Barcelona

The best (and best-trodden) introduction to the city is a stroll along La Rambla in the Barri Gòtic. This mile-long boulevard buzzes with street performers, flower sellers, and pickpockets, and is lined with cafés. Towards the top end is the unmissable Boqueria, one of the biggest food markets in Europe, which is at its best first thing in the morning. The area to the east, with the Gothic cathedral, is a maze of evocative alleys opening on to quiet, leafy squares. To the other side of La Rambla is the Raval, formerly the hangout of sailors and prostitutes, and still with a hard edge, but worth a visit as the last bastion of ungentrified old Barcelona. It also boasts some of the city’s best bars and restaurants and great museums including MACBA (Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Plaça de los Àngels 1, +34 93 412 08 10, www.macba.es, closed Tue), a gleaming white edifice housing modern art.

To the other side of the Old City is the wildly fashionable Born area, where designer shops, lounge bars and intimidating hairdressers are multiplying by the week. For more serious pursuits, there is the Museu Picasso (C/Montcada 15-23, +34 93 319 63 10, www.museupicasso.bcn.es, closed Mon) and the magnificent 14th-century basilica, Santa Maria del Mar. Just off the Via Laietana, visit the Palau de la Música Catalana (C/Sant Francesc de Paula 2, +34 93 295 72 00, www.palaumusica.org), a striking example of Modernisme (Catalan art nouveau).

The cradle of Modernism is the Passeig de Gràcia, a wide boulevard that leads from the Plaça Catalunya, through the centre of the Eixample district. Antoni Gaudí’s curving apartment block, La Pedrera (+34 93 484 59 00, www.fundaciocaixacatalunya.org), with its warrior-like chimneys, is at No.92, and across the road at Nos.35-45 is ‘La Manzana de la Discordia’, where buildings by the three greatest figures of Modernism – Gaudí, Domènech and Puig i Cadafalch – stand almost side by side in wildly clashing styles. To the north is Gaudí’s unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Família (C/Mallorca 401, +34 932 07 30 31, www.sagradafamilia.org), Barcelona’s most emblematic building.

Local history

While cultural, political and social diversity flourish today, it has not always been that way. For long periods of its history, the city was the victim of attempts by governments in Madrid to absorb Catalonia within a unified Spanish state. Under several leaders, notably Philip V in the 17th century and Franco in the 20th, these attempts resulted in a policy aimed at stamping out any vestige of Catalan culture or independence.

Local politics

After last-minute bargaining and posturing by the various political parties in September 2005, the Catalan parliament approved a statute that gives Catalonia much greater financial autonomy and, dramatically, nationhood status within Spain. The Spanish congress approved the statute with the exception of the People’s Party, which objected to its unconstitutionality. If it is eventually approved, it will be the first time in history that Catalonia has received a new statute without war taking part in the process.