In Barcelona it's best to play the Barcelonan and simply hang out in one of Europe's most enchanting cities. Maybe it's ambling the length of La Rambla surrounded by examples of all human life. You wind between flower stalls selling fragrant lilies, roses and orchids and stands trilling to the sound of caged birds. Then dine on tapas at a shaded patio, whilst an aged accordionist plays his rheumatic instrument, attended by a mature groupie who's been a little slapdash with the Grecian 2000.
Perhaps it's tucking into pastries and chocolate con churros at Café Moka aware it hasn't changed since the civil guards barricaded themselves inside whilst George Orwell and his radical party colleagues fired on them from across the street in 1937. It could be dining on delicious king prawns at La Taxidermista. Once a shop for stuffed animals, patronised by Miró and Dalí, it's now been revamped as a well designed restaurant combining old and new - minus the animals - or it could be while visiting Snowflake at the zoo in the Parc de la Ciutadella, the only albino gorilla in captivity in the world.
Or maybe it's just being in a city which dozes all afternoon only to wake up refreshed for a sultry night's bar-hopping, followed by dinner at around 10 p.m. and dancing into the wee and not-so-small hours.
Everything about Barcelona is refined and has the assurance of a great city. Aesthetically, Barcelona is closer to Paris or Rome than it is to Madrid. It is a place where wide boulevards converge at dramatic fountains. Where the inquisitive can stand atop Antoni Gaudí's remarkable La Pedrera building amidst its mosaic-patterned chimneys and vents. From this vantage point you stare disbelieving at his outrageously optimistic and still incomplete Sagrada Familia cathedral. Eight 100m towers scratch the sky yet are dwarfed by cranes. These controversially continue to construct a central tower, which will stand almost twice as high. Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, yet feels like the capital of a country, and acts as Iberia's link to the rest of Western Europe.
Barcelona could have been the capital of a united Spain, were it not for Philip II's obsession with geometry and his desire to rule from the centre of his kingdom - Madrid lies bang in the middle of the Iberian peninsula. Improved links with Paris, home to so many new ideas, ensured Barcelona remained at the cutting edge of developments. The 1888 Universal exhibition marked the establishment of Barcelona as a modern-day city on the international map.
Spain's neutral status in World War I ensured Barcelona gained an international refugee community, and became a bolthole for all sorts escaping the fighting. The district around La Ravel became synonymous with drugs, prostitution and gambling. The 1920s saw further development, particularly with the first signs of tourism along the recently christened Costa Brava. The Catalan boom period ended abruptly in 1939 as Spain's bloody civil war culminated in the fall of Barcelona to General Franco's troops. A vengeful regime ensured that political and cultural developments were stymied and that Barcelona became pinched, grimy and impoverished. Franco attempted to dilute Spain's regional differences by encouraging relocation. Yet he failed to obliterate the Catalan identity. Upon his death in 1975, a change in atmosphere swept the city. The city reinvented itself as post-modern and fashionable. Creativity and vivacity were pushed back to the fore. The securing of the 1992 Olympics acted as the stimulus to dress the city up and showcase its new heady cocktail of tradition, imagination, architecture, style and nightlife. The shameless self-promotion is still occurring and is closely linked to the promotion of Catalan identity and language.
Catalán is very important to the natives of Catalonia. The worst insult is to describe their language as a dialect. Rather it is a distinct Romance language, which binds around 10 million people together. It is the largest linguistic community in Europe without its own national state. Franco's clamp down on Catalán has ensured that there is a generation of Catalonians who can't speak their own mother language, yet since his death, Catalán has already become the dominant tongue in around half of Catalonia's households.
Learn to use Catalán or even just to live with it, and you're in. Once you begin the process of integration, you soon realise that the main attraction here is not the glorious architecture, but the city and Barcelonan life itself. After the essential sights, the most pleasure can be derived from becoming ensconced in the labyrinthine streets. Seek out the lesser palaces, patios, churches and bars. Peer into dim, nameless cellar bars whose walls are lined with barrels. Fortify yourself with red wine and a tapa of pringa (blood sausage and lard on toast, which when translated into English sounds a good deal less tantalising than it really is). In short, behave like a local.
I recommend the Insight Fleximap of Barcelona, the Michelin Map of Barcelona and the Gaudí & Barcelona Map. The best guidebooks are the Barcelona Time Out Guide, the Cadogan City Guide to Barcelona and Barcelona: A Guide to its Modern Architecture.
Author: Alex Stewart
Date: 1 May 2002
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