Things to do in Barcelona
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Cementiri de l’Est
The Cementiri de l’Est, created in 1773, was positioned outside the then city limits for health reasons. Its central monument commemorates the victims of a yellow-fever epidemic that swept across Barcelona in 1821. The cemetery is full of bombastic family memorials, but an altogether disquieting touch is the sculpture El Petó de la Mort (The Kiss of Death), in which a winged skeleton kisses a young, kneeling but lifeless body.
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Con Gracia
This teeny hideaway (seating about 20 in total) is a hive of originality, producing delicately balanced Mediterranean cuisine with Asian touches. On offer is a regularly changing surprise tasting menu or the set ‘traditional’ one, which includes such items as sopa de foie y miso con aceite de trufa blanca (miso and foie gras soup with white truffle oil) and a nice Chilean sea bass. At lunch, only groups are accepted. Book ahead.
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Camp Nou
Among Barcelona’s most-visited museums is the Museu del Futbol Club Barcelona near the club’s giant Camp Nou (aka Nou Camp) stadium. Barça is one of Europe’s top football clubs, and its museum is a hit with football fans the world over. Camp Nou, built in 1957 and enlarged for the 1982 World Cup, is one of the world’s biggest stadiums, holding 99,000 people. The club has a world-record membership of 173,000. Football fans who can’t get to a game may find a visit to the museum, with guided tour of the stadium, worthwhile.
The best bits of the museum itself are the photo section, the goal videos and the views out over the stadium. Among the quirkier…
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Ca la Nuri
With its white and grey tones, and schools of silver fish shapes seemingly skudding like wind-driven clouds along one wall, this is a classic for Catalan seafood and rice dishes. They have various set lunch menus, such as fideuá, arròs negre and seafood paella. Another good one is the arròs de l’avia Nuri (Grandma Nuri’s rice), a paella-style dish in which all the seafood creatures have been peeled.
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Lac Majùr
Inside this cosy slice of northwest Italy all sorts of home-cooking delights await, including the house pasta specials, gnocchi and trofie. The latter are twists of pasta, usually served with pesto sauce, from Liguria. Try the mascarpone and ham variant followed by, say, a saltimbocca alla romana (a veal slice cooked with ham, sage and sweet Marsala wine).
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Balthazar
Balthazar offers a spacious and buzzy dining atmosphere and an extensive menu of Catalan and Mediterranean dishes, which are good without being spectacular. Locals converge here for stylish, economical dining. After all, where else might you encounter a carpaccio de bou amb encenalls de parmesà (beef carpaccio with parmesan cheese shavings) for €6.60? The menú del día also wins the hearts of savers at €8.70.
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La Rambla
Flanked by narrow traffic lanes and plane trees, the middle of La Rambla is a broad pedestrian boulevard, crowded every day until the wee hours with a cross-section of barcelonins and out-of-towners. Dotted with cafes, restaurants, kiosks and news-stands, and enlivened by buskers, pavement artists, mimes and living statues, La Rambla rarely allows a dull moment.
It takes its name from a seasonal stream (raml in Arabic) that once ran here. From the early Middle Ages, on it was better known as the Cagalell (Stream of Shit) and lay outside the city walls until the 14th century. Monastic buildings were then built and, subsequently, mansions of the well-to-do from the 16th to…
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El Glop
Step inside this raucous eatery decked out in country Catalan fashion, with gingham tablecloths and no-nonsense, slap-up meals. The secret is hearty serves of simple dishes, such as bistec a la brasa (grilled steak), perhaps preceded by albergínies farcides (stuffed aubergines) or calçots in winter. Try the tocinillo, a caramel dessert, to finish. Open until 1am, it’s a useful place to have up your sleeve for a late bite.
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Alba Granados
In summer ask for one of the romantic tables for two on the 1st-floor balcony. Overlooking the trees, it is a unique spot, with little traffic. Inside, the ground- and 1st-floor dining areas are huge, featuring exposed brick and dark parquet. The menu offers a little of everything but the best dishes revolve around meat, such as solomillo a la mantequilla de trufa con tarrina de patata y beicon (sirloin in truffle butter, potato and bacon terrine).
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Artistic Barcelona Afternoon Tour
4 hours 30 minutes (Departs Barcelona, Spain)
by Viator
Discover fabulous architecture by the incomparable Antoni Gaudi on an afternoon tour of Artistic Barcelona. Accompanied by your professional guide, you will…Not LP reviewed
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Air Raid Shelter
This air raid shelter was one of more than 1300 across the city during the civil war. The narrow and winding tunnels were slowly dug to a total of 200m over two years from March 1937. The half-hour tours (generally in Spanish or Catalan but you can book ahead for English or French) provide some fascinating insight into life in wartime Barcelona. Just being inside here and imagining bombs dropping outside is enough to give you the heebie-jeebies.
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Cosmocaixa
Kids (and kids at heart) are fascinated by displays here and this science museum has become one of the city’s most popular attractions. The single greatest highlight is the recreation over 1 sq km of a chunk of flooded Amazon rainforest (Bosc Inundat). More than 100 species of Amazon flora and fauna (including anacondas, colourful poisonous frogs and caymans) prosper in this unique, living diorama in which you can even experience a tropical downpour.
In another original section, the Mur Geològic, seven great chunks of rock (90 tonnes in all) have been assembled to create a ‘geological wall’.
