Visit and love it
Barcelona has a combination of attributes that make it unique. The city’s culture and cuisine, the beauty of its streets, its Mediterranean climate and welcoming cosmopolitan character make Barcelona a very attractive place to visit and to live in.
Despite being a metropolis, recognised and admired the world over for its innovation ecosystem and creativity, as well as a model of urban transformation, Barcelona stands out for having smaller dimensions than other global capitals. It’s a city people can cover on foot, where everything is nearby and within reach. The human scale is a key factor in its quality of life.
Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, one of the autonomous regions in the Spanish state. It has its own language, Catalan, which evolved from Latin, like Spanish, French and Italian. Catalan is the official language, along with Spanish, and is used in all spheres of daily life.
There is a spring day in Barcelona when the streets are crowded with stalls selling books and roses and people buying them as gifts for their other half and loved ones. "Sant Jordi" or St George, as he is known in English, is the patron saint of Catalonia and his saint's day on 23 April is devoted to the celebration of love and literature. It is a magical day you need to experience at least once in your life.
Barcelona is an international benchmark for design in a variety of fields, as can be seen from the Barcelona Design Festival, the Barcelona Design Centre, a cluster of design-sector companies and, above all, the avant-garde Barcelona Design Hub building, which houses the Design Museum.
Being good Catalans, Barcelonians love to eat well, as reflected in their city's markets - packed as they are with fresh, local produce - and in its numerous Catalan-cuisine restaurants, which range from the traditional to the avant-garde. And institutions such as the Catalan Cookery Institute maintain the country's cultural culinary identity.
If there is one architectural style that bears the Barcelona stamp it has to be Modernisme - the Catalan Art Nouveau - whose dreamily shaped buildings have left their mark on a good many of the city's neighbourhoods. The Modernisme Route invites you to discover them!
Castells are human towers and one of the most exciting forms of street entertainment to be seen. They can go up to as many as ten levels and are a marvel of balance and beauty as well as an example of teamwork. The Castellers de Barcelona put them up on the city's main festival days.
Being a Mediterranean city, Barcelona has been captivated by fire since time immemorial. So one of the most popular festival events is the correfoc, literally a "fire run", where groups of devils light bangers and shower sparks over the people surrounding them. It is a very intense experience, but a safe one at that, so long as you follow some basic advice.
Performing something halfway between gymnastics and art, the Falcons - an acrobatic-sports human towers group - amaze their spectators with the figures they are capable of creating as they combine their bodies. Their origins can be found in the nineteenth-century Czech Sokol movement, which combined physical exercise with national cultural values. The Falcons de Barcelona offer a 21st-century Catalan version.
The Casa dels Entremesos offers a chance to discover some of the main figures - giants, "big-heads" and traditional fantastic beasts - that feature in the festivals held not just in Barcelona but in the whole of Catalonia. They are usually taken out to dance for traditional festivals such as the saint's days of Barcelona's co-patron saints: La Mercè (24 September) and Santa Eulàlia (12 February).
During the Feast of Corpus Christi, a few Gothic building courtyards open up to the public to show a curious tradition that is unique in the world: l'ou com balla, getting an egg to “dances” on a jet of water - from a fountain decorated with flowers and fruit - without its falling to the ground. The tradition goes back to the 15th century and offers a lovely occasion for going round the city's historical buildings.
With a voluptuous Modernista architecture that erupts in the middle of two small streets, the spectacular Palau de la Música is a privileged setting and a true symbol of the city.
Barcelona's first wharf, Port Vell, is now a magnificent promenade open to a sea dotted with vessels, from where you can still set sail to discover the world.
Set among Montjuïc's gardens and in a magnificent rationalist building, the Fundació Joan Miró has an impressive collection of works by the Catalan painter on display.
Formerly a village separate from the city, Sarrià is a charming, sweet and very literary neighbourhood, with a network of squares and small streets that seem to have stopped in time.
The Palau Nacional that dominates Montjuïc is the seat of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) which, among other things, keeps an impressive collection of Romanesque paintings.
Crowning Montjuïc as if it were a temple, the Olympic Ring concentrates the spirit of the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games.
The Zona Universitàra is in the Les Corts district, either side of Avda Diagonal. This university area has some large, green spaces and several of Barcelona's most iconic gardens.
Rising gently towards the heavens among the 19th century buildings of the El Born i la Ribera neighbourhood, Santa Maria del Mar is pure Gothic architecture.
Surrounded by watchful gargoyles and boasting an idyllic cloister with resident geese, Barcelona Cathedral is one of the best examples of Gothic art in the city.
Climbing up the hill it is named after, Avinguda Tibidabo opens a path between the Modernista houses and preserves the spirit of the early 20th century.
Boasting tiles designed by Gaudí, bench-street lamps covered in trencadís ceramic fragments and some fantastic Modernista façades, Passeig de Gràcia is a symbol of elegance
The working-class neighbourhood of El Clot hides some quiet little streets and spots that are the legacy of its past but it also looks forward to the future with several of the city's most modern buildings.
