I'm back to this blog!

I hadn't posted in a long time, because I moved this blog to my professional travel blog, but I have finally come up with an idea to keep this one alive but in a more personal way: I want this blog to be the place where I share my everyday experiences being a tour guide in Barcelona. I hope you enjoy it!

So let's start from the beginning. Who am I and why am I a tour guide? 

Here is my personal story:

My name is Marta, and my story of love with Barcelona starts already in high school, when my dear art teacher, Ms Larruy, awoke in me a passion for art, history and architecture.
That was back in the early 90's, but it wouldn't be until 1999 that I got hired in the Sagrada Familia church (Gaudi's masterpiece!) to give their VIP tours, as they needed someone that spoke many languages.

That's how I was trained to give tours, and I soon discovered how much I loved it!
The next year, I passed the official exam to become a private tour guide in Barcelona and the region of Catalonia, and... the adventure had just began!

I was soon called from the concierges of the best hotels in town to show around my clients. Would you believe I didn’t know you could have a tour guide just for yourself? I had always pictured tour guides guiding large groups, but… being with small groups was way more fun!

So little by little, I specialized in private groups mostly American families or couples. Sometimes they came in a cruise and only had a few hours to see the highlights, some other times they were spending a few days in town and we were able to explore the city more in depth.

One summer, my good friend David Madison from California, whom I’d get to see every year at the same dance camp in Sweden, offered me to use his own server to host my website. But what website? I didn’t have any! But he insisted (thanks Dave!), and by the next summer I had already figured out how to create a website and he helped me uploading it to his server. I was starting my own online business, ForeverBarcelona.

Little by little, my website has been growing, I added more tours to my portfolio (not just city tours, but also food tours – yummy!, and day trips out of town), I started a weekly blog and newsletters, and I started using other great tour guides to show around my guests when I’m already booked.
All the guides that I invite to join my team have a similar style to mine they are knowledgeable but fun, flexible and passionate about Barcelona. And they all love sharing the city with our guests. I couldn’t be happier with them all!


Follow me and let's explore Barcelona together!

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Get free insiders tips for your trip to Barcelona, click here!

Important news: this blog has been moved!

Hi!

This summer I've been working hard redoing my website, and I'm thrilled to announce that now my blog will be embedded there instead of in Blogger as it was so far.

That means that I won't be posting here anymore: from now on, you can now follow it here:
http://www.foreverbarcelona.com/blog/

Or click this link to sign up to our newsletters and be told every week when we release a new post!
http://www.foreverbarcelona.com/get-free-tips-for-your-stay/

See you there!
And remember you can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter!







**** Did you enjoy these tips? If you did and you know of other travelers that might be interested, please share this article with them. To know more about my Barcelona tours, visit Foreverbarcelona. Join my newsletters!

New Foreverbarcelona Newsletters!

Hi, it's Marta, from ForeverBarcelona, and today I want to announce that I'm changing my newsletters style and frequency so I can be even more of help and share my knowledge and ideas with you while you are planning your Barcelona trip (or if you are just in love with our city and want to keep learning about it and how to enjoy it even more the next time you come!).

This newsletter will be now getting to your inbox once a week with 5 fresh tips, valuable recommendations or interesting advice. That's why now my newsletters will be called BCN Top-5.

You will also be seeing some design changes in the future, but for now I'll be focusing in what really matters for you: content!

I hope you'll really enjoy them and that I'll help you taking the most out of your Barcelona trip.
Best regards,

Marta
Your Barcelona Private Tourguide

**** Did you enjoy these tips? If you did and you know of other travelers that might be interested, please share this article with them. To know more about my Barcelona tours, visit Foreverbarcelona. Join my newsletters!

New rules for tour buses going to Sagrada Familia

The dedication of the inside of the Sagrada Familia church and the completion of the works in the naves increased the number of paying visitors in 1 million just in 2011. And that's not counting the many tourists that just walk around it taking pictures.

The neighbors complaints have increased, and that has led the City Council to move the tour bus stops a couple of blocks further, in the hope to reduce the number of groups around the church.

Luckily, that's not going to affect most of my tours, as I usually move around with either subway/taxi or in private minivans for upto 6 passengers + guide + driver, and we'll still be able to stop right by the church.