These and other displays on the lower 5th floor (the bulk of the museum…
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Mercat del Born
Excavation in 2001 at the former Mercat del Born, a late-19th-century produce market built of iron and glass, unearthed great chunks of one of the districts flattened to make way for the much-hated Ciutadella. Historians found intact streets and the remains of houses, dating as far back as the 15th century.
Excitement was such that plans to locate a new city library in the long-disused market were dropped. Instead, the site will become a museum and cultural centre – the projected date is still undecided.
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El Cangrejo Loco
Of the hive of eating activity along the docks of Port Olímpic, the ‘Mad Crab’ is among the best. Fish standards, such as bacallà (cod) and rap (monkfish), are served in various guises and melt in the mouth. The rich paella de llamàntol (lobster paella) is superb.
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La Pubilla del Taulat
Get inside the eatery in this late-19th-century building quickly, as you’ll find the bar has been stripped of all its tapas delights if you arrive much after 10pm. Tucked away in backstreets still partly lined with low-slung houses of another era, this place is a popular stop. All the classics are present: patatas bomba (spicy meat stuffed potatoes), mejillones al vapor (steamed mussels), chocos (lightly fried cuttlefish slices) and more.
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Patagonia
An elegant Argentinean beef-fest awaits in this stylish restaurant. Start with empanadas (tiny meat-crammed pies). You might want to skip the achuras (offal) and head for a hearty meat main, such as a juicy beef medallón con salsa de colmenillas (a medallion in a morel sauce) or such classics as bife de chorizo (sirloin with spicy sausage) or Brazilian picanha (rump). You can choose from one of five side dishes to accompany your pound of flesh.
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Ommsession Club
Hanging out in certain hotel bars has become cool in Barcelona. So much so that locals like to hang out in some of them too! The ground-floor lounge Bar Moodern in Hotel Omm is one of the places for beautiful people to preen and be seen. When you’re finished lounging around upstairs, you can head into the basement Ommsession Club, a smallish but fashion dance venue, straight downstairs from Bar Moodern.
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Cinc Sentits
Enter this somewhat overlit realm of the ‘Five Senses’ to indulge in a tasting menu (from €49 to €69), consisting of a series of small, experimental dishes. A key is the use of fresh local produce, such as fish landed on the Costa Brava and top-quality suckling pig from Extremadura. Less ambitious, but cheaper, is the set lunch at €30.
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Dboy
With pink laser lights and dense crowds of fit young lads, this is one of the big dance-club locations on a Saturday night. Electronic music dominates the dance nights here and, in spite of the 6am finish, for many this is only the start of the ‘evening’. You need to look your gorgeous best to get in past the selective doormen.
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CaixaForum
The Caixa building society prides itself on its involvement in (and ownership of) art, in particular all that is contemporary. Its premier art expo space in Barcelona hosts part of the bank’s extensive collection from around the globe.
The setting is a completely renovated former factory, the Fàbrica Casaramona, an outstanding Modernista brick structure designed by Puig i Cadafalch. From 1940 to 1993 it housed the First Squadron of the police cavalry unit – 120 horses in all.
Now it is home to major exhibition space. On occasion portions of La Caixa’s own collection of 800 works of modern and contemporary art go on display, but more often than not major international…
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Casa de l’Ardiaca
Across the lane from Capella de Santa Llúciainto is the 16th-century Casa de l’Ardiaca, which houses the city’s archives. Stroll around the supremely serene courtyard, cooled by trees and a fountain; it was renovated by Lluis Domènech i Montaner in 1902, when the building was owned by the lawyers’ college. Domènech i Montaner also designed the postal slot, which is adorned with swallows and a tortoise, said to represent the swiftness of truth and the plodding pace of justice. You can get a good glimpse at some stout Roman wall in here. Upstairs, you can look down into the courtyard and across to La Catedral.
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La Bodegueta Provença
The ‘Little Wine Cellar’ offers classic tapas presented with a touch of class, from calamares a la andaluza (lightly battered calamari rings) to cecina (dried cured veal meat). The house speciality is ous estrellats (literally ‘smashed eggs’) – a mix of scrambled egg white, egg yolk, potato and then ingredients ranging from foie gras to morcilla (black pudding). Wash it all down with a good Ribera del Duero or caña (little glass) of beer.
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Barcelona Super Saver: Montserrat Day Trip and Barcelona Gaudi Tour
9 hours (Departs Barcelona, Spain)
by Viator
Montserrat Day Trip and Barcelona Gaudi Tour including Sagrada Familia combines two best selling tours at a discounted price. Start the morning with a tour to…Not LP reviewed
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Jordi Labanda Store
Uruguay-born and Barcelona-raised cartoonist Jordi Labanda made a name for himself with his colourful pointed portraits of contemporary 30-somethings in top-flight magazines and newspapers, and murals in the Sandwich & Friends fastish food chain. Now he also does original women’s clothes, in which he has toned down the colours but remains playful in design. In all his work there is an element of biting social commentary, so these are thinking-women’s clothes!
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Xalet Golferichs
This quirky mansion is an oddity of another era on one of the city’s busiest boulevards. Its owner, businessman Macari Golferichs, wanted a Modernista villa and he got one. Brick, ceramics and timber are the main building elements of the house, which displays a distinctly Gothic flavour. It came close to demolition in the 1970s but was saved by the town hall and converted into a cultural centre. Opening times can vary depending on temporary exhibitions and other cultural activities.
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