Barcelona

Strikingly cosmopolitan, Barcelona is one of Spain's most exciting cities. As a major Mediterranean port it has always been open to influences from abroad (even during the stultified years of Franco), and it has long led the whole country in terms of style, art and vitality. Mention Barcelona and Spain's most innovative and original artists immediately spring to mind: Miro, Dali, Picasso.

Barcelona's gothic core is protected by a mesh of bold 19thcentury architecture, studded with flamboyant Art Nouveau masterpieces. The idiosyncratic buildings of Antoni Gaudi scattered around the city are emblematic of the free spirited creativity that has been a hallmark of Barcelona for decades. But it's not just an experimentalism confined to grandiose buildings and art galleries (though no one should miss the best of these); there's an energy too in the city's cafe bars and fashion houses, and a vitality to the streets themselves. The famous Ramblas is the epitome of this, a broad, tree lined boulevard, one of the world's most culturally energized thoroughfares. You can take an interest in style here without ever being afraid of mellowing into cosy predictability. While Barcelona is daringly modem, the city's history as a port gives it an earthy seaboard exoticism.

BarcelonaHotels

Princesa Sofia Gran Hotel - 4 Placa Pius Xii - Barcelona 08028 - Spain Phone: 935 081 000 Fax: 935 081 001
Hotel Arts - 19 Carrer De La Marina - Barcelona 08005 - Spain Phone: 93 221 10 00 Fax: 93 221 10 70
Hotel Rey Juan Carlos I - 661 Avinda Diagonal - Barcelona 08028 - Spain Phone: 933 644 040 Fax: 933 644 264
Melia Barcelona Hotel - 48 Avinguda Sarria - Barcelona 08029 - Spain Phone: 934 106 060 Fax: 933 215 179
Hilton Barcelona Hotel - 589 Avinguda Diagonal - Barcelona 08014 - Spain Phone: 934 957 777 Fax: 934 957 700
Grand Marina Hotel - Moll De Barcelona - Barcelona 08039 - Spain Phone: 93 603 90 00 Fax: 93 603 90 90
Hotel Casa Fuster - 132 Passeig Gracia - Barcelona 08008 - Spain Phone: 932 553 000 Fax: 932 553 002
Hotel Ritz - 668 Gran Via Corts Catalanes - Barcelona 08010 - Spain Phone: 935 101 130 Fax: 933 180 148
Gran Hotel La Florida - 83 Carrerera Vallvidrera Tibidabo - Barcelona 08035 - Spain Phone: 932 593 000 Fax: 932 593 001
Nh Rallye Hotel - 150 Travessera de les Corts - Barcelona 08028 - Spain Phone: 93 3399050
Apartamentos Mur Mar Hotel - Rbla Santa Monica 34 - Barcelona 8002 - Spain

The city offers a legendary nightlife to match all these impulses, with bars and clubs that stay up and kicking all night long.

Along with all this, the city has pretty unpleasant social problems: hard drugs are evident in the streets, accompanied by a full dose of petty (and not so petty) crime, and prostitution is prominent in many of the most touristed areas. If possible, don't carry anything of value (and keep an eye on what you do carry), leave nothing visible in a parked car, and take note of threatening areas highlighted in the guide.

Barcelona Attractions

The Ramblas

The Ramblas is the exotic spine of Barcelona, a broad avenue plunging beneath a tunnel of plane trees through the heart of the city. It's constantly alive, crowded with stalls selling caged birds and lush plants, buskers from the world over, and the constant clamour of people strolling, haggling and sitting in animated discussion at the terrace cafes. Day or night you can expect to find the Ramblas alive with people.

La Boqueria

Take a walk round Barcelona's colourful market to view an astounding array of seafood. Barri Gotic the Gothic Quarter The Barri Gotic (Barrio Gothico in Castilian) is a densely packed area of narrow lanes that readily conjure up the layout of the city in medieval times.

Its most exotic square is the Placa Reial, an elegant arcaded space lined with tall, swaying palm trees. There are plenty of cafe bars with terraces out in the square fairly pleasant by day, though this area is not recommended after dark.

The area around the cathedral harbours a mixture of medieval and stately Renaissance buildings make sure you wander through the Plaqa del Rei and Plaqa de Sant Jaume.

The Cathedral

The Gothic cathedral was largely built between the 13th and 15th centuries, though the west face and spire are 19th century reconstructions of the original. Inside the cathedral is some exceptional Gothic carving and a 16th century white marble choir screen of note.

Visit the chapterhouse museum or simply stroll round the cloisters one of the most refreshing spots in this dusty, noisy city lush with trees and inhabited by a gaggle of large white geese.

Museu d'Historia de la Cuitat: City History Museum

The museum traces the growth of Barcelona from earliest times and includes the excavated Roman and Visigothic foundations of buildings that once stood here. Visit, too, the Chapel of St Agatha here and view the stained glass.

Museu Mares

This museum has a fascinating collection of Spanish medieval polychrome woodcarving. In odd contrast there's a collection of ephemera too.

La Sagrada Familia Cathedral of the Holy Family

The Sagrada Familia (1883 1926) is an amalgam of weird fantasy and Gothic impulses, unquestionably Gaudi's most famous and most bizarre piece of architecture. It has to be seen. Although work commenced in 1883, it's still incomplete, and building is likely to carry on into the next century amid controversy over how Gaudi's original designs should (if at all) be interpreted.