However, bus tours will have to preview now longer times to visit the church as the walking involved from the bus and back will eventually take 20-30 extra minutes (depending on how big the group is and how long do you need to wait by the traffic lights to cross two busy streets).

The City Council has only previewed 2 exceptions: primary and secondary school groups, and groups with people having walking issues (as long as they have required a special authorization to the City Council in advance and that they can prove that they have a reservation to visit the inside of the Church).

While the neighbors seem happy with this solution, tourguides and travel agents aren't satisfied at all because they'll have to invest much more time for the church (time that will have to be taken from other city sites), and foresee the danger of having to cross too many busy streets with large groups to reach the church. Plus it won't even be allowed to drive around the church with the bus, what might imply eliminating the church from some itineraries due to a lack of time...

Personally, I'm not too convinced either and I believe that the neighbors will soon realize that the plan wasn't such a good idea: if before only the sidewalks around the church used to be crowded by tourists, now the problem will be extended to the nearby streets leading to the new bus stops. There the sidewalks aren't that wide, and there won't be enough space for even two groups trying to go through in opposite directions at the same time... And I don't want to even imagine when (illegal) street vendors start occupying the floors with their cheesy souvenirs and counterfeit bags, or when pickpockets start taking advantage of the chaotic crowds... Omg.

Anyway, let's see how everything goes...

**** To know more about my Barcelona tours, visit Foreverbarcelona. Join my newsletters!

New apps on my Facebook Page!

This month I'm trying out a new application in my Facebook page called TourRadar. It adds 3 new tabs that can come very useful for travelers:

1. My Tours. A list of my 10 favorite tours, where you can get details about them, share them in your FB wall, see pricings, save them in a folder and contact me about them!

2. Tour Reviews. Where travelers can share their experiences when they toured with Foreverbarcelona. Right now it's still empty... Would you like to be the first to post?

3. Meet Others. This is a cool tab where you can post when you'll be traveling so you can find other people that will be in Barcelona during the same dates, but it can also be used to find people to share a tour with and reduce the costs.

Check it out... and use it! And let me know how do you like it! The trial time is within 4 weeks and then I'll have  to decide if I want to keep it or not!

**** To know more about my Barcelona tours, visit Foreverbarcelona.
Join my newsletters!

Off-Topic: I got married!

And I wanted to share my happyness with all of you! 

**** To know more about my Barcelona tours, visit Foreverbarcelona.

Secret Pedrera

The Casa Milà, also known as La Pedrera is an impressive appartment building built by Antoni Gaudi in the early 20th century, and its look goes beyond any other modernist work in the Eixample district.

This March 14th have been presented the new nighttime visits that will allow visitors to approach this beautiful space from a new, more intimate point of view. And I was there to offer you a preview!

The visit starts in the patio, where visitors are recieved by their guide and introduced to the history of the building, their owners, Gaudí and the time when they lived. An original slides display accompanies the explanations and introduces the visitors into the private atmosphere of the inhabitants of the house.

The visit continues with stops where we get in touch with these characters, that we can see from behind the windows: the concierge and his wife, Ms. Milà giving orders to her maids while getting ready for a big party, a group of ladies of the high society having a tea... The perfect mise-en-scene to get to know the different layers of the society from hundred years ago.

Next, we are allowed to enter an apartment decorated with period furniture. It is the same one that visitors see during the daytime, however, the dimmed light of the evening makes you feel like the tenants are going to appear around the corner any time.

Only half the apartment is visited though, the visit continues up the service stairs to the attic, where thanks to another audiovisual trick we'll be able to spy a young maid watching the laundry late at night…

After that we are directed to the rooftop where the guide gives the last explanations before leaving the group around the fantastic chimneys and ventilation towers, even more impressive in the dark than they are with daylight. Seeing the Sagrada Familia church illuminated in the distance and framed by an arch of the rooftop is an image that you will never forget!

The visit finishes downstairs in a mezzanine with an incredible organic ceiling, where the guests are offered a glass of cava.

