Spain and Portugal for Visitors

Barcelona has a more European feel to it than anywhere else in Spain, even though it is the capital of the navel-contemplating autonomous region of Catalonia. Its avenues could be French, its fashion shops Italian and its businessmen German. It is an immediately likeable place to visit, but getting to know it is a most gratifying experience — Barcelona cooks. It is Catalan seny (cleverness), work ethic and worldliness mixed with Spanish dynamism and zest for life in an umistakable cocktail.

Suburban sprawl aside, the city sits between the sea to the south, and hills, particularly Montjuïc to the west and Tibidabo to the north. The geometrically laid-out, nineteenth-century century district of L'Eixample lies to the north of the central Plaça de Catalunya, from where Las Ramblas, a tree-shaded boulevard and the backbone of the Ciutat Vella (old town) runs south-east down to the Port Vell (old harbour, now a marina). The most interesting quarter of the Ciutat Vella is the Barri Gòtic (Gothic Quarter), east of the Ramblas near the sea. The slightly dodgy but jolly interesting Barri Xinés (literally Chinese Quarter, actually the traditional red-light district), is on the other side, to the west. On a spit of land on the other side of the Port Vell lies the Barceloneta, once the old fishermen's quarter, now a popular seaside area and nightlife haunt.

Barcelona is very much a port city, its history marked by this circumstance and by its geographical position. In the ninth century, Frankish King Charlemagne established the area which is now Catalonia as a march, a buffer zone between the Franks and the Muslims who had conquered Spain, and by the thirteenth century Catalonia and Barcelona had come to possess Mediterranean territories from Valencia to Sicily and beyond. Castilian and Aragonese interests put an end to Catalonian expansion, but did not succeed in absorbing the region, never altogether Spanish in spite of repeated efforts to make it so by Spanish centralists from the Catholic Monarchs to Franco and José María Aznar. The Ciutat Vella apart, most of Barcelona's visible history dates from the nineteenth century and twentieth centuries, for these were times of great prosperity for the city, first as the motor of Spain's industrial revolution and later as co-leader with the Basque Country of Spain's newfound regionalist movement.

The 1992 Olympic Games were in some ways an interesting mirror image of the city: the opening ceremony was genuinely vanguardist but comprehensible to the general public, the games themselves were generally acknowledged to be a great success after the disappointments of Los Angeles and Seoul, and the city took advantage both to renovate large areas which had suffered urban decay and to develop its image as a modern cultural centre. Forum 2004 has not had the same success in terms of visitor figures or critical acclaim, but the urban development carried out for it has transformed the port area of the city. There is no doubt that Barcelona is still one of the fashionable places in Europe.

Barcelona Links Directory
Barcelona Accommodation
Barcelona Bars and Pubs
Barcelona Museums
Barcelona Nightlife
Barcelona Restaurants
Barcelona Transport
Gaudi in Barcelona

Elsewhere on the Net - Selected Links

Barcelona - from Virtourist.com Best of the Net
Most of you who have spent time searching for travel information on the Internet will have come across Enric Corberó's splendid virtual tours. Like me, you might not have realised that he is a Barcelona native, and this is one of his best and most complete virtual tours. It opens with a splendid short movie of the façade of the Sagrada Familia and continues with 46 beautiful, entertainingly commented slides of the Hospital Sant Pau, the Parc Güell, the Ramblas, the Barri Gòtic, Vila Olímpica... in other words, practically the whole of Barcelona, including its customs, castellers and gegantes.

Stanton Studios
An interesting proposition which I can't quite fit in anywhere else. Philip Stanton is a Barcelona-based American designer with an impressive curriculum. This page contains views of Barcelona by several important Spanish artists, illustrators and photographers.

Time Out - Barcelona
In keeping with its origins, Time Out goes where the action is, and Barcelona's place as somewhere not to miss on the new European tourism scene is perfectly in keeping. Detailed guides to accommodation, restaurants, bars, what's on, the concession to the increased age of the audience that has grown up with Time Out perhaps being the Shopping guide.