Barcelona: unstoppable and essential
1. Climb to the anti-aircraft batteries of the Turo de la Rovira , the penultimate point outside the usual circuits to be conquered by tourists.
two. delight in the views , moving to the civil war, mentally seeing fascist planes over the city and thinking about how useless those cannons were because their range was not enough and many times they ended up bombing the buildings they had to defend.
3. Jump ahead a couple of decades in that same place and move to the barracks that began in the years 50 contemplating the well visible remains of the houses that were built sheltered from the remains of the batteries.
Four. Fight the cold of a winter afternoon drinking defeta chocolate in Petritxol street , for example in the Pallaresa.
5. Beat the heat of a summer afternoon having a homemade horchata Sirvent Horchateria.
6. Remember Carpanta contemplating the rotating chickens of the historic restaurant Los Caracoles de Escudellers.
7. Strolling through an empty L'Eixample on Sundays and feel like in a post-apocalyptic scenario.
8. Verify that real estate speculation is nothing new by counting the “Porcioles hats” (additions of floors raised from the 60s on the roofs of previous constructions) that crown many buildings in the Eixample.
9. Go to a party in some semi-abandoned warehouse in the Poble Nou Y think for a moment that you are in Berlin.
10. Verify that Tomás's patatas bravas well deserve their fame.
Height symmetry in the Eixample.
eleven. Think “What irony!” "What a bitter trick of history!" in front of video surveillance cameras George Orwell's square , the first installed in the city.
12.Make yourself “the other Gaudís”: the exterior of the Casa Vicens on Carolines street and the Teresianas school.
13. Singing “on a station platform, under the scorching sun” on the curved benches of Park Güell.
14. May it give you a shock of architectural-naturalistic beauty inside the Sagrada Familia with its columns-trees and his use of light.
fifteen. Go up to the castle of Montjuïc.
16. Go down the magic mountain making stops at the Miró Foundation, the Mossèn Verdaguer gardens, the Teatre Grec or the MNAC.
17. Evoke the painting "the anatomy lesson" in the amphitheater of the Royal Academy of Medicine, where cadaver dissection (like today) was the order of the day.
18. Count the tomatoes urban gardens located in the most unexpected places.
19 . Going to have vermouth on Sunday morning at a bodega that hasn't been redecorated for forty years (warning: with the magic of the Internet, by the time you're reading this, drinking the vermouth has been outdated and what it takes is again to drink absinthe or get up early to play petanque) .
twenty. Get into the romantic spirit and a little crazy of a pro creative bourgeois in the Jardín de la Tamarita.
The braves of Thomas
twenty-one. Imitate David Bustamante in the video clip he recorded in the Horta labyrinth park.
22. If you hate him, imitate Ben Wishaw in Perfume .
23. At Christmas, visit a Santa Llúcia flea market (that of the Cathedral or that of the Sagrada Familia) and yield to the eschatological traditions buying an uncle or a caganer.
24. Attend a concert at the Palau de la Música. The programming is so varied that it is impossible not to find something to your liking.
25. evoke the corruption case uncovered a few years ago in his bosom while he is accommodated in his seats.
26. Reward establishments the Ramblas that have not yet been converted into souvenir shops or tourist traps: take a coffee at the Ópera or eat at the Centro Gallego.
27. Feeling old school tourist and démodé in the Poble Espanyol or Tibidabo Amusement Park . Here the automatons and the plane are essential.
28. Become a cabaret artist and attend a revue show at the Molino.
29. Give in to the temptation of sweets a few times: pastry shops lurk at all times and Escribà , Foix de Sarrià , Hofmann , Bubó , Canal , Turris or La Farga know how to win you over forever.
30. soak up the Picasso's first work and incidentally be surprised by the breadth and solidity of the medieval palaces in the Picasso Museum.
Stand in awe inside the Sagrada Familia
31. Reserve a table well in advance to enjoy the unique gastronomic experiences of Tickets, your favorite son the 41st or Dos Cielos.
32. Experiencing the narrowness of living in a ghetto by going through the streets of the call in the heart of the gothic.
33. It recalls the pogrom that in 1391 it wiped out its Jewish population through forced conversions and massacres.
3. 4. Reclaim the most underground city, the most unclassifiable, the least domesticable, less post't pretty, more "Toni Rovira and you" in the corner of the artist, in O'Barquiño or sneaking into the Kentucky at odd hours.