Price: €30/person
Reservation in advance is recommended: reserveslapedrera@oscatalunyacaixa.com

**** To know more about my Barcelona tours, visit Foreverbarcelona.

New rules at the Sagrada Família Church

The incredible increase in the number of visitors at the Sagrada Família Church, Gaudí's masterpiece since Pope Benedict dedicated it in November 7th 2011 (over 1 milion more people in one year!) has forced them to introduce new rules and restrictions for groups and guided tours.

So far, they do not affect small groups of 8 people or less (that means that won't affect most of my guests, and we can still show up anytime during your tour, break the line and get in). However, larger groups absolutely require a reservation and pre-payment of their tickets. Tourguides are given a special sticker to get in (what means that tourguides caught explaining inside without the required sticker will be immediately expulsed from the enclosure). Plus now, groups larger than 30 people will not be allowed to enter the museum area to see the plaster models (they can still see the façades and the interior of the church). They'll control that giving a red sticker - instead of green - for tourguides with over 30 people in their group.

**** To know more about my Barcelona tours, visit Foreverbarcelona.

A cross for Tàpies

Two days ago, on February 6th, Antoni Tàpies passed away.
Born in 1923, he was one of the leaders of the Spanish avant-gardes and perharps our most internationally renowned artist of his generation, with his works displayed in over 100 museums throughout the world.

His style was based in abstraction, but full of symbolism at the same time. Politically committed with the Catalan nationalism, his art reflected both his love for his land as well as his research of spirituality through the simplicity of things. He was innovative in the use of materials, and often ahead of his time in his projects (some of them, such as the Sock, had to wait a couple of decades before people were ready to accept and value it as leading artwork).

Crosses were one of his favorite symbols, probably because their many layers of interpretations. A cross can refer to our Christian heritage, but it can also be used to scratch or to mark something. It can represent death, and it can be a T, the T for Tàpies. His signature.

Now Tàpies has left us. Let's paint a black cross in his honour.

         Photo credit

Other posts on Antoni Tàpies in this blog:
http://foreverbarcelona.blogspot.com/2011/02/saturday-afternoon-at-tapies-foundation.html
http://foreverbarcelona.blogspot.com/2010/03/tapies-foundation-finally-reopened.html


**** To know more about my Barcelona tours, visit Foreverbarcelona.

The Romanesque Section of the MNAC is back!

After being closed for several months for restructuration of the display, the Romanesque Section of the MNAC has been finally reopened to the public.


Nonetheless, this is the most important collection by far there! You won't find such a large selection of Romanesque frescos anywhere else: they were carefully removed from their churches of origin in the Pyrenees before collectors with no qualms bought them for almost nothing to take them into their own countries. Then real size exact copies of the churches structures where built in plaster, to home the frescoes who were reglued there. Simply unique!
Plus that's not all, the Romanesque section also includes altar fronts (religious paintings on wood), crucifixes and cross descent groups (wooden sculptures) as well as silverwork.


The purpuse of the restructuration of the way the collection was displayed was simplyfing the understanding of this art period (the number of pieces of artwork has been reduced to a small number of selected pieces of the highest quality) as well as to create a more intimate athmosphere that remided that of the medieval churches. They were quite limited by the type of art that is displayed (they couldn't move around those huge plaster apses, of course!), but they made a beautiful job playing with the lights and the shadows and distributing some of the pieces in locations where it'd made sense they were if they were inside a real church.

Can't wait to be asked to take someone there on a museum tour!!!

Sagrada Família news

Two news about the Sagrada Família Church this month:

1. After several weeks of being closed for repair works due to the fire caused by a mentally-ill person last April, the Crypt has been finally reopened to the public last Sunday. Great news!

2. The door of the main entrance, that after Pope Benedict dedication of the church had remained outside of the visitors itinerary, has been finally added to it and now visitors are allowed to see it and read on it the words of the Our Father prayer in Catalan and the first sentences of it in upto 50 different languages from all over the world. Quite impressive!

Sagrada Família Church closed Aug 13-15th!

I just got an update on which days the access to the Sagrada Família Church will be limited or closed due to religious celebrations.

Most of them will be only affecting a few Sundays in the year and only in the afternoon after 1pm, but I can confirm now that the Church will be totally closed to visitors on August 13th, 14th and 15th due to a International Youth Eucharistic gathering.