Honeycombed, tapered pinnacles tower like mutant fingers over the unfinished nave, their points topped by ceramic symbols glowing like bubble gum beacons. Flying buttresses strain like the reptilian legs of mythological beasts, and doorways rise and droop with phantasmagorical sculptures. You may not like the building, but you will certainly remember it.

Oddly, the sculptures are fussily realistic due to Gaudi's idiosyncratic methods: he made plaster casts of ordinary living people, plants and animals before undertaking any stone carving, hoisting them up on to the building to see how they would look. Even the weary donkey of the "Flight into Egypt" group over the east doorway is the result of this cast then carve method. 'Mere is a small museum inside the building that records the architect's life and work.

Climb one of the towers (or take the lift) for vertiginous views and, on your way up, ask yourself the question: How could he have made this just that little bit weirder?

Palau Guell: The Guell Palace

The parabolic doorway that leads straight off the street heralds a dense, decorative fantasy in stone, wood, glass and metals. The Guell Palace, built 1885 95, houses a small theatre museum and consequently is one of the most easily accessible of Gaudi's domestic buildings in Barcelona. The interior is heavily decorated very similar to the 19th century Gothic buildings found all over Europe but the style throughout is resoundingly Gaudi with plenty of weighty echoing of organic forms.

From the ground floor a stone spiral stairway, broad enough for horses, leads down to stables below. On the first floor a central sitting room is crowned with the decorative centrepiece of the whole building: a honeycomb tiled dome reaching up through several floors to the roof. The deep blue dome is covered in stars and pierced for natural light to filter through by day and lit by electricity by night. Look out too for the minstrel's gallery here and a tiny chapel hidden behind wood and ivory doors. Up on the roof are crazily patterned ceramic chimney pots.

Casa Mila

(Passeig de Gracia 93 (at its intersection with Calle de Provenza. Metro: Diagonal and Passeig de Gracia Access to the roof. Tuesday Saturday at 10.00, 11.00, 12.00 and 13.00.) The Casa Mila was designed 1906 10 by Gaudi as a series of apartments curving round 90 degrees. The oceanlike movement and fluidity of this massive corner building is matched by the smooth curves of the immediate detail. The facade undulates like stylized ocean waves and the balconies are decorated with curled iron ribbon twists that flow and rustle like lead grey seaweed. The style is very typically Art Nouveau. Inside, the wave theme is continued in gently rolling floor surfaces. Climb on to the roof to inspect the fanciful chimney stacks and air vents, ranged like dumpy gingerbread pieces.

Casa Batllo

A fantasy house for those with a taste for all things sweet and twinkling. It was built in 1875 77, but totally remodelled by Gaudi in 1904 06. Its balconies undulate smoothly in an elegant Art Nouveau style, the facade sparkles with sugary mosaic patterning and the whole building wears a snugly tiled and turret topped roof.

Parc Guell

Take a stroll in the Parc Guell to escape from the noise and heat of the city. The park was designed by Gaudi between 1900 and 1914 and its most famous feature is the ceramic mosaic seating which snakes colourfully around the rim of an open terrace. Walk underneath this promenade to explore yet more innard like arches by this prolific, zany designer.

The park was originally to be the garden of a fashionable suburban housing development; of the sixty houses planned only two were completed, and the whole project was cut short by Gaudi's death in 1926.

Picasso Museum

The Picasso Museum is housed in a charming medieval palace, worth visiting in itself. Picasso lived in Barcelona between the ages of fourteen and twenty three, and the collection includes some of his early paintings, including "Harlequin" and the "Las Meninas" series based on the famous painting by Velazquez. There are also a great many etchings, drawings and engravings.

Maritime Museum

The maritime museum shows the history of sailing through a range of detailed models; the real highlight is the life size replica of the Real, the ship in which Don Juan of Austria sailed to the Battle of Lepanto 1571.

Montjuic

Topped by a fortress, Montjuic offers panoramic views over the city: on a clear day you can even see the Costa Brava. There's a funfair up here, all sorts of gardens from dainty ornamental flowerbeds to spiky cactus plots and you can see the glass dome of the new Olympic stadium. Barcelona's earlier stadium was built in 1929 and used for the anti-Nazi Games of 1936.

Places to Stay

MODERATE Hotel Flor Parks, Ramblas, 57. Tel: 318 13 24. Hotel Lloret, Ramblas, 125. Tel: 317 33 66. Hotel Espaiia, Carrer Sant Pau, 9. Tel: 318 17 58. just off the Ramblas, a tolerably short walk into the otherwise unadvisable area of the Barri Xines

SMARTER OPTIONS Hotel Internacional, Ramblas, 78. Tel: 302 25 66. Hotel Turin H***, Carrer Pintor Fortuny, 9 11. Tel: 302 48 12. just off the Ramblas. Hotel Oriente, Ramblas 45. Tel: 302 25 58. Hotel Montecarlo, Ramblas, 124. Tel: 317 58 00.

Placa de Catalanya

At the top of the Ramblas, this is one of the better areas to stay in but prices are higher, too. Residencia Australia, Ronda Universitat, 11. Tel: 317 41 77. Hostal Alicante, Ronda Universitat, 4. Tel: 318 34 70.