35. Take a standing Cazalla in the Cazalla of Arc del Teatre . Survive.
36. To think how modern and timeless the work of mies van der rohe in the German pavilion at the 1929 World's Fair.
37. Make a literary route to suit you: for example, tour the entire city with The city of wonders by Eduardo Mendoza.
38. Or the Borne with the cathedral of the sea by Idelfons Falcones.
39. Or Aribau street with Any.
40. Or Bellvitge with the south seas by Vazquez Montalban.
41. Or the Carmel with Last evenings with Teresa by Juan Marse.
42. Or (the exterior) of the Modelo prison with Leak in the Model of Makoki.
Give yourself a tribute in one of the county restaurants
43. Bounce like crazy surrounded by foreigners dressed wonderfully well and wonderfully badly at Primavera Sound and Sonar.
44 . Remember the days of boaters and bustles going up to the Blau Tramway , the tram of the gentlemen of the high area of yesteryear (like the ferrocats of that time) .
Four. Five. Verify that the Chinatown of Joan Colom, Makinavaja or Jean Genet It still exists on Robadors street and the surrounding area.
46. Immerse yourself in the bowels of the Montjuïc mountain by visiting the ** Poble Sec Civil War bomb shelter**.
47. Overwhelm you with the reproduction of the sound of alarms and shelling.
48. Avoid skaters in the Plaza del Macba.
49. Get a skateboard and join them.
fifty. Avoid tourists on the Rambla.
El Once Scoundrel: Spring Barcelona (Sound)
51. Take out your economy class pride and sit on a terrace with a pitcher of sangria or take some photos of the living statues in the lower part of the Rambla, at the foot of Colón.
52. Visit the reconstruction of the pavilion of the Second Republic for the 1937 Paris exhibition and imagine the shock of seeing Guernica there for the first time.
53. Stare like a child at the egg balanced in the stream of a fountain that is l'ou com balla.
54. See the sea – so close, so far – reflected in the inverted mirrors in the courtyard of the CCCB.
55. Cross the Rambla del Raval thinking that it is the best possible metaphor of Barcelona : urban projects full of controversy, pockets of misery coexisting with wonderful restaurants, luxury hotels, seedy places, tons of history, official buildings as a shock and a life of its own that neither the city council nor any institution is capable of controlling.
56. Marvel at one of the best-preserved Roman cities in Europe at the Ciutat History Museum in Plaça del Rei.
57. Roll (by bike or on skates) on the most maritime side of Barcelona along the coast from the Hotel W to the Marbella beach.
58. Think about how recent those walks are and imagine the Somorrostro area when it was full of shacks , the disappeared beach bars (still present in a photo in the Electricidad bar) or the orography of the coast when some beaches were only a pre-Olympic dream.
59. Tour the arcades of the Plaza Real with any of the following activities: evoking the memory of the taxidermist's shop, queuing for the Sidecar, on the Ocaña terrace or going up to the Pipas Club.
60. Visit the modernist pavilions of the Hospital of Sant Pau trying not to be for some serious medical reason.
Ocaña, a terrace to live at street level
61. Walk Via Laietana counting benches without forgetting that the great interventions in the urban space are already a classic thing.
62. Attend a theatrical performance . From the first-class theaters in the center or on Carrer Lleida to the most humble underground venues, Barcelona has proposals for all tastes on stage.
63. Cross paths with the Mossos and the police in the Sant Jaume Square , in the balance of forces between the Generalitat and the City Council.
64. Visit them inside and remember when the Republic in 1931.
65. locate the stone face of Carrer Carabassa and wonder if they really corresponded to brothel signs.
66. Browse, buy and eat in a market . You don't have to stay in the Boquería: Santa Caterina, Sant Antoni under construction, the Ninot or the Abacería Central wink at the lover of large accumulations of food.
67. Marvel at the Roman columns of the Temple of Augustus, hidden in the Excursionist Center on Carrer Paradís.
68. Still find many yokes and arrows (not those of the Catholic Monarchs, the Francoists) in residential buildings.
69. Choose your favorite street decoration in the festivities of Gracia . Recycling, imagination and kitsch taking to the streets in the long-awaited celebration of urban August.
70. Find traces of the industrial past of the city in Industrial Spain, Poble Nou , The Ricardo Bofill factory, the Caixa Forum or in the Three Chimneys of Paralel.
Spring, the beach alters
71. Locate the lathe House of Mercy in which unwanted babies were abandoned in Plaça de Vicenç Martorell.
72. organize a jipioso picnic in the Citadel among survivors of the city's first major global event: the universal exhibition of 1898.
73. Enter the neo-gothic building of the University (in the square of the same name) and marvel at its gardens.
74. Pay tribute to the modernists by taking the menu of the day from the very Rusiñola Els Quatre Gats.
75. Pay tribute to the gauche divine by taking an omelette or a hamburger wrapped in the most-pop-impossible decoration of the walls of the Flash Flash .
