BARCELONA

You may have heard that Barcelona is the latest victim of mass tourism:  twenty million visitors a year, many of them flying in on budget airlines like Ryan Air, Easy Jet, or Vueling and staying in Airbnb apartments that have put pressure on the rental market and changed the character of some neighborhoods.  It’s a familiar story, and in Barcelona’s case, it’s partly a self-inflicted wound.  After the global crisis of 2008, Madrid and Catalonian policy makers encouraged a tourist boom, and Barcelona enthusiastically marketed itself

 “as an especially fun European destination, with good weather, pretty beaches, lively night life, and just enough in the way of museums and architecture to provide diversion without requiring an onerous cultural itinerary.” 

You can read all about the touristification of Barcelona in this fine New Yorker article, quoted above:  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/04/29/the-airbnb-invasion-of-barcelona.  But rather than go into all of that, I’d rather show you why Barcelona is “an especially fun European destination,” and I have the photos to prove it!  This is just a small sample of what you’ll find there.

Indoor food markets like La Boqueria just off La Rambla. 

Barceloneta, the seaside neighborhood with its one-building-deep urban plan and its beach promenade redeveloped for the 1992 Olympics.

 Tapas and paella.

  

Art nouveau architecture.

  

Casa Vincens, Casa Battlo’, and La Pedrera, the best examples of Gaudí’s residential architecture.

  

 

Arenas de Barcelona, a bull fighting ring repurposed as a vertical shopping mall, with an interactive floor display for kids.

  

 

And last but not least, Museu Picasso de Barcelona, whose collection deserves its own post.  (I bought the Picasso tee shirt!)

 

So, don’t let the tourists get you down.  Go be one in Barcelona!

Keep it real!

Marilyn