To see the whole schedule, check here (note that even when the services are scheduled for 5pm, the church will be closing at 1pm so they can proceed with all the required logistics).

Should travellers coming to Spain worry about the E.Coli break?

And my answer is there is no need to worry. In Spain everyone feels safe eating as usual. Here is how the situation is going:

Evidences are being found that healthy and safe cucumbers travelled from the South of Spain to Germany. During the trip, and already in German lands, one of the boxes got broken and the vegetables must have touched the ground at some point and got infected. The party should have been destroyed as it's stipulated, but for some reason it wasn't and it got into the market chain, intoxicating people as a result.

So far, all the people intoxicated are German or had been in Germany recently. Only one Spanish man has been affected... and he had been in Germany aswell.

Spanish agricultors are very angry at the German authorities who immediately blamed the Spanish cucumbers without checking first where the infection had started. And everyone in Spain keeps eating as usual, no panic and no fear. Even the European-Level alert set at the beginning of the emergency has already been removed.

However, it's understandable that you don't want to incur in any risk: you are on vacation!
So if you wish to feel totally safe when you are in Spain here are some tips for you:

First of all, avoid to order Gazpacho (a vegetable soup that usually contains cucumber) and any salad with cucumber on it. Not many other Spanish dishes are likely to include cucumber as an ingredient.

Next, cucumber is a vegetable that is only eaten raw, as far as I know. Washing them throughouly should be enough to get rid of any bacteria or virus in its skin. Peeling them is another way to add extra safety. I trust the local restaurants to be strict with these rules. But if you still need more precautions, just stick to cooked vegetables in general: fried, steamed, grilled... Heat also destroys bacteria.

No infection has been found in other vegetables, so eating everything else but cucumber could make you feel more reassured aswell.

These are just a few recomendations that make sense to me, and that you might want to follow if the cucumber news are making you nervous. After all, vacations are about relaxing, right?
But I can tell you that I totally trust the local produce and the cleanliness of our restaurants and cafés. I'm not changing at all my eating habits because of the E. Coli news. And that's how everyone is feeling around here aswell.

I hope to have been of help!

Two great sites are back!!!!

What an exciting month has been March!
Two really good sites have just been reopened to the public after years of being closed for refurbishment works. I'd missed them so much!
So taking advantage of a last-minute cancellation, I spend a whole morning exploring them in depth. What a privilege!



First of all, a must-see Gaudí site: The Palau Güell, a private mansion built for his best friend and benefactor Eusebi Güell that is considered a precursor of the masterpieces he'd be building later on.

The visit includes the entrance hall, the basement where the stables were located, the main staircase, the main floor with all the social areas (dinning room, lost-steps room, reception rooms... as well as the impressive central room with its magnificent hyperbolic dome) as well as the back patio, then it continues with the upper floor where the private dormitories where located, and it finishes with the attic (now used for an exhibit on the building restoration process) and the fairy-tailish rooftop where Gaudí was already starting to play with the smokepipe shapes.

Unfortunately, the structure of the building is very delicated and the access is limited to only 185 people at a time and tourguides will not be allowed to skip the entrance lines with small groups (as we are used to have the privilege to do in most other sites). But if you are interested in visiting it with me, we can always meet directly there and I'll be there a bit early to make sure to get the tickets for the right time!



The other wonderful museum that just reopened is the Museu Marès. Frederic Marès was one of the most important Catalan sculptors of the early 19hundreds, and he was also an avid collector. This museum displays his collections: a huge sculpture collection not of his works but mostly of religious christian sculptures from the middle ages upto Marès times, as well as his "collector's cabinet" showing daily life objects from the 17 to the early 19hundreds including all kind of fans, women jewelry, smoking pipes, ceramic, weapons, clocks, toys, toilettery...

