The Rough Guide to Barcelona 8 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

344 Pages·2009·10.35 MB·English

by  Rough Guides, Jules Brown

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The Rough Guide to
Barcelona
written and researched by
Jules Brown
NEW YORK • LONDON • DELHI
www.roughguides.com
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Contents
L Festivals and holidays....... 232
Colour section 1
M Sports and outdoor
Introduction ............................... 4 activities............................ 236
What to see................................ 7 N Shopping .......................... 242
When to go ................................ 9 O Children’s Barcelona ......... 251
Things not to miss ................... 10
Contexts 255
Basics 17
A history of Barcelona and
Getting there............................ 19 Catalunya............................. 257
Arrival and departure ............... 23 Barcelona snapshot ............... 271
City transport........................... 26 Catalan cookery..................... 276
City tours ................................. 29 Books .................................... 282
Information .............................. 30
The media ................................ 32 Language 287
Travel essentials ...................... 33
Pronunciation......................... 289
Useful words and phrases ..... 290
Guide 43
Food and drink ...................... 294
1 The Ramblas ....................... 45 Glossary of Catalan words ......299
2 Barri Gòtic........................... 53
3 El Raval ............................... 65 Travel store 301
4 Sant Pere, La Ribera and
Ciutadella............................ 73
5 The waterfront: from Port Vell Small print & Index 307
to Diagonal Mar .................. 84
6 Montjuïc .............................. 95
7 The Eixample .................... 110 mAnotdoenri nGisamudeí caonldou r
8 The northern suburbs........ 132 section following p.80
9 Out of the city ................... 149
Listings 173 Festive Barcelona
colour section following
G Accommodation................ 175 p.208
H Cafés, tapas bars and ............
restaurants........................ 188
I Bars and clubs.................. 210 4BCBEFMM
J Entertainment.................... 220 Colour maps following
K Gay and lesbian #"3$&-0/" p.320
Barcelona.......................... 229 3
왗왗 Parc Güell 왗 Casa Batlló at night
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| CONTENTS |
Introduction to
Barcelona
It’s tempting to say that there’s nowhere like Barcelona
– there’s certainly not another city in Spain to touch it for
sheer style, looks or energy. The glossy mags and travel
press dwell enthusiastically on its outrageous architecture,
designer shopping, hip bars and vibrant cultural scene,
but Barcelona is more than just this year’s fad. It’s a
confident, progressive city, one that is tirelessly self-
renewing while preserving all that’s best about its past.
As neighbourhoods are rebuilt with panache, and locals
and visitors alike pursue the latest, most fashionable
sensation, there’s also an enduring embrace of the things
that make life worth living – the daily market visit, strolling
down the famous Ramblas, a lazy harbourside lunch,
frenetic festival nights, a Sunday by the beach or a ticket
for FC Barcelona’s next big game.
It’s no accident that Barcelona is the least
Spanish city in the country. With the return to
democracy following the death of Franco, the
various regions were allowed to consolidate
their cultural identities through varying degrees
of political autonomy. Catalunya (Catalonia in
English), of which Barcelona is the capital, has
a historical identity going back as far as the ninth century, when the frst
independent County of Barcelona was established, and through the long
period of domination by Castile, and even during the Franco dictatorship
when a policy of cultural suppression was pursued, it proved impossible to
stife Catalan identity. Barcelona itself has long had the reputation of being
at the forefront of Spanish political activism, and of radical design and
architecture, but these cultural distinctions are rapidly becoming secondary
4 to the city’s position as one of the most dynamic commercial centres in
the country.
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| INTRODUCTION | WHAT TO SEE | WHEN TO GO
Gaining the 1992 Olympics was an important initial boost. Along with
a construction programme that touched every corner of the city went
the indisputable knowledge that these had been Barcelona’s Games, and
not Spain’s – an important distinction to the Catalan people. Since then
the economic and physical transformation of Barcelona has been extraor-
dinary, with some remarkable new buildings and public spaces sharing
the limelight with renovated historic quarters, revamped museums and a
sparkling city beachfront.
If there’s a pattern emerging in how Barcelona presents itself to the outside
world, it’s the emphasis on a remarkable fusion of economic energy and
cultural expression. This is seen most perfectly in the glorious modernista
Talking the talk
Catalan (Català) is a Romance language, stemming directly from Latin,
and closely resembling Occitan. It’s spoken by over ten million people
in total, in Barcelona and Catalunya, part of Aragón, much of Valencia,
the Balearic islands, Andorra, and parts of the French Pyrenees – and
is thus much more widely spoken than Danish, Finnish and Norwegian.
Other Spaniards tend to belittle it by saying that to get a Catalan word
you just cut a Castilian one in half but, in fact, the grammar is more
complicated and it has eight vowel sounds compared to Castilian’s
five. During Franco’s time in power, Catalan was banned from the radio,
TV, daily press and schools, which is why many older people cannot
read or write it (even if they speak it all the time) – the region’s best-
selling Catalan-language newspaper sells far fewer copies than the
most popular Castilian-language daily paper. Virtually every Catalan
is bilingual, but most regard Catalan as their mother tongue and it’s
estimated that it is the dominant language in over half of Catalunya’s
