All You Need to Know About Barcelona
An introductory guide to this marvelous Mediterranean city
How do I summarize Barcelona in one short piece? Perhaps I can’t, but here I will try my best to provide an introduction. With a population of 1.6 million, it is one of Europe’s largest cities and the continent’s fourth most visited city.
Located on the northeastern coast of Spain, Barcelona has sunny weather year-round and beaches stretching up and down and all along the Mediterranean. Restaurants aplenty, a thriving music scene, nightlife and outstanding Modernisme architecture on every street corner, it’s not surprising that Barcelona has become a top tourist destination for visitors hailing from all over the world.
Barcelona’s Best Neighborhoods
Let’s start off with an overview of Barcelona’s most popular neighborhoods. Down by the beach, great seafood, surfing, and chiringuitos (beach bars) can be found in La Barceloneta. To the north lies Poble Nou, with tech start-ups scattered around the famous Agbar Tower. Back over to the east of Barceloneta is the Old City or the Ciutat Vella, which encompasses El Born and the Gothic Quarter, divided by Via Laietana. Here you’ll find old Roman excavations, medieval churches, with lots of small cafes and boutiques in between.
El Raval is the city’s more risqué part of town, be careful going here at night. Travel up the hill, eastward and you’ll hit the Eixample, Catalan for “expansion.” This area was built more recently, starting in the mid-1800s and is easy to navigate, with its wide avenues like Passeig de Gràcia and gridded plan. At the top of Passeig de Gràcia, you’ll enter into what was once a small village, La Vila de Gràcia or simply Gràcia.
Getting Around
Each neighborhood has its own personality which is one of the things that makes Barcelona such a vibrant and diverse place to live. If you want to see them all in one day, it is certainly possible, as Barcelona is bien comunicado or easy to get around.
Rent a bike for around 20 euros a day, or grab a T-10 card at one of the metro stations (10 rides for 10 euros) and use it for the metro, bus, tram, and even some regional trains. Taxis really aren’t necessary, unless the metro is closed… even then there are night buses! Side note: Barcelona’s metro operates from 5AM to 12AM from Sunday to Thursday. On Friday it stays open until 2AM, on Saturday it runs all night.
Biking is a smooth ride in this city. There are no steep hills in the center and Barcelona has an ecosystem of well-connected bike lanes. The same goes for the metro. Several lines run through the city with many connecting points and lots of friendly station managers willing to help you reach your destination. Or, just ask a local. Barcelonís are quite friendly and relaxed and used to seeing tourists. They even have a name for them here, guiris.
Off-the-beaten-path tours
Looking for a local guide to show you around the city? Shameless plug… Check out toureaux.com for walking tours, food experiences, wine tastings, and so much more. Self-proclaimed foodie and history buff, Mick will take you on a customized tour of the city’s best eateries and hidden sites in The Ultimate Foodie Experience. Captain Velo’s History Buff Bike Tour will give you an in-depth overview of the city’s history. And if you’d like to take home some personalized souvenirs, check out Emma’s Barcelona photo tour.
Catalan Food
Being the capital of the autonomous region of Catalunya, Barcelona and the surrounding area have their own traditions, many involving food. Lots of the ingredients, the recipes, the celebrations, and the rituals differ from the rest of Spain. At the same time, it has always been a cosmopolitan place, a terre de pas, and its traditions have been influenced for centuries by foreigners who pass through or settle down. Vice’s Mikel Iturriaga explains:
“Catalans mix meat and seafood in the same recipe — it’s called mar i muntanya, which means “sea and mountain” in Catalan — in a way that seems rather odd in the rest of Spain. And Catalans have a huge tradition of pork sausages — fuets, butifarras — but they don’t use paprika in them, like in chorizo. They also like garlic A LOT, and their most distinctive sauces aioli [“garlic and oil” in Catalan], or romesco, are definitely not suitable for vampires. They have quite unique ways to treat vegetables, burning their skins to get them a smoky flavor, like in escalivada, or to thicken sauces in fish or meat stews. Flour is never really used, but a “picada” (an almond, parsley and garlic mix) gets added at the end of the cooking process. Oh! And they invented one of the best things in the whole world: pa amb tomàquet, toasted bread scrubbed with ripe fresh tomato, garlic, salt, and olive oil.”
Like in other parts of Spain, a Catalan’s daily schedule is a bit unique. Meals happen a lot later than in the rest of the world, and there are different types of meals such as la comida, tapas, and pintxos. Catalans eat breakfast around 10 or 11 AM, and lunch at 2 or 3 PM during siesta. Dinner doesn’t happen until 9 or 10 PM; most restaurants won’t open for dinner until about 8:30 PM (unless they are in a touristic neighborhood).
