I am Catalan. I am also Spanish. These are not contradictions here, though the outside world tends to cover them as if they are. What identity actually means in daily life in Barcelona.
Poble Sec used to be working class, cheap, and ignored. Then Carrer de Blai happened, then Apolo, then the rents. Here’s what it still is.
Vermouth on Sunday before lunch has been the ritual in Barcelona for generations. Here’s how it works and where to do it properly.
Every guide to Barcelona describes Gràcia as a ‘charming village within the city.’ I grew up here. Let me tell you what it actually is.
I’ve been watching visitors make the same mistakes in this city since I was a teenager. Most of them are harmless. A few are expensive. Here, in no particular order, are the ones that happen most often. Eating on the Rambla. The restaurants on Las Ramblas operate on a single business model: high prices, mediocre…
People from outside Barcelona often ask: do I need to speak Catalan? The practical answer is no. Everyone speaks Spanish. Most people in the service industry speak English. You will not be stranded. But that’s a different question from what the language means here, and what it costs you if you don’t pay it any…
Every year on April 23rd, Barcelona stops being a city and becomes something else. Not a tourist attraction. Not a spectacle. Just a city that decided, collectively, that books and roses are the right way to spend a Thursday. Sant Jordi is not a public holiday. The shops are open. The offices are technically open…
Barcelona nightlife starts late and lasts long. This is not an exaggeration. Clubs don’t fill up until 2am. If you arrive at midnight you’re early. If you arrive at 10pm you’ll be alone with the staff. Plan accordingly. The two venues that define the city’s serious music scene are both in the eastern half of…
There is a new bar on Carrer de la Providència. I’ve walked past it three times in the past week. The first time I thought it was still being fitted out. The second time it was open. The third time I looked through the window long enough to read the cocktail menu board, and the…
People who dismiss the Eixample have only walked through it. They’ve seen the wide avenues, the uniform cornered blocks, the Passeig de Gràcia shops, and concluded that it’s a shopping district with expensive apartments. That’s not wrong, but it’s not right either. Ildefons Cerdà designed the Eixample in 1860 with genuine social intent: wide streets…
After three years in Barcelona, here are the things I still tell every person who visits me here. Not all of them are obvious. The Palau de la Música Catalana is not optional. I know you’ve seen photos. It’s better in person. The building was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner and completed in 1908,…
One of the things I got wrong about Barcelona before I lived here: I thought it was a city of clubs and beach bars. It’s not. Or rather, that’s not the part that matters. The part that matters is the scene that operates at street level, in the squares and the markets and the neighbourhood…