Rough Guides - The Rough Guide to Barcelona

This Rough Guide is one of a new generation of informative and easy-to-use travel-guide ebooks that guarantees you make the most of your trip. An essential tool for pre-trip planning, it also makes a great travel companion when youre on the road.

From the chapters tell you where to eat, sleep, drink and shop, including details of all the best tapas bars and clubs. Finally, Contexts fills you in on history and books and provides a handy Language section.

Detailed area maps feature in the guide chapters and are also listed in the , accessible from the table of contents. Depending on your hardware, you can double-tap on the maps to see larger-scale versions, or select different scales. The screen-lock function on your device is recommended when viewing enlarged maps. Make sure you have the latest software updates, too.

Throughout the guide, weve flagged up our favourite places a perfectly sited hotel, an atmospheric caf, a special restaurant with the author pick icon . You can select your own favourites and create a personalized itinerary by bookmarking the sights, venues and activities that are of interest, giving you the quickest possible access to everything youll need for your time away.

Above Mir mosaic on the Ramblas

Barcelona the past and potentially future capital of the independent nation of Catalunya, and the Mediterraneans most exciting destination is the very epitome of cosmopolitan panache, hip design and sheer nonstop energy. Time and again the city has reinvented itself, from medieval maritime power to Olympic city, from neglected Franco-era backwater to trailblazing national force, with its dazzlingly inventive architecture as the most vivid expression of its tireless self-confidence. This is a place whose most famous monument, Antoni Gauds Sagrada Famlia, is an unfinished church of rapturous ambition; whose most celebrated street, the Ramblas, is a round-the-clock maelstrom of human activity; and whose vibrant restaurants, bars, shops and galleries are in the vanguard of European style and fashion. Whether youre visiting for the first time, expecting a traditional city break, or returning for the fiftieth, thinking you know it inside out, Barcelona never fails to surprise.

The impetus for Barcelonas exuberant self-promotion stems above all from its unique political and cultural identity. Its inhabitants leave you in no doubt that, whatever the map might show, youre not in Spain but in the autonomous province of Catalunya (Catalonia in English), which traces its history back as far as the ninth century. This makes Barcelona the capital of what many regard as a nation, and cranks the natural pride that locals feel for their city up an extra notch or two. Galleries and museums, for example, hold national collections of Catalan art and history, while the 1992 Olympics which kick-started the dynamic rebuilding process were indisputably Barcelonas Games, and not Spains. The city fosters an independent spirit, setting itself apart from the rest of the country and single-mindedly pursuing its own social, economic and cultural agenda.

Nowhere is this more perfectly seen than in the otherworldly modernista (Art Nouveau) buildings that stud Barcelonas streets, dating from the flamboyant era of renewal in the nineteenth century. Antoni Gaud is the most famous of those who have left their mark in this way: his Sagrada Famlia church is rightly revered, but just as fascinating are the (literally) fantastic houses, apartment buildings and parks that he and his contemporaries designed.

Barcelona also boasts an extensive medieval old town full of landmark monuments from an earlier age of expansion and a stupendous artistic legacy, ranging from exquisite Romanesque treasures to major galleries celebrating Catalan artists Joan Mir and Antoni Tpies, as well as Pablo Picasso, who spent some of his formative years here. The city is equally proud of its cutting-edge restaurants, its late-night bars and clubs, and most of all its football team, the mercurial, incomparable FC Barcelona. Add a spruced-up waterfront, 5km of sandy beaches, and swathes of verdant parks and gardens, and even on a lengthy visit you could never see it all.

True, for all its go-ahead feel, Barcelona has its problems, not least the peak-season overcrowding brought on by its well-deserved reputation for welcoming visitors. Its easy enough to escape the congestion, though, if you venture beyond the main tourist sights. Tapas bars hidden down alleys unchanged in centuries, designer boutiques in gentrified old-town quarters, street opera singers belting out arias, bargain lunches in workers taverns, neighbourhood funicular rides, unmarked gourmet restaurants, craft workshops, restored medieval palaces, suburban walks and specialist galleries all are just as much Barcelona as the Ramblas or the Sagrada Famlia.

above Park Gell

Barcelona on a plate

In a town where lunch can go on until 5pm, and tapas is what you eat before dinner, not your dinner itself, dining out is a big deal. Word gets around quick if theres a hot new restaurant or bar, and Barcelona gourmets are pretty discerning customers not for them the Ramblas tourist traps or fast-food chains. Embrace the local tastes and current trends and a whole new world opens up, from no-frills fishermens favourites in Can Mao to inventive, cutting-edge bar snacks at Tickets. Above all, if its fresh, seasonal and straight from the market thats Barcelona on a plate.

Despite being one of the largest cities on the Mediterranean (population 1.7 million, with a further 3.7 million in its metropolitan area), Barcelona is a straightforward place to find your way around. In effect, its a series of self-contained quarters or neighbourhoods, known as barris, stretching out from the harbour, flanked by parks, hills and woodland. The city centre and its major attractions Gothic cathedral, Picasso museum, markets, Gaud buildings and art galleries can be visited on foot, while a fast, cheap, integrated public transport system takes you directly to the peripheral attractions and suburbs.