Travel Guides: All Countries / Europe / Spain / Costa Brava - Barcelona / Barcelona City
 |  | Travel Reviews : Barcelona City |
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| | | | Barcelona's sunny back yard
From the Daily Mail
Lola, a Spanish, sooty-eyed seven-year-old, adjusted her acid green feather boa and gyrated self-consciously through the main square in the pretty Spanish seaside town of Sitges, just south of Barcelona. Behind her marched a troupe of pre-school 'devils', red horns stitched into black berets, the youngest happily prodding Lola's behind with his felt-covered pitchfork.
Pancake Tuesday in Sitges and everyone was in carnival mood. Even the formidable assistant in Fontanals charcuterie had transformed herself into a dancing queen. Beneath a canopy of cured ham joints, Maria's glittery eyebrows and star-studded cheeks sat at odds with her white overalls - but then, she reasoned, only glitter would outlast a night of hard clubbing.
The children's parade, a charming prelude to the libidinous troupes who were later to sashay along the Carrer de Parellades - Sitges's main drag - was drawing to a close. By midnight the town would be packed, its cobbled streets an impromptu dance floor, the music non-stop until dawn.
During carnival, Sitges wakes from its winter slumber with a vengeance. Barcelona night owls join the locals for an uninhibited and mammoth party - though nobody quite matches the excesses reputedly enjoyed by Casanova, a guest of the town's carnival back in 1769. Not even Salvador Dali, it seems, though he, too, clearly favoured Sitges's fun-loving atmosphere.
Photographs of the mustachioed surrealist enjoying a swim in the sea line the walls of L'Estrella, a 19th-century patisserie in the narrow Carrer Major, though it is hard to imagine this larger-than-life Spaniard sitting in such dainty surroundings. There, beneath painted cherubs flitting across a tiny domed ceiling, locals linger in one of two raspberry-pink salons over chocolate cake and cortado, the Spanish equivalent of an espresso with a shot of milk.
Travel Guide: Barcelona
The golden mile
From the Daily Mail
Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca once described Las Ramblas as 'the only street in the world that I wish would never end.'
He was, as millions of visitors have been over the years, entranced by the colour and vitality of the mile-long Barcelona thoroughfare along which life is played out like a non-stop carnival.
Lorca was shot dead by Nationalist partisans after the coup of 1936, when he was only 38. Tragic, but at least one did not have to disappoint the old boy - towards the end of the 20th century his beloved Ramblas was benighted by flagrant drug dealing and non-stop hustling. So much so that the millions of visitors pouring into Barcelona each year were advised: 'Mind how you go.'
But after hosting the 1992 Olympic Games, the city eventually claimed it had cleaned up its act.
I wasn't too sure, especially after a friend had his pocket picked on a Metro escalator. Another friend also warned me of the bag-snatchers who linger along the pedestrianised boulevard, built on the dried-up bed of a river than once ran from the Collserola hills to the sea.
So with my wife and seven-year-old son, I took a plane to Barcelona to find out for myself by walking the Ramblas - actually five separate streets, joined like a string of sausages - from top to bottom, during the day and in the evening.
The plan was to reach the harbourside Monument a Colom, at the top of which Christopher Columbus stands. As a plan, it did not enthuse the seven-year-old. A mile is a long way, he complained, as we strolled out of the Playa de Catalunya, the huge square from which the Ramblas runs south.
So after, at most, 100 yards, we stopped at the Canaletes iron drinking fountain, a sip from which, legend has it, will guarantee one's return to the city.
Travel Guide: Barcelona
Picasso's city
From the Mail on Sunday
Surprisingly, Barcelona doesn't make a lot of what must be its most internationally renowned former resident - Pablo Picasso.
True, there is a celebrated museum dedicated to his work, but there are no plaques marking the buildings where he lived, studied or worked, no heritage trail for visitors. And the only guidebook available locally, Guia de la Barcelona de Picasso, has not been translated into English.
Of course, Paris is the city most readily associated with Picasso, and rightly so, because it was there that he lived during his most significant years.
But it was in Barcelona that the 20th Century's greatest artist came of age and attended art school. It was here too that he witnessed the street scenes that would etch themselves in his memory and inform the ground-breaking work of his cubist period.
For me, the most useful guide to Picasso's Barcelona is the first volume of John Richardson's definitive A Life Of Picasso (Jonathan Cape, 1991), which devotes 142 well-illustrated pages to the period and bothers to mention all the relevant addresses.
