“MUST SEE AND DO” IN BARCELONA

Places to Visit.

Planning a trip to a city as Barcelona is hard because there are a lot of places to see and
usually few time.
Barcelona is worldwide known because the modernism architecture. There are few places in
earth with those very unique buildings. Gaudi buildings and parks are mandatory:
- Sagrada Familia (I think you can get the tickets online in
http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/sf-eng/docs_serveis/infoTarifesOnline.php?lang=0 )
- Parque Guell.
- “The houses”. La Pedrera and Casa Batllo. They are very close one from the other. The entry
is expensive but it’s worth even just to see them from outside.
- Hospital San Pau. It’s not far from the Sagrada Familia. It’s not a Gaudi’s building, it’s from
Lluís Domènech i Montaner.

Gothic Art.
The Gothic neighborhood is great just to get lost among the impossible streets. Around there,
it’s nice to see:
- The main cathedral,
-The cathedral of Santa Maria del Mar (this one, close to “The Born” area)
- Plaza de San Jaume (where the city hall is)
- Plaza Real
- Las Ramblas
- Mercado de la Boqueria. Old Market where you can find everything!
All this part is easy to just walk around from your hotel. Be careful because it’s the main area for
“lose your wallet”. There are a lot of pickpockets around.

Others.
- Monjuic area: Around here you can see a “plaza de toros” that is now a mall, It’s called Las
Arenas. Then, you can walk to Plaza Espanya, and go up to Monjuic Mountain. In there, there
are a magic fountain with color and music shows every night. You can see schedules in here:
http://w110.bcn.cat/portal/site/FontMagica/menuitem.52f5ed459b5a6d6e447a5702917409a0/?
vgnextoid=af9d48a4fb6ee310VgnVCM1000001947900aRCRD&vgn=&lang=en_GB
Around Monjuic you can see the Olimpic park from the Olimpic games in 1992 and an old
Castle that used to be a prison in early 20th century
Very close there is something called “El pueblo espanyol”. It’s like walking for different regions
of Spain all together.

Not too far from Plaza Espanya is the Now Camp, The stadium for FC Barcelona. It’s possible
to visit it too.
Finally, I would go to Tibidabo. It’s a mountain a little far away from Barcelona where you can
see the whole city behind you. I think there is public transportation to there.

Places to Eat& enjoy Barcelona:

Barcelona is not the best place for tapas in Spain. It’s actually now too much into tourism that is
losing his essence a little bit. It’s important to avoid typical touristic places, especially for food
because they take advantage of tourists to overprice bad food. Still there are still some spots
that you guys need to try….

La Barceloneta. It’s an old neighborhood that used to be the place where fisher lived. Now it’s a
great place for get a paella and nice seafood. There are a lot of places to eat in here but most of
them are not that good and expensive. I would recommend one called “Salamanca”. It’s right by
the see so you can eat seeing the beach. Waiters are crazy, nothing close to the usual
American kindness of the service. But this is the Spanish essence. In there any paella, black
rice (it’s like paella but they die the rice with the calamari ink) or fidegua (paella that is made
with very short spaghetti) is great. Any place in the Barceloneta plaza is kind of good too but
avoid the ones in the Paseo Juan de Borbon (those are the pure touristic ones)

Calalonian food. There is an inexpensive place called “tasca i vins” that food is good and there
are typical things from Calalonia as the butifarra (sausage), Escalivada (salad), calçots (a type
of roasted onions with a great sauce called romesco). There are several around Barcelona so
you can choose the most convenient depending of other activities.
http://www.tascaivins.cat/?page_id=33

Basque country tapas. A nice way to see our way to eat tapas is with the restaurants from
Basque country that are in the city. There are many. You’ll recognice them because you can
see a lot of little bites over the bar. You eat standing up. You can order the drink and they give
you a plate to serve yourselve. You just need to keep the sticks and at the end they will ask you
how many you got. There are few close The Cathedral of Santa Maria del Mar. This is one of
them http://www.euskaletxeataberna.com/eng/comer-en-euskaletxea/barra-de-pintxos
Irati (the one that your coworker recommended you is very similar… any of them are good)
http://www.iratitavernabasca.com/?l=en_en

And close by there is another very ancient tapas place that still have some tradition. It’s called
La champanyeria. In there you can get a nice catalan cava.
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187497-d2304418-Reviews-La_Champaneria-
Barcelona_Catalonia.html

Other nice place is La Fabrica Moritz. It’s an old beer industry that is now a fancy restaurant.
You can see where they made the beer and try the beer with German style food.
http://moritz.com/en/more_18?url_from=en

Gracia Neighborhood. It’s nice to just walk around at night and see the environment. A lot of mix
of culture. There are not many typical Spanish restaurants in this area, but any Japanese or
Arabian food around here is kind of good.
El raval. It’s the area where you guys are staying. It used to be dangerous but now it’s getting
the best place of the city to go out. There are a lot of nice restaurants around but I will
recommend “El lobo”. Nice tapas. Avoid any restaurant in Las ramblas. They are very touristic,
quality is not always good. Just walking into el raval or el Gothic you can find much better
places.

Mirablau. This restaurant is in the Tibidabo mountain. It’s hard to get in there at night but the
food is not bad, not expensive and you have dinner with the whole city on your feet.
http://www.mirablaubcn.com/es/index.php

Bacoa. If you miss the burgers this place is amazing. They have a bit more Spanish style
burgers and they are spread out for all the city. http://www.bacoa.es/en/

La Paradeta. This place is for seafood. It’s right like a market that you buy raw fish and then
they cook it for you. It’s also spread out around the city. http://www.laparadeta.com/#