Barcelona, the Place to Be

Barcelona, a city that has its own culture, traditions and personality and a place where you can easily spend endless periods of time exploring.

A home to many masterpieces of great architects. The most famous is Antonio Gaudí. Gaudí’s work is admired by many people around the globe as being one of the most unique and distinctive styles in modern architecture.

Casa Mila, popularly known as La Pedrera, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the architect’s last civic architectural project.

La Sagrada Familia is a project that began in 1882. Although Gaudí made sure to spend his last few years dedicated to the project, it was clear that it wouldn’t be finished during his lifetime. When Gaudí died in 1926, only a quarter of the basilica had been built, with an estimated 100 years until the completion of his final project.

Park Güell is one of Antoni Gaudi’s most imaginative and symbolic works of art which thanks to a failed housing project is now open to the public as a city park.

Hidden in Barcelona’s west side is his version of Nirvana. 

Another Modernist marvel designed by Gaudí is la Casa Batlló, a former townhouse constructed for the Batlló family in the 19th century. Casa Batló and La Pedrera can be seen on Barcelona’s iconic street of luxury, Passeig De Gracia.

Barcelona is a city that offers many options for all ages.

The sea, the sun, the mountains, the yummy food, the nightlife and the museums make Barcelona one of Europe’s most cosmopolitan cities.

Students and tourists along with the international environment (that for sure you can understand from the first day in the city from all the languages you can hear in the streets) have created the need for a lot of bars of all kind and clubs. But the joy of life in Barcelona, the music, the art, the laughter, the dance…etc is mostly in the streets where you can find artists giving their performance in every corner of the center.

For the Catalans, the FC Barcelona is one of the most important icons of the Catalan national pride. It’s also a symbol of resistance against the suppression they had to experience, especially by the Franco regimen.

Known locally as Barça, the home of Barcelona Football Club is Camp Nou, which seats over 95,000 people. Football greats who have played here in the past include Brazil’s Ronaldinho, Holland’s Johann Cruyff and the most famous player the world has ever seen, Argentina’s Diego Maradonna.

While for others, Barcelona is the THC Paradise. Since the inception of Cannabis tourism in the Mediterranean, Spanish cannabis clubs are an exciting trend in the cannabis culture. Barcelona has gradually embraced the marijuana culture with dedicated cannabis clubs and museums.

After the financial crisis of 2008, many vacant rental properties were taken over by criminal organisations who set up indoor cannabis plantations, which, if well maintained, can produce up to four times the harvest of an outdoor crop. To this day, many houses and flats in Barcelona are occupied by narcotrafficantes, who use the stolen premises for illegal activities.

While the Romans were the first to establish walls around Bàrcino in the first century before Christ, fisherman were the main settlers during the 18th century on the seafront land now known as Barceloneta.

Even now if you delve into the dim, narrow back streets, there is still an old village feel to the place, with old women shouting to one another across balconies and old men sitting and laughing on the street just outside their front doors.

However, Barceloneta now also has a different side. A cosmopolitan, tourist-driven life of its own, bars and cafes with ambient music day and night.

Without a doubt Barcelona is a place to enjoy yourself!

If you are traveling to Barcelona, make sure you read up on the best tips for staying safe in the, sometimes dangerous, but always chaotic capital of Cataluña.

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