FOREVERBARCELONA - A Barcelona Tourguide. Learn about my Barcelona tours and daytrips. Private customized experiences for independent travellers that want to feel like a local!
My last discovery: the Amorino gelati! They serve them in a flower shape!
You can find this artisan natural ice cream in 53, Gran de Gràcia street. A great idea after visiting the Pedrera or after a nice stroll around the squares of the Gracia quarter.
Are you coming to Barcelona in August! You are lucky! You'll hit one of the most special festivals in town: the Festa Major de Gràcia!
This year it takes place between Aug 15th to 21st, and during this days many streets in the Gracia district will be decorated by their neighbours and there will be lots of daytime activities as well as night ballroom, dancing and concerts in the evenings. It is really worth having a walk to discover what great artists those people are!
A best-seller in Spain, "The Cathedral of the Sea" by author Ildefonso Falcones is already available in English.
If you are coming to Barcelona and love historic literature, don't miss this book! Often compared to the style of Noah Gordon and inspired in Ken Follet's "The Pillars of Earth", it tells the story of a kid born as a serf that reaches the medieval Barcelona with his father scaping from their blood-thirsty lord, and progresses in the social scale to become a respectable and wealthy citizen. And his life is always somehow related to the magnificent Santa Maria del Mar church (Our Lady of the Sea).
Reading this book you'll learn a lot about the daily life in the middle ages in Barcelona and the Mediterranean area, and the city Old Town will become an even more exciting place to discover when you come visiting, because you'll be seing in person the places you'd have read about.
Last Sunday one of our most popular local newspapers, El Periódico de Catalunya, published a letter I sent defending Gaudí and the continuation of the construction works of the Sagrada Familia.
Do you know in Zaragoza they are celebrating their World Fair? Their main theme is Water and about 50 countries are participating. http://www.expozaragoza2008.es/Home/seccion=3&idioma=en_GB.do
Now you can visit it in one day trip from Barcelona taking the AVE train that gets there in only one hour and a half!
One of the most famous Catalan traditions are the Castellers, Human Towers. You might have read about them in your guidebooks, but sometimes it is hard to find their performances unless you hit a major local festivity...
However, summertime is Castellers season, and if you are ready to drive out of town you might have the chance to see it (most of the times, they take place during the weekends).
If you have a facebook account, I reccomend you join this group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5362054345 where you'll get an English calendar of performances and more info about this exciting tradition. Otherwise, there is this online agenda , but it is written in Catalan (although it's easy enough to understand the dates, times and name of the town): http://www.webcasteller.com/ca/agenda.php
After a few months of works, the new decoration of the Liceu subway station from line 3 is finally ready! It is a really beautiful display: it represents the leaves of the platan trees of la Rambla!
You'll be using this subway station to get to the Liceu Opera House, the Boqueria Market, the center of la Rambla, the church of Santa Maria del Pi or the Palau Güell by Gaudí, for instance!