households – a figure that’s likely to grow given the amazing revival of 5
the language in recent times.
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| INTRODUCTION | WHAT TO SEE | WHEN TO GO
왖 Dancing the sardana
(Art Nouveau) buildings that stud the city’s streets and avenues. Antoni
Gaudí is the most famous of those who have left their mark on Barcelona in
this way: his Sagrada Família church is rightly revered, but just as fascinating
are the (literally) fantastic houses, apartment buildings and parks that he
and his contemporaries designed. The city also boasts a stupendous artistic
legacy, from national (ie Catalan) collections of Romanesque, Gothic and
contemporary art to major
Much of what you’ll want to see in the galleries containing the
city centre – Gothic cathedral, Picasso life’s work of the Catalan
museum, Gaudí buildings and art artists Joan Miró and Antoni
galleries – can be reached on foot from Tàpies (not to mention a
the central Plaça Catalunya. celebrated showcase of the
work of Pablo Picasso). Add
a medieval old town – full of pivotal buildings from an earlier age of expan-
sion – a welter of churches and markets, and an encircling belt of parks and
green spaces, and Barcelona demands as much time as you can spare.
For all its go-ahead feel, though, Barcelona does have its problems, not
least a high petty crime rate. However, there’s no need to be unduly
paranoid and it would be a shame to stick solely to the main tourist sights,
since you’ll miss so much. Tapas bars hidden down alleys little changed
for a century or two, designer boutiques in gentrifed old town quarters,
street opera singers belting out an aria, bargain lunches in workers’ taverns,
neighbourhood funicular rides, unmarked gourmet restaurants, craft outlets
and workshops, fn-de-siècle cafés, restored medieval palaces, suburban walks
and specialist galleries – all are just as much Barcelona as the Ramblas or
Gaudí’s Sagrada Família.
6
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왖 Parc de la Ciutadella
| INTRODUCTION | WHAT TO SEE | WHEN TO GO
What to see
ost sights of historic
interest are in the
old town, with the
M modern city beyond a
late nineteenth-century addition,
part of a vast project conceived
to link the small core of the old
town with the villages around it.
Barcelona itself has a popula-
tion of 1.6 million (metropolitan
population 4.8 million, Catalunya
7.1 million) but remains, in efect,
a series of self-contained neigh-
bourhoods stretching out from
the harbour, fanked by a brace of
parks and girdled by the wooded
Collserola mountains. Much of
what you’ll want to see in the
city centre – Gothic cathedral,
Picasso museum, markets, Gaudí 왖 Volleyball on the beach
buildings, history museums and
art galleries – can be reached on foot in under twenty minutes from the
central Plaça de Catalunya, while a fast metro system takes you directly to
the more peripheral attractions and suburbs.
The Ramblas – a kilometre-long tree-lined avenue mostly given over
to pedestrians, pavement cafés and performance artists – splits the ciutat
vella, or old town, in two. On the eastern side of the avenue is the Barri
Gòtic (Gothic Quarter), the medieval nucleus of the city – a labyrinth
of twisting streets and historic buildings, including La Seu (the cathedral)
and the palaces and museums around Plaça del Rei. Further east lies the
Sant Pere neighbourhood, set around its terrifc market, which adjoins the
fashionable boutique-and-bar barri of La Ribera to the south, home to the
Picasso museum. Over on the western side of the Ramblas is the edgier,
artier neighbourhood of El Raval, containing both the fagship museum of
contemporary art (MACBA) and the pick of the latest designer shops, bars
and restaurants.
At the bottom of the Ramblas is the waterfront, whose spruced-up
harbour area is known as Port Vell (Old Port). Walking east from here takes 7
you past the aquarium and marina, through the old fshing and restaurant
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| INTRODUCTION | WHAT TO SEE | WHEN TO GO
quarter of Barceloneta, past the Parc de la Ciutadella and out along
the promenade to the cafés and restaurants of the Port Olímpic. This
whole area is where Barcelona is most like a resort, with city beaches
right along the waterfront
from Barceloneta as far as Antoni Gaudí is the most famous of those
the conference and leisure who left their mark on Barcelona.
zone of Parc del Fòrum
at Diagonal Mar. Art- and garden-lovers, meanwhile, aim for the fortress-
topped hill of Montjuïc to the southwest, where Catalunya’s national art
gallery (MNAC), the Miró museum, botanic garden and main Olympic
stadium are sited, among a host of other cultural attractions.
At the top of the Ramblas, Plaça de Catalunya marks the start of the
gridded nineteenth-century extension of the city, known as the Eixample,
a symbol of the thrusting expansionism of Barcelona’s early industrial
age. This is where some of Europe’s most extraordinary architecture
– including Gaudí’s Sagrada Família – is located. Beyond the Eixample
lie the northern suburbs, notably Gràcia, with its small squares and lively
bars, and the nearby Parc Güell, while you’ll also come out this way to
see the famous Camp Nou FC Barcelona stadium or the city’s applied art
museums at the Palau Reial. It’s worth making for the hills, too, where
you can join the crowds at Barcelona’s famous Tibidabo amusement
park – or escape them with a
walk through the woods in the
peaceful Parc de Collserola.
The good public transport
links also make it easy to head
further out of the city. The
mountain-top monastery of
Montserrat is the most obvious
day-trip to make, not least for
the extraordinary ride up to the
monastic eyrie by cable car or
mountain railway. Sitges is the
local beach town par excellence,
while with more time you can
follow various trails around the
local wine country, head south
to the Roman town of Tarra-
gona or Gaudí’s birthplace of
Reus, or north to medieval
8 Girona or the Dalí museum
in Figueres.
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왖 La Seu
| INTRODUCTION | WHAT TO SEE | WHEN TO GO