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Barcelona Holidays
Barcelona an active city and province which offers sun, city, cultur and lots of fun. |
Barcelona an active city and province which offers sun, city, cultur and lots of fun.
Tourist information about Barcelona in Spain. Travel to Barcelona and let Spain-Holiday.com guide and accommodate you |
Spains second city is now the countrys hippest town. Summer gives way to periodic lapses in sanity with week-long festa fun. But year-round the city cooks - its always on the biting edge of fashion, architecture, food, style, music and good times.
The buildings, many of which feature the work of an eccentric genius named Gaudí, will blow you away. The art, with significant collections by Picasso and Miró, will make you clammy all over. The people, with their exuberance, their duende, their persistent egalitarianism and clamour for a separate identity, will fascinate you.
Barcelona is one of the most dynamic and exciting cities on the western Mediterranean seaboard, sedulously promoting itself as a European metropolis, a link between the sub-Pyrenean peninsula and the heartland of Western Europe. It is a city that is inconceivable until you get there, unbelievable while you walk its streets and unforgettable after youve gone.
Events
Barcelona is perhaps less chronically addicted to partying than cities in the south of Spain, but it puts in a fair effort with some wild occasions dotting the calendar year-round. Theres plenty of dancing and a few fancy-dress parades during the 10-day Carnaval in February/March. On April 23, the Dia de Sant Jordi, also the Day of the Book, is a local festival celebrating Catalunyas patron saint. The Berbena de Sant Joan (also known as La Nit del Foc, or Fire Night) kicks off midsummer celebrations on June 23 with drinking, dancing and fireworks. Barcelona brims with music, dance and theatre during Festival del Grec, held from late June to August, and around August 15 the Festa Major de Gràcia sees the streets of Gràcia decorated and full of dancing and music. The last huge hoorah of the summer is the Festes de la Mercè, celebrated around September 24, which includes concerts, dancing, a swimming race across the harbour, and a correfoc (fire race). During the International Jazz Festival from late October through the end of November, the city finally cools with some jazz and blues.
La Rambla
Five separate wide streets strung end to end, La Rambla (also called Las Ramblas) is a tree-lined pedestrian boulevard packed with buskers, living statues, mimes and itinerant salespeople selling everything from lottery tickets to jewellery. The noisy bird market on the second block of La Rambla is worth a stop, as is the nearby Palau de la Virreina, a grand 18th-century rococo mansion, with arts and entertainment information and a ticket office. Next door is La Ramblas most colourful market, the Mercat de la Boqueria. Just south of the Boqueria the Mosaïc de Miró punctuates the pavement, with one tile signed by the artist. The next section of La Rambla boasts the Gran Teatre del Liceu, the famous 19th-century opera house. Below the Plaça Reial, La Rambla becomes decidedly seedy, with strip clubs and peep shows. La Rambla terminates at the lofty Monument a Colom (Columbus Monument) and the harbour. You can ascend the monument by lift. Just west of the monument, on Avinguda de les Drassanes, stand the Reials Drassanes (Royal Shipyards), which house the fascinating Museu Marítim. It has more seafaring paraphernalia than youd care to wag a sextant at - boats, models, maps, paintings, ships figureheads and 16th-century galleys.
Montserrat
Montserrat, 50km (31mi) northwest of Barcelona, has weird rocky crags, ruined hermitage caves, a monastery and hordes of tourists from the Costa Brava. The Monestir de Montserrat was founded in 1025 to commemorate visions of the Virgin Mary. Today it houses a community of about 80 monks, and pilgrims come to venerate La Moreneta (the Black Virgin), a 12th-century Romanesque wooden sculpture of Mary with the baby Jesus; La Moreneta has been Catalunyas official patron since 1881. The most dramatic approach to Montserrat is by cable car, which arrives just below the monastery after a thrilling whoop up the sheer mountainside.
Activities
There are plenty of good beaches are close by if you want to swim, but you may want to go further out to escape the crowds. Bullfighting is not a hot favourite in Catalunya, although you can catch it on some Sunday afternoons in summer. Football is a religion in Barcelona, and the local team, Barça, is one of Europes best. The building of human castels (castells) is taken as seriously as any traditional sport; you are likely to see castellers erecting human towers in town festivals.
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