Part of this could be attributed to people wanting to seek shelter to avoid the intense, midday heat. Other people point out that Spain is not in the correct timezone.
Back in the day, the country’s clocks were set to the same hour as the UK and Portugal, calculated using the mean solar time. But on March 16, 1940, Spain’s brutal dictator, Francisco Franco, changed the time from 11:00 PM to 12:00 AM to display the same time as Nazi Germany and other Nazi-occupied countries further east. As Lauren Frayer of NPR explains, this was done to show support for the fascist government of Germany. To this day, Spain is not in its natural time zone, though there is talk of changing it back.
Siesta and the Menu del Día
As I’ve mentioned, lunch is the biggest meal of the day in Spain. While it is falling out of tradition, many people take a break from work and go home to eat lunch. For this reason, most smaller stores will be closed for siesta between 2 and 4 PM (or 5 PM).
The menu del día involves a lot of food and is surprisingly easy on the wallet. What is it? Usually, it is a three-course meal, drink included, that is offered on weekdays at lunchtime. Most restaurants will have a sign outside advertising their offerings, with several first courses, second courses, and desserts to choose from. If you go to a truly authentic place they will sometimes leave a bottle of house wine on the table (don’t get too greedy!). Prices vary from 7 to 15 euros per person, depending on where you go. Tip: this is a great way to try the food at a nicer establishment at a reduced rate.
Tapas Tradition
In Barcelona, tapas are small plates of food meant to be shared and usually accompanied by a glass of wine or beer. There are several theories surrounding the emergence of tapas. The most fun involves a king with an illness and a special diet (consisting of small snacks throughout the day) who demanded that all alcoholic beverages be served with a bite of food. The most practical story is that barmen began covering drinks with a slice of bread or cheese to prevent flies from taking a bath in patrons’ drinks.
I have to agree with Mikel Iturriaga when he recommends avoiding touristic restaurants (if they have a laminated menu outside in 10 thousand languages and an aggressive waiter beckoning you in, run for your life!) Instead, Iturriaga recommends trying “unpretentious restaurants like Envalira or Casa Agustí, or new places like Suculent or Mont Bar, where they give the old Catalan dishes a modern twist.” He also mentions a few of Barcelona’s traditional bodegas or small wine shops where you can sample different wines and tapas: Bodega Montferry, Bodega Salvat, Cal Marino, or Bodega Quimet which are all excellent and easy on the wallet.
Pintxos and Carrer De Blai
Another fun food to try are pintxos or small bites of food with a toothpick on top. They are normally displayed on top of bars, to be eaten with a glass of wine or beer. Though not originally from Barcelona, pintxos bars can be found all across the city. In fact, there is one magical street you must check out: Carrer de Blai. Carrer de Blai is a pedestrian walkway lined with outdoor terraces serving pintxos. Each restaurant does them differently, so you can hop from one to the next, sampling whichever bite-sized delicacy looks best to you. The barman will charge you based on the number of toothpicks left on your plate when you’ve finished your meal. For a list of the best pintxos in Barcelona, check out Barcelona Hacks’ recommendations.
Catalan Culture
Catalan food leads us to another topic… Catalan culture. Barcelona is the center of an area proudly known as Catalunya, one of 17 autonomous regions in Spain. Catalunya has made worldwide headlines in recent years from the Independence Movement that has been taking place, most notably with the elections in 2017. It has its own language, customs, traditions, food, many of which differ from those in other parts of Spain: a controversial ban on bullfighting, the caga tió at Christmastime, and the castellers, to name a few. Catalunya prides itself on innovation, art, and as you will see, architecture.
Antoni Gaudí
Barcelona’s three patron saints are Santa Eulalia, Santa Mercè, and Sant Jordi… and well, maybe we can consider the fourth unofficial saint to be Antoni Gaudí, the city’s celebrated Modernisme architect. Some of his most famous works include:
- La Sagrada Familia: Gaudí was in fact a very religious man and partook in a daily ritual of attending confession. It’s not surprising then that many say this cathedral is his most important work of art. The artist knew he would die before it was finished and so he left a set of very detailed plans and instructions allowing future architects to pick up from where he left off. Thus, La Sagrada Familia has taken more than 100 years to build and its construction is still ongoing. It is expected to be completed by 2026.