It was from this book that I learned Picasso moved to Barcelona with his family in September 1895, a month before his 14th birthday, and didn't leave until he was 21, although he did make long visits to Madrid and Paris.
During these years the family lived in the narrow streets close to the port. Their first apartment was on Carrer Llauder (number 4) and then they moved to Carrer de la Merce (number 3), but their home is now demolished.
While officially remaining at home, Picasso also rented a series of studios which often doubled up as overnight accommodation.
One of these studios, on Carrer Nou de la Rambla (number 10), was conveniently next to the Eden Concert, a disreputable cabaret venue that was a favourite night-time haunt of his. It is directly opposite the then newly built Gell Palace, a private home designed by Gaudi, although Picasso was never a fan of his. He wouldn't be pleased to know that the Eden Concert is now the Gaudi Hotel.
Travel Guide: Barcelona
City of show-offs
Sunday morning. The streets were deserted and a low murmur of voices guided us towards the tentacle spires of Antonio Gaudi's Church of the Holy Family, La Sagrada Familia, in the Eixample quarter.
Like the crowds photographing what looked like a melting Disney castle, I couldn't help but stare in bemusement at the unfinished church created by one of Barcelona's most famous architects. It encapsulates the city's vibrant approach to living.
Set between the mountains and the sea, the capital of Catalonia has evidently flourished since the 1992 Olympics; it both feels and looks prosperous.
As we headed down La Rambla, the famous cafe-lined street that stretches down to the seafront, the atmosphere was contagious.
Barcelona's balmy feel is partly due to the sea, and partly to the spacious streets interspersed with fountains and monuments.
Many cities are unfathomable without keeping your nose in a guidebook, but Barcelona is flamboyant, attention-seeking and full of surprises. It's as if the city is showing off to its visitors.
Walk around, and up pops the mosaic façade of another Gaudi building or a colourful Joan Miro sculpture. Historic and futuristic architecture stand side by side.
We took the elevator inside a 200ft-high waterfront monument of Christopher Columbus, to a viewing room looking down to the promenades, the quays, and across to the mountains.
Then we ducked into La Boqueria, one of the most spectacular food markets in Europe. The array of produce was quite overwhelming, so we headed into the quiet back streets of the gothic quarter, peering into tapas bars and admiring the elaborate old balconies.
We ended up at the city's incredible 14th-century cathedral. The £2 entrance fee included a trip to the roof, which had brilliant views.
In the Eixample quarter, just two blocks from the Hotel Claris, is Casa Mila on Passeig de Gracia, an apartment building that is considered to be Gaudi's most accomplished modernist work.
Travel Guide: Barcelona
The rain in Spain falls mainly in...
It was the kind of grey English day where the sky feels like it's sitting on your head and getting away to Barcelona seemed a brilliant idea.
A very "in" destination, I'd heard, and surely bound to be sunnier than the UK.
Having secured an absolute bargain three-day break we set off in high spirits. In the taxi from the airport to our hotel it started - the incessant rain that was to dog our trip.
Our hotel was in a great location, slap-bang on La Rambla, the historic old street that's the hub of the city.
Our first challenge was to get into the hotel by crossing the raging torrent of rainwater that poured down the street like a river.
Safely inside the Rivoli Ramblas, we retired to our room, only to find the shutters had come open and there was a lake on the floor beside my bed.
When you find yourself in one of Spain's great cultural cities in pouring rain, there's only one thing to do - head for the nearest bar.
As we were only a stone's throw from the Gothic quarter, we dashed into its narrow old streets and surfaced in a old monastery, now a cosy bar.
I didn't think I was a cava fan until I found out there's a lot more than just one version of this sparkling wine.
With a glass of cava at around £2, we determined to sample as many different varieties as we could from super dry through to medium and sweet. It ranged from good to stunning. Add some tapas and friendly locals and we soon forgot the rain lashing down outside.
Next morning we dived into the nearby 19th century Cafe de l'Opera on La Rambla for breakfast. Not as posh as it sounds, it still has great atmosphere and is reasonably priced considering its prime location, opposite the Liceu opera house.
Travel Guide: Barcelona
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| | | | Architectural marvels
Sitges has long enjoyed a link with artists. You can find early Picassos in the airy, sea-facing Cau Ferrat museum and plenty of evocative turn-of-the-century views of Sitges by Santiago Rusinol, the painter who made the town his home.
