Barcelona

Barcelona => is the capital of the Region of Catalonia in Spain, Europe. It is also a magical city of fanciful buildings, neverending nightlife and home to tasty tapas.

Districts

Barcelona has many quarters, but the most important and interesting for the visitors are:

Understand

When to come

Language

Barcelona's official languages are Catalan and Spanish. Most signs are indicated both in Catalan and in Spanish. Every inhabitant speaks Spanish though, some speak English or French, but as in most european countries any attempt by visitors to use the native dialect is always locally appreciated.

Get Around

Do

See

Museums

Eat

Barcelona has some of the best restaurants and cafes in Europe. For starters, you might try any of the large cafes that line the Passeig de Gracia and the Rambla de Catalunya, just north of the Plaça de Catalunya: nearly all offer a variety of excellent tapas (appetizers), although a bit expensive. A good idea is to avoid restaurants with people outside encouraging you to come in - if they were good enough they probably wouldn't need to do that.

You can get food from any part of the world in Barcelona, but make sure you try some specifically Catalan food. The great Catalan staple is pa amb tomàquet: toasted bread smeared with tomato (and sometimes with garlic too) and the seasoned with olive oil.

The selection of seafood is consistently great, although not a lot of it is local (this part of the Mediterranean is pretty well fished-out).

The most popular quarter for the Barcelona's citizens is Barceloneta, where you can try fish based dishes, such as Paella (a name that may hide many different kinds of rice concoctions) or Arròs negre (Black Rice), that takes its colour because is made using squid ink. It's a very good place to eat tapas as well.

Comer y no Bombas (location variable) shares free vegan food.

If you are looking for a cheap lunch:

Drink

Buy

Sleep

Barcelona offers a great arrangement of accommodations, from cheap, decent "hostel" rooms with the bathroom down the hall to five-star hotels. Here are some that are notable in their price range:

Hotel, Hostal, or Pension?

There are three different names given to hotel-like accommodation in Barcelona they are Hotel, Hostal and Pension. It is important not to confuse a Hostal with a Hostel. A hostel offers backpacker-type accommodation with shared rooms. However a hostal is very similar to guest house and is generally cheaper than a hotel.

Holiday Apartments

As the price of hotels rise in Barcelona a lot of people are turning to the alternative of tourist holiday apartments. Holiday apartments are a refreshing change to the hotel scene. For one thing they are 25 - 30 % cheaper. But the real reason is the convenience and privacy. All tourist apartments have a kitchen and refrigerator which means breakfast, snacks and meals and diners with great wine can be organized at the fraction of the cost of a restaurant. Apartments are generally more comfortable and larger than hotels too. Hotels, sensing a threat to their business, have complained and City Hall has duly complied with new regulation, so you may find that the apartments that were formerly rented are now closed. Before to book an apartment please verify that it is though a registered company (check the "about us" or "contact" page of the rental site).

Hostels

Be aware . We went to check out this hostel and local authorities consider it illegal so careful.

Contact

Barcelona is a friendly city, there are few violent crimes. However, many tourists and experienced travellers get pickpocketed in Barcelona. Crowded places and metro/busses and areas such as Raval and the famous "La Rambla" are still the most likely places to get pickpocketed, but if you are just arriving be aware of pickpockets at Estació Nord. Take particularly care of your backpack and handbags. Also be very careful at internet cafes and whenever you see roving groups of Gypsy children. This high rate of pickpocketing and bag snatching is in large part due to the fact that there is absolutely no punishment for non-violent petty theft, no matter how many times a person is caught stealing.

Other places in the city are less secure than the average: Plaça Real and Barrio Xino (the triangle from Colom Monoument to Calle Nou de la Rambla) above the others. Strictly avoid these places at night. Lone women should exercise caution in exploring the more isolated parts of Montjuic. The metro can present a theft hazard at night so be cautious of travelling alone after 2300. The city beaches, particularly the ones adjoining Barceloneta, have proven to be quite lucrative for bag-snatchers. Anything that one would rather not chance losing is best left in ones hostel or hotel.

There have also been incidents of bag snatching while stopped at the traffic lights whereby the thieves open the car doors and take what they can. Please make sure that you always have your car doors locked during both the night and the day.

Get out

Day trips from Barcelona include:

This text of this article is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 1.0. It has been slightly modified to fit the general design of this website. The authors of this document are Aidan Boreham, Anonymous user(s) of Wikitravel, Cheryl Schwitzgebel, Cristian Diez, Evan Prodromou, Iain Georgeson, Mark Pratt, Paul N. Richter, Peter Hayes, Wikitravel user Djm1281, Wikitravel user Laiotis, Wikitravel user Mr Bartels, Wikitravel user Seans23, Wikitravel user Vikingstad, eolic, j barberena i francesca and the following WikiTravel users: Cjensen, Dhalbrook, Dhum_Dhum, Dimitris, Finlay_McWalter, Guaka, Hkpatv, Huttite, Hypatia, Infrogmation, InterLangBot, Jmabel, Jonboy, Jpatokal, Maj, Nils, Nzpcmad, Pashley, Pstng, Tsandell. The original version of this article can be seen at http://wikitravel.org/en/Barcelona.