While I must say visiting the whole museum listening to the audioguide point by point was quite exhausting (it took me 3h!!), I'd probably recomend only people who are very interested in medieval art visit the street level where the sculpture collection is, and the rest go straight to the upper floors to enjoy the Collector's Cabinet. It can be fun even for kids! Just do it lightly, because it can again be overwhelming at some point!
Anyway, I'm planning to take my grandparents there next week as I'm (so far!) still available on Tuesday. I'm sure they'll love to see all this old stuff

Yesterday's fire at the Sagrada Família has not affected much the visitors area

Yesterday morning a man sneaked into the sacristy of the crypt of the Sagrada Família church (the little room where the priests keep their robes and other religious materials), tryied to steel some objects and set the robes in fire. The perpetrator was caught when he was still inside, and the firemen managed to stop the fire from spreading into the rest of the crypt although the sacristy was totally burnt up.

It looks like no Gaudí's original designs have been damaged by the fire, although the effect of the fire and the smoke has still to be evaluated.
Because of this emergency, over 1500 visitors were evacuated last morning (I had a day-off yesterday, so my tours weren't affected), but in the late afternoon the church was reopened to the public.

This morning I was there with the Wrubel, a lovely family from Connecticut, and we were allowed to tour as usual. Only the apse alley that goes around the altar was closed, as there are windows overlooking the crypt there (I could see them all black from the smoke). Also a smoked scent could be flared in the main nave. As for the museum, where one of the rooms also has a few windows giving to the crypt, the visit was also as usual, except for the end of the mentioned room, where a safety cordon prevented visitors from approaching the blackened windows. The rest of the room, where recently have been moved mr. Berenguer's beautiful drawings of the church finished project, was perfectly accessible.

I hope the crypt won't have been too affected by the smoke: it is the place where Sunday masses and other normal services are hold (only special events are being celebrated in the main nave so far), and it had just been restored a couple of years ago.

"Saints and Sins" is born!

Well, as I promised, "Saints and Sins" has become a real tour now!
(if you don't know what I'm talking about, check this post)

I felt creative this afternoon, and as a result "Saints and Sins" is born!
As I trial for the moment, I created the tour in one of the tourguide websites where I advertize, and we'll see how it works! If it was successful, I might be adding it to my own Tapas Tours in my website.

You can of course book it there, or you can contact me directly if you don't wish to open an account there.

Innaguration days!

As locals say... when the local elections approach, plenty of things are innaugurated. And that's what's happened last week, when two main brand new sites have just been open.

The first one I want to talk about is Las Arenas shopping mall, former bullfight ring that after 3 decades of beeing closed is finally starting a new life and it's called to become a very popular shopping and food hub that will definitely be appreciated by the visitors of the Montjuïc Hill aswell as the participants to the many trade fairs organized in Fira Barcelona. There will also be a wonderful gim with a spa (to be open in May) and also the Museum of Rock, that will definitely become a must for teens and modern music lovers.
By the way, contemporary architecture lovers will be pleased to know the building was refurbished following a project by Richard Rogers. Do you want to learn more? Take one of my contemporary architecture tours!


The other big site is the brand new Museum of Sciences (also called Blue Museum, because it's hosted inside the triangular blue building at the Forum by Herzog & De Meuron - again, good news for contemporary architecture lovers!). This new museum is the result of the renovation of the former Museum of Zoology and Museum of Geology that used to occupied buildings from the 1888 World Fair in the Ciutadella Park. Now their collections and presentations have been modernised and they are going to become a new pilgrimage point for any visitor interested in sciences aswell as for many families with kids.

I'm planning to visit both of them as soon as possible, so stay tunned for more posts on them!

And still another blog where I've collaborated

As I've mentioned in previous articles, I advertize in several online guide listings such as Toursbylocals.com.
Now they have just launched a blog, and I have been selected to be their first guide to collaborate with a post with my suggestions on the 5 top things to do in Barcelona.

I've been interviewed!

I'm thrilled to announce that I've started collaborating with PromptGuides.com and soon you'll be able to read my blog posts on Barcelona food, sites and more. And just to start with, they've interviewed me to introduce me to their readers!
You can read the interview here.

Barcelona Opportunity Week!

If you are coming to Barcelona from Jan 28th to Feb 6th... you are lucky!
It's the Barcelona Opportunity Week, and you can benefit from many offers and discounts in hotels, restaurants, museums, theaters and more. Don't miss the Oportunity!