Walk along the palm-lined promenade which stretches from the central honey-coloured parish church to the stately residential quarters of Vinyet and Terramar, and the town's artistic sensibilities are equally evident in an extraordinary range of architectural gems.
No high-rise hotels there; instead, facing the sands of one of the many beaches - Platja de la Fragata - are jolly-looking holiday villas embellished with ornate carved balconies, castellated roof tops and peppermint-coloured shutters. There is even an elaborate gilded sundial to brighten the facade of a one-star hostel.
Further west and the prom widens into a sand-free walkway where rollerbladers cut a swift route towards the quieter beaches of Terramar, the summer villas now seriously grand, their cream-coloured curving verandahs like the stately prows of ocean-going liners.
Part of this architectural richness harks back to the days when locals - the rum baron Signor Bacardi among them - sailed off to the likes of Cuba. They built summer palaces on their return, some in the style of Havana mansions, others mirroring the Art Nouveau fad for eccentrically decorative facades.
A cage full of budgies
On a very hot day, the water was tepid. The seven-year- old said 'yuk', but perked up when I told him the fountain was a favourite meeting place for celebrating fans of Barcelona FC - Barca - who rank third in his affections after Arsenal and Manchester United.
The fact that he was wearing a Barca shirt, bought on a trip to the stadium the previous day, may have had something to do with this.
Then, while skateboarders jousted with the traffic on the thin strips of road that flank the pedestrianised walkway, we entered a world full of colour and excitement.
First, street entertainers, including a Spanish didgeridoo player and a man tooting on pipes of Pan while his dog, dressed in hat, jacket and bow tie, panted quietly at his side.
Then, stalls selling caged birds of every hue, plus hamsters, tiny tortoises, guinea pigs, chinchillas, goldfish and a lonely-looking chicken.
A group of fellow British tourists, obviously unschooled in the cavalier attitude of the Spanish towards animals, paused, horrified, before a cage crammed full of budgerigars.
'There's one at the bottom, dead,' shrieked a woman. A budgie at the bottom stirred. It was alive, but not in the best of health.
Next, the renowned flower-sellers of the Ramblas, a profusion of colour - but, as in many modern flower markets, little fragrance - splashing the pavement just before our discovery of the Marcat St Josef, a cavernous hall with a high vaulted roof that is alone worth a ramble down the Ramblas.
Built between 1836 and 1840, the Boqueria, as it is known locally, is a gourmet paradise: stall after stall overflowing with fresh vegetables, meat, fish and bread.
Sausage and salami hang above chiller cabinets groaning under the weight of chickens and pigs' trotters, and sides and joints of red meat - enough to feed an army.
The artist's playground
Picasso and his family moved to this area of the city because it was close to the art school, Escola de Belles Arts de Llotja, where he was enrolled as a student and his father was a teacher.
The Llotja remains, but in a sorry state. The former stock exchange of Barcelona (the art school was on the second floor) stands empty and surrounded by builders' fences. There are no signs to indicate its illustrious past and I had to stop a pedestrian to ask if I was in the right place.
The area surrounding the Llotja became Picasso's playground. The narrow streets of the Barri Xino, then Barcelona's red light district, were filled with drunks, drug addicts, sailors and beggars. This was where he developed his interest in low life as a subject for his art and also his fascination for whores.
One of these streets, still there, was Carrer d'Avinyo, and it was the women he met here that would later become the subject of one of his best-known works - and one of the key works of 20th Century art - Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.
There don't seem to be any brothels in Carrer d'Avinyo today, but there is an air of menace. It's easy to feel like a stranger who is lost and the faces of the locals let you know that you're walking off the beaten track.
The one public building in the street is closed up and the walls daubed with red paint.
When he wasn't partying or painting, Picasso loved spending time in La Rambla, the tree-lined main thoroughfare that leads to the sea. Now that almost every big city has its area dedicated to clowns, mime artistes, painters, jugglers and musicians, the novelty is somewhat diminished. The one difference in La Rambla is the stalls that sell animals packed into small cages.
My Spanish-speaking daughter asked one vendor how he would like to live in a cage. His answer was that the animals liked to live this way.
Art nouveau buildings
There's something rather unsettling about this wavy, cave-like creation, but Barcelona boasts more art nouveau buildings than any other city in the world and it always draws a crowd.