76. Bathe in the Mediterranean. If only to complain about how dirty the water is and how crowded the sand is **(not that crowded)**.
77. Buy a beer from a latero in Ciutat Vella and to take it out, very fresh and appetizing, from a sewer.
78. Visit the Montjuïc cemetery , where the dead enjoy enviable views.
79. Shopping like there's no tomorrow, pockets buoyant by Passeig de Gracia , the vintage by River Baixa and the mainstream by Portal del Àngel.
The inner white of Flash Flash.
80. Discover the penultimate trendy neighborhood: Sant Antoni in general and everything that orbits Parlament Street in particular.
81. Paste the forehead to the portals of the Eixample that are closed looking for modernist curves and flowers inside.
82. Stand in awe of shrapnel wounded walls of the bombings of the Civil War (yes, again) of the Plaza de Saint Philip Neri.
83. Visit Plaça de Glòries before the works that definitively transform it (or not).
84. One of the icons of the contemporary skyline, the agbar tower , it will remain as is.
85. Gaze at the flame Les Moreres Fossar , in honor of the fallen of another September 11 (that of 1714) for History.
86. Know the three historical Quimets : have an appetizer at Quimet i Quimet in Poble Sec, the same in Gràcia and go crazy over the sandwiches at Quimet in Horta.
87. Have a cacaolat in the place where it was invented: the Viader farm.
88. Enjoy the endless views of the city in a city brimming with good views. From the Tibidabo, from Montjuïc, or from one of the coolest and most elegant hotel terraces (the W, the Arts, the Mandarin, the DO, the 1898, the Meliá Sky, the Barceló Raval, the Clarís, the Grand Hotel Central, the Majestic...) .
89. Visit the possible historical Barcelonas that power will never claim in a tourist brochure: the Jamància that attacked the hated Ciutadella , the original workers revolts in the street workshops , the anarchism of the Liceu bomb , the tragic week of 1909 who burned convents and erected barricades throughout the city, the scenes of the squatting movement that survive throughout the city...
90. Losing hours in the bookstore in a desecrated convent in La Central del Raval.
A Barcelona-style 'gherkin' to say goodbye to the year.
91. hang out with someone in Zurich from Plaza Catalunya , a tradition at the level of drinking from the Canaletas fountain.
92. Go through all the squares of the Gràcia neighborhood until you find your favorite. From the Virreina to the Raspall, there is an exciting world of possibilities.
93. Join one of the groups that dance sardana on weekends in the Plaza de la Catedral or Sant Jaume. Or look at them from a safe distance.
94. Sing, depending on the circumstances, 'Barcelona', 'The lonely Cadillac', 'Barcelona i jo', 'Friends forever', 'La Rumba de Barcelona', 'La Font del gat' or 'Senegal grabs me'.
95. Soak up the atmosphere before a football match in the outskirts of the Camp Nou , losing count of Messi's shirts. Be careful, depending on the time things can get a little Everything about my mother.
96. Go to the Sant Antoni market on a Sunday morning to exchange cards or browse through old books and magazines.
97. Make your own list of favorite restaurants visiting some of the ones we have already talked about here. Have your eyes wide open; the culinary scene, on several levels, is a bit dizzying. If you don't even want to try to be trendy, visit Can Culleretes and 7 portes, the oldest restaurants in the city that are as healthy as any of the newcomers.
98. Follow the layout of the walls around the cathedral or in the lower part of Paralel.
99. Think about the brutal expansion that the city lived when he decided to overthrow them.
100. Say “Barcelona is a very cosmopolitan city” in the middle of a concert full of Hindus or Pakistanis at the Raval festivities.
101. Being dazzled by the beauty in some random spots: the Jardinets de Gràcia, Plaça de Espanya at dusk with the lights of the Mnac coming on, the promenade in winter with few people, the intersection of Paseo de Sant Joan and Diagonal, arriving at Allada Vermell, lower Enric Granados, the city seen from the sky when the planes make that curve to land. run out of breath
102. Choose your favorite mansion (occupied by a clinic, a consulate or a school) on Avenida del Tibidabo.
103. Evoke the times (far far away) in which the Raval was a wasteland area , orchards and lots outside the walls in the church of Sant Pau del Camp.
104. Make neighborhood life: from the center to the outskirts, from Hostafrancs to Sant Martí, from Barceloneta to Horta, sit on a terrace and contemplate life at its boiling point, where the concept "unadulterated" is banished because everything is a wonderful constant change that indicates that the city is alive. Despite the bad, despite everyone, despite itself, Barcelona.
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La Rambla (Barcelona)