- Park Güell: Barcelona’s iconic Park Güell was originally designed to be a housing development, not a park. In 1900 Gaudí’s patron, the industrialist Eusebi Güell commissioned him to build a community where residents could have access to fresh air and nature, but still live in proximity to the city. The project was inspired by the British “city garden movement,” hence the English spelling of “park” with a “k”. Barcelona had just undergone its industrial revolution, and although the city benefitted tremendously in terms of economic growth, it suffered from the boom’s negative externalities, such as pollution and overpopulation. Güell and Gaudí were hoping the project would mitigate these effects.
- La Pedrera: Formally known as Casa Milà, this sandy colored, curvaceous building was once an apartment building. Its owners, the Milà family, lived on the first floor and rented the upper floors out to other tenants. Back then, it was considered more privileged to live on the ground floor, as walking up stairs or taking a slow elevator was a nuisance. Nowadays it is a museum, though there is still one woman residing in one of its apartments. When it was first constructed, the design was perceived to be so obtrusive that many Barceloneans began referring to it as La Pedrera or “the quarry.”
Gaudí always turned to nature when it came to his designs, for he felt there was nothing man could make that nature had not already created. As author Robert Hughes writes in the Guardian:
“He never ceased to draw on nature. Each paving-block of Passeig de Gracia features a starfish and an octopus, originally designed for the Casa Batlló. Turtles and tortoises support the columns of the Nativity facade of the Sagrada Familia, which also has 30 different species of stone plant copied from the vegetation of Catalunya and the Holy Land.”
Following Greek tradition, Gaudí even used living people as models, casting them in plaster to create his sculptures for La Sagrada Familia. But maybe Gaudí took his obsession with Mother Nature too far. In creating the church’s “Massacre of the Innocents” scene, he asked a hospital on Las Ramblas if he could cast the corpses of stillborn babies in plaster. He must have made a solid case, for they agreed.
The city lost its beloved architect in 1926, several days after Gaudí was hit by a tram while crossing Gran Vía de les Corts Catalanes. At 74 years old he was completely focused on constructing La Sagrada Familia. At this point, he had become depressed and stopped taking care of himself. His hair and beard were long and unruly, his clothing tattered, and when the police arrived at the scene they thought he was a beggar. In these times the poor were not adequately taken care of and he did not receive proper treatment.
Santa María del Mar
When you look up things to do in Barcelona, you’re sure to find the Barcelona Cathedral listed as one of the must-see attractions. However, my favorite church is not technically a cathedral, though it is referred to as one. Catedral del Mar, or “Cathedral by the Sea,” is the scene of a new Netflix series by the same name.
The church dates back to the 1300s and is located in Barcelona’s El Born district, next to a lovely old square that was used for local festivities, celebrations, and events during the Middle Ages. Unlike the Barcelona Cathedral, which was funded by and built for the bourgeoisie class, the Catedral del Mar was funded by, built for, and built by the fisherman and port workers living in the surrounding neighborhood of La Ribera. Known as bastaixos, the men who built the church carried each individual stone on their backs all the way from a quarry in Montjuic. If you’d like to understand how arduous this was, you can follow the bastaixos’ 8-kilometer walk that has been recreated by RouteYou.
If you are an FC Barcelona fan, you’ll also have a good reason to visit the church. If you spend enough time inside staring up at its stained glass windows you’ll find a small FC Barcelona shield embedded in one of the designs. Back in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War, a group of anarchists set the church on fire, destroying much of the artwork inside including the windows. In the 1960s, FC Barcelona donated money to help restore the building, and the shield was added as a small thank you.
A Warning: Pickpocketing
One thing to keep in mind: always keep an eye on your stuff, especially in the metro and near major tourist attractions. While Barcelona is an extremely safe city in terms of violent crime, pickpocketing is a big problem here. Many people even wear special pickpocket-proof bags, though I think holding your backpack in front of your chest on the train is sufficient.
When to Go
I’m a big fan of off-season travel: if you go in the fall, winter or even early spring, you’ll escape a lot of the crowds but more importantly the heat waves that sweep the city in summer. You’ll also save a bit on flights and accommodation. If you do decide to visit Barcelona during the summer, my recommendation is to spend some time away from the city itself. Rent a car and explore beaches along the Costa Brava, or out in the Balearic Islands. Barcelona is hot and humid in July and August, and, to be frank, the cleaner beaches (with fewer bachelor parties) can only be found by getting out of town.
Of course, this isn’t actually “all you need to know about Barcelona.” Here I’ve only skimmed the surface of Barcelona’s rich history, architecture, cuisine, and art. There is so much more to be discovered in this Mediterranean paradise that my sister jokingly referred to as “Magic Land” during her visit last summer. It’s a place to disfrutarse, to slow down, to have long lunches and to soak in the strong sun that rarely sees a cloud obstruct its rays.