Hotel Claris still has the façade of the former Vedruna palace, but has a modern glass and wood interior.
With duplex suites and its own collection of Byzantine art, it is a really sleek place. The roof-top pool and terrace are extremely popular in spring, and the restaurant was filled with Barcelonese rather than tourists.
For me, the Picasso and Miro museums could not compete with the fabulous shops - designer stores such as Armani, Chanel and Escada, where prices were much lower than in the UK.
I sensibly paced myself, though, with a Mango white cotton shirt for £18, Levis jeans for £48 and a cute Burberry rucksack for £150.
The cool Barcelonese wouldn't deign to dine before ten o'clock at night, but they seem to graze on tapas at all hours.
I'm glad we booked a table for dinner. For at the magic hour of 10pm, the locals were queuing into the street for a table at the bars along the Passeig de Gracia.
Having lunched informally outside the BraCafe - a people-watching hangout where an Iberian ham and cheese bocadilla costs an astonishing £1 - we wanted to eat somewhere a little more intimate.
We discovered the smart Casa Calvet, in one of Gaudi's more restrained buildings, where, for less than £100 for two, we dined on baked hake with watercress and pistachio sauce, and veal in a blue cheese crust.
Come Sunday, many cafes were closed, church bells rang and tourists were off Gaudi-spotting or heading for Barceloneta, the original fishing village, with its sailboats, aquarium, Imax cinema and cafes overlooking the sea. Where was everyone else?
Well, the Barcelonese gather at restaurants, it seems, for long, long lunches. So we joined them, lingering over shrimps in garlic and olive oil, anchovies and glasses of Raimat.
There is so much to experience in Barcelona that it is impossible to see everything in a weekend.
Next time I'll stay longer and head to some of its more curious museums: those dedicated to perfume, erotic art, shoes and Egyptology, to name but a few.
TRAVEL DETAILS:
British Airways flies daily from Heathrow or Gatwick to Barcelona. See http://www.ba.com or tel: 0845 77 33377
Design Hotels features the Hotel Claris. See http://www.designhotels.com or tel: 0800 169 8817
When all else fails... drink
It was still chucking it down so we headed back into the Gothic quarter and inside the fantastic looking cathedral, whose cloisters shelter a flock of geese, fountains and trees and which took on a magical quality with its warm lights winking through the gloom.
We were determined to see Gaudi's great masterpiece, La Sagrada Familia cathedral and it would offer a place to shelter from the bucketing rain. It was a fair walk but we hoped it would be up to the hype.
La Sagrada Familia is certainly unlike anything you've ever seen, a true fantasy work. Gaudi died before it was finished and herein lies the problem of seeing it on a wet day. As there's not much roof, the rain pours straight in onto the heads of eager sightseers.
We were dampened, but our spirits weren't, so we headed for Cafe Zurich, a popular meeting place on the Placa de Catalunya and warmed up with a hot chocolate.
Shopping is brilliant in Barcelona, though the assistants in some of the designer stores looked askance at our dripping brollies puddling everywhere.
We hit the Historical Museum next, which has a fascinating underground walk through excavated Roman and Visigoth Barcelona which has lain under the city for hundreds of years undisturbed.
On dark rainy days like those we experienced, my advice is to eat and drink your way round Barcelona.
Try mugs of thick hot chocolate, exquisite cakes in the old Jewish quarter, a huge variety of early evening tapas and late supper in some beautifully elegant restaurants that won't break the bank.
Wash it all down with a glass or two of cava and you'll discover Barcelona is a beautiful city, wet or dry.
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| | | | Tapas - the ultimate hangover cure
But Sitges today seems like a town divided by both its buildings and its beaches. If you want to rub sunburned shoulders with hordes of Spanish families, head for the informal beaches fronting the old town. For something more sedate, try the quieter Platja de St Sebastia in the east, or the spotless stretches facing the residential quarters of Terramar and Vinyet.
Inland from there you are lost in a maze of weekend mansions for rich Barcelonans. The manicured lawns, high security gates and barking Alsatians are worlds away from the bustle and fun of the old town.
All life centres on the narrow streets of the old town - the Carrer Montroig, Ier de Mayo and the Carrer de Parellades. Hip young locals hang out in the airy Montroig cafe, nursing their hangovers over chokingly-strong coffees, looking ruefully in the direction of Bunker, the happening club across the road where but a few hours previously their choice of beverage was something altogether stronger.
Others prefer to eat their way out of hangover misery - and at Eguzki, the cosy Catalan bar and restaurant in Carrer S. Pau, you can feast on a whole range of montaditos (the Catalan equivalent of tapas), from hot chorizo sausage to salt cod fritters, for next to nothing.
The bill is calculated from the number of toothpicks left on your plate, each pick having once secured the montaditos to its slice of bread. My bill for seven delicious snacks, a glass of cava (Spanish champagne) and a cortado came to just under £5.
The street that never sleeps
And, for anyone whose taste buds are galvanised by the sights and the smells, the Quim bar, right in the heart of the Boqueria, offers drinks, delicious tapas and more serious dishes, such as meatballs with cuttlefish, a Catalan specialty.
We emerged back on to the Ramblas opposite the Museu de l'Erotica, which boasts erotic art and photographs.
We pressed on to Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona's famous opera house. It is famous because it has twice burned down - the last time in 1994 - and been renovated, and in 1893 was the target of an anarchist bomb that killed 20.
Across the Rambla is the Cafe de l'Opera, a bustling favourite of the singers and ballet dancers from the Teatre, and a place to pause and ponder life and death.
Further on, close to our Port Vell destination, a narrow street leads into the Playa Reial.
The centre of the drug trade not so long ago, this is now a peaceful square with restaurants, a fountain and ornate iron lamps topped by winged helmets - the work of Barcelona's most famous son, the Catalan architect Antonio Gaudi.
We had only scratched the surface of this magnificent street, so that evening, I jogged alone down the Ramblas.
As the sun sets, the magic begins to evaporate - whatever the authorities say, the sidestreets are still no place to linger in the black of night.
But in the early morning or the heat of the day, all human life and much more parades in a captivating sideshow on a street that really never sleeps.
TRAVEL FACTS:
British Airways (0845 77 333 77) flies from Gatwick to Barcelona. Four-star hotels range upwards from £100 per night for a double room and breakfast, depending on the season. Excellent lunches or dinners with cost wine start from £30 for two.
Insights from a Japanese tour guide
Picasso's intellectual life was nourished at Els Quatre Gats (3 Carrer de Montsio), a tavern modelled on the cabarets of Montmartre. Besides food and drink, Els Quatre Gats offered poetry readings, art exhibitions, puppet shows, lectures and musical evenings.
For a short time it even had its own magazine. Catalonian revolutionaries hatched plots at this focal point of Barcelona's bohemian fringe while poets and painters discussed the newfangled modernism.
Picasso made portraits of some of its prominent habitues and they were exhibited there in February 1900 in what was his first serious exhibition. Els Quatre Gats closed in June 1903 and didn't reopen as a cafe until 1978.
Both the exterior and interior today look remarkably unchanged. A copy of Ramon Casas's El Tandem still dominates the bar area and the restaurant is surrounded on three sides by a narrow gallery lined with dining tables for two. There is a choice of three-course set meals for 2,200 pesetas (£8).
Naturally, the heart of all things Picasso in Barcelona is the Museu Picasso (15-19 Carrer de Montcada).
Although there are some works from his old age, the bulk of the Barcelona exhibition is from the time he spent in the city and traces his development from wide-eyed teenager painting boats through serious student getting to grips with the human form to confident young artist finding his subject matter in the brothels, bars, cafes, cabarets and bull rings.
Frustratingly, the exhibits are described only in Catalan and Spanish. My most interesting insights were picked up from a Japanese tour guide speaking in English to a group of Chinese tourists.
Once Picasso left Barcelona for Paris in 1904 he never again spent any extended time in Spain.
This wasn't because of any lack of passion for the country, but because of political repression.
'He came to love Barcelona and would continue to do so until his dying day,' writes John Richardson in his biography. 'The life of the city - La Rambla, El Paralelo, above all the Barri Xino (was) evoked in his later work more than any other place.'
Travel facts Kirker Holidays (020 7231 3333) offers a range of short breaks to Barcelona.
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| | | | Sardines in pink kimonos
And if tasty low-cost snacks such as these put our own fast food to shame, so too does the local train network. With Barcelona just 25 minutes away, a proximity which makes sense of Sitges as a sort of sun-drenched back yard for city dwellers, it seemed madness not to do some sightseeing. Sounds of Schubert serenaded us on our route to town, and Rachmaninov, a palliative perhaps to the stresses of commuting, on our homeward-bound journey.
In a couple of hours I had strolled down La Rambla, the colourful walkway where fire eaters and mime artists jostle for space with flower sellers and stalls of caged songbirds, and explored the Barri Gotic - the medieval quarter dominated by its impressive Gothic cathedral.
On the lookout for edible souvenirs, I popped into St Joseph market, an enormous covered food hall where mounds of dull red pimentos and dried chillies stand alongside stalls selling huge mangoes and fat strawberries. You can order a batido - a made-to-measure fruit shake from any combination of fruits on sale - not cheap, but delicious.
On the fish stall, suspended from miniature fishing rods, hung silver-flecked sardines dressed in pink paper kimonos and cocktail umbrellas, ready for the bizarre pre-Lenten practice of 'burying the sardine'.
Back in Sitges they were busy preparing for the 'burial' of the Carnival King, a ceremony marking the end of winter festivities and the start of the lull before the Easter tourist invasion. It was late afternoon and along a deserted strip of sand walked a lone clown, his makeup smudged and orange wig in disarray.
Apart from the bark of a retriever chasing some seagulls, the town was uncharacteristically quiet. But, then, even the most hardened party animals need time to rest - at least for a while.
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| | Destination Guide : Barcelona City |
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| | | Cosmopolitan city |  | Why go on holiday to Barcelona?
For great nightlife, stylish restaurants, museums, shops and spectacular architecture. Barcelona is Spain's most cosmopolitan and forward-looking city, and capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia.
How much does it cost?
A three-night city break in Barcelona in May costs from £300 per person including return flights. Flights only can be found from £110 but expect to pay about £160 upwards. Hotels from about £50 a night. Car hire from £10 a day.
When to go?
May, June and September are best for the weather, it's not too hot and there are fewer Spanish and foreign tourists. In the height of summer (July and August) temperatures average 84F (29C) and in December they drop to 53F (12C). The city's major festival is Festes de la Merce around September 24. It includes concerts, dancing, a swimming race, fireworks and a parade. A gay and lesbian festival and parade takes place on June 28 and a public holiday on September 11 marks the fall of Barcelona to Spain in 1714.
Feeling inspired? Book a break to Spain.
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| | | Incredible architecture |  | What should I do when I'm there?
The first thing most people do when they arrive is take a stroll down La Rambla, Spain's most famous street. Cars drive down the edges, but the middle of the street is broad tree-lined pedestrian boulevard crowded and buzzing every day until after midnight. Check out the market stalls, birdcages, street cafes, newstands, buskers and pavement artists, but watch your bag!
Is the Gothic Quarter worth investigating?
Yep. East of the Rambla, Barcelona's dark and spooky Barri Gotic or Gothic Quarter is a warren of narrow streets, medieval buildings, little craft shops and bottom-end and mid-range accommodation. In the middle of this area, you'll find the beautiful Gothic cathedral, which dates from 1298.
I've heard there's some great architecture?
The weird and wonderful Antoni Gaudi-designed buildings such as La Sagrada Familia, Casa Batllo, La Pedrera Palau Guell and his park, Parc Guell, are definitely worth a visit.
Anything else?
There are loads of museums and galleries such as Museu d'Art Contemporani (Museum of Modern Art), Museu Picasso, which boasts an extensive collection of Picasso's work from his Barcelona period and the Museu Textil i d'Inumentaria (Textile and Costume Museum), to name but a few. Then there's Montjuic, the hill overlooking the city centre, which was the site of the 1992 Olympics and is also home to some fine parks. The port area and the OK-ish beach are worth a peek, and football fans might want to go to a home game at the fantastic Nou Camp stadium.
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| | | Delicious food | | Where's good for nightlife?
Where isn't good for nightlife is a better question! The easiest thing to do is to buy a copy of Barcelona's entertainment guide Guia del Ocio, which comes out every Thursday and gives complete entertainment listings. Meanwhile Cafe de l'Opera at La Rambla 74 is lively and open late, and Glaciar and Bar Reixas in the Barri Gotic are worth a look.
Most of the interesting bars and clubs are around the Rambla/Barri Gotic area.
What's the food like?
The food in Catalonia is slightly different to that in the rest of the country. It consists of meat and fish dishes with rich sauces with vegetables and a piece of bread rubbed with tomato, olive oil and salt. For some reason this local food tends to be fairly expensive in the centre of Barcelona, but it's worth splashing out and trying some. Otherwise you can get the usual fare of pizza, pasta, burgers, etc, that you find in any big city, or try one of the many informal tapas bars (there are lots on the Barri Gotic) which are at least Spanish, if not Catalan. Barcelona also caters reasonably well for vegetarians.
What should I buy?
If it's chic and trendy you're after, head for Passeig de Gracia and the streets to its west, and to Barri Gotic, where there are also some Latin American, African and other craft shops. El Corte Ingles on the Placa de Catalunya is a department store with nine floors of everything, while the large Els Encants flea market every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday next to Placa de les Glories Catalanes and the crafts market in the Barri Gotic on Thursday and Friday provide an interesting contrast.
What is there for children to do?
Children are welcome in most restaurants and bars in Spain, so taking them around with you is not a problem. Kids also love the Mare Magnum area near the port with its aquarium and Imax cinema. There are plenty of playgrounds in the city, too.
Tourist office
Spanish National Tourist Office, 22-23 Manchester Square, London W1M 5AP. Tel 020 7486 8077. Brochure line: 09063 640630 (60p per minute).
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| | Fact File : Barcelona City |
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| | | Barcelona | | Did you know?
Barcelona is the capital of the Cataluna region of Spain, which has its own language.
Language
Catalan
Visas
No visa required for UK citizens.
Getting there
The international airport is 14km south-west of the city centre at El Prat de Llobregat. There are bus and train services between the airport and the centre of Barcelona.
Flying time from London
Two hours
Getting around
The metro is the easiest way of getting around the city. Buses are frequent during the day and run until 3am or 4am. A free, comprehensive metro and bus map is available from the main tourist office on Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes 658.
Currency
Euro
Costs
Bottle of beer 75p, a roll of film £2.50, meal for two with wine £12, a litre of petrol 45p, taxi from the airport £5.50. All prices will vary.
Weather
Summer 21C(70F)-29C(83F). Winter 6C(43F)-15C(58F).
Time difference
One hour ahead of GMT.
International dialling code from the UK
00 34 93
Voltage
220V. Take an adaptor if you will be using electrical appliances brought from the UK.
Opening hours
Monday - Friday 9am-2pm, 4.30pm-8pm for shops and travel agencies. Most keep the same hours on Saturdays. The big department stores don't close for lunch and are open 9am-9pm.
Health - Before you go
No vaccinations are required. Pick up an EHIC form from a Post Office for free medical treatment.
Health - When you are there
The tap water is OK to drink. Take the usual precautions in the sun.
Warnings
Keep an eye on your belongings at all times because pickpockets operate, especially on La Rambla.
Emergency
The emergency number is 091. British Embassy, Calle de Fernando el Santo 16, Madrid. Tel: (0034 91) 700 8200.
Customs
Night-owls should be happy. In cities the evening tends to begin around 10pm and end in the small hours. The afternoon siesta can become a must.
Pets
Spain is taking part in the Pet Travel Scheme (PETS) but documentation takes a while to set up. See your vet for details.
Tipping
Service charge is included in restaurants, so tipping is a personal choice - 5% is plenty, or odd change in cafes and bars.
Tourist office
Spanish National Tourist Office, 22-23 Manchester Square, London W1M 5AP. Tel: 020 7486 8077. Brochure line: 09063 640630 (60p per minute).
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| | Available rental properties in Barcelona City |
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| |  | | Bacardi Green Apartment
Beautiful apartment with a terrace, located just off Las Ramblas. Close to the city attractions and the beach, ideal for sightseeing and nightlife.
|  | | Bacardi Orange Apartment
Charming apartment located just off Las Ramblas, close to the city attractions and the beach. Ideal for sightseeing and nightlife.
|  | | Bacardi Duplex
Beautiful duplex penthouse located just off Las Ramblas. Close to the city attractions and the beach, ideal for sightseeing and nightlife.
|  | | Bacardi Small Apartment
Beautiful apartment located just off Las Ramblas. Close to the city attractions and the beach, ideal for sightseeing and nightlife.
|  | | Sagrada Familia Apartment
Spacious 3-bedroom apartment with large roof terrace located in the heart of the city. Excellent value!
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Holiday Rentals in Barcelona City |
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