Barcelona is the capital and largest city of Catalonia and Spain’s second largest city, with a population of over one and half million people (over five million in the whole province). This city, located directly on the northeastern Mediterranean coast of Spain, has a rich history, having been under Roman, then Frank law before declaring its independence.
The capital of Catalonia is a banquet for the senses, with its beguiling mix of ancient and modern architecture, tempting cafés and markets, and sun-drenched Mediterranean beaches. A stroll along La Rambla and through waterfront Barceloneta, as well as a tour of Gaudí’s majestic Sagrada Família and his other unique creations, are part of a visit to Spain’s second-largest city. Modern art museums and chic shops call for attention, too. Barcelona’s vibe stays lively well into the night, when you can linger over regional wine and cuisine at buzzing tapas bars.
- WHAT TO SEE
+ AJUNTAMENT DE BARCELONA
The 15th-century city hall on Plaça Sant Jaume faces the Palau de la Generalitat, with its mid-18th-century neoclassical facade, across the square once occupied by the Roman Forum. The Ajuntament is a rich repository of sculpture and painting by the great Catalan masters, from Marès to Gargallo to Clarà, from Subirachs to Miró and Llimona. Inside is the famous Saló de Cent, from which the Consell de Cent, Europe’s oldest democratic parliament, governed Barcelona between 1373 and 1714. The Saló de les Croniques (Hall of Chronicles) is decorated with Josep Maria Sert’s immense black-and-burnished-gold murals (1928) depicting the early-14th-century Catalan campaign in Byzantium and Greece under the command of Roger de Flor. Sert’s perspective technique makes the paintings seem to follow you around the room. The city hall is open (admission free) to visitors on Sunday morning, with guided visits in English at 11; on local holidays; and for occasional concerts or events in the Saló de Cent.
+ ARC DEL TRIOMF
This imposing, exposed-redbrick arch was built by Josep Vilaseca as the grand entrance for the 1888 Universal Exhibition. Similar in size and sense to the traditional triumphal arches of ancient Rome, this one refers to no specific military triumph anyone can recall. In fact, Catalunya’s last military triumph of note may have been Jaume I el Conqueridor’s 1229 conquest of the Moors in Mallorca—as suggested by the bats (always part of Jaume I’s coat of arms) on either side of the arch itself. The Josep Reynés sculptures adorning the structure represent Barcelona hosting visitors to the exhibition on the west (front) side, while the Josep Llimona sculptures on the east side depict the prizes being given to its outstanding contributors.
+ CENTRE DE CULTURA CONTEMPORÀNEA DE BARCELONA (CCCB)
Just next door to the MACBA, this multidisciplinary gallery, lecture hall, and concert and exhibition space offers a year-round program of cultural events and projects, well worth checking out. The center also has a remarkable film archive of historic shorts and documentary, free to the public. Housed in the restored and renovated Casa de la Caritat, a former medieval convent and hospital, the CCCB is, like the Palau de la Música Catalana, one of Barcelona’s shining examples of how a much-needed contemporary addition can be wedded to traditional architecture and design. A smoked-glass wall on the right side of the patio, designed by architects Albert Villaplana and Helio Piñon, reflects out over the rooftops of El Raval to Montjuïc and the Mediterranean beyond.
+ CASA CALVET
This exquisite but more conventional town house (for Gaudí, anyway) was the architect’s first commission in the Eixample (the second was the dragonlike Casa Batlló, and the third, and last—he was never asked to do another—was the stone quarry–esque Casa Milà). Peaked with baroque scroll gables over the unadorned (no ceramics, no color, no sculpted ripples) Montjuïc sandstone facade, Casa Calvet compensates for its structural conservatism with its Art Nouveau details, from the door handles to the benches, chairs, vestibule, and spectacular glass-and-wood elevator. Built in 1900 for the textile baron Pere Calvet, the house includes symbolic elements on the facade, ranging from the owner’s stylized letter “C” over the door to the cypress, symbol of hospitality, above. The wild mushrooms on the main (second) floor reflect Pere Calvet’s (and perhaps Gaudí’s) passion for mycology, while the busts at the top of the facade represent St. Peter, the owner’s patron saint; and St. Genis of Arles and St. Genis of Rome, patron saints of Vilassar, the Calvet family’s hometown in the coastal Maresme north of Barcelona. For an even more sensorial taste of Gaudí, dine in the building’s Casa Calvet restaurant,originally the suite of offices for Calvet’s textile company, with its exuberant Moderniste decor.
+ CASA DE LA PIA ALMOINA–MUSEU DIOCESÀ (DIOCESAN MUSEUM)
This 11th-century Gothic building, now a museum, once served soup to the city’s poor; hence its popular name, the “House of Pious Alms”. The museum houses a permanent collection of religious sculpture and liturgical paraphernalia, from monstrances to chalices to the 12th-century paintings from the apse of the Sant Salvador de Polinyà chapel; there are also occasional temporary art exhibits. Anyone contemplating a tour of the Roman walls should consult the excellent relief map/scale model of Roman Barcelona in the vestibule (copies of the map and model are for sale in the nearbyMuseu d’Història de la Ciutat, the Museum of the History of the City). Inside, Roman stones are clearly visible in this much-restored structure, the only octagonal tower of the 82 that ringed 4th-century Barcino. Look for the Romanesque Mares de Deu (Mothers of God) wood sculptures, such as the one from Sant Pau del Camp church in Barcelona’s El Raval. The museum is behind the massive floral iron grate in the octagonal Roman watchtower to the left of the stairs of the Catedral de la Seu.
- WHAT TO EAT
+ CALÇOTS: One of Catalonia’s most beloved and authentic feasts is the winter calçotada: a celebration of the sweet, long-stemmed, twice-planted spring onions called calçots. These delicacies were originally credited to a 19th-century farmer named Xat Benaiges who discovered a technique for extending the scallions’ edible portions by packing soil around the base, giving them stockings or shoes (calçