finding a place to live. If your child has a particular sport they want to play, then you may want to make sure the sport is available at the sports center near the possible home, but most likely you will be able to access it either way, as long as you live centrally. If you have it in mind to be able to walk there, then you will need to do a bit more research on that.
The private sports centers, in case you want to live near one, are Stadium Casablanca, David Lloyd, CN Helios, and Metropolitan. Once again, all of these centers are pretty much located within the “good areas” or at the border of them :).
If you have any feedback on this post, or think I should change or add something, please leave a comment! I only want to share accurate and relevant information. If you want specific advice, you can schedule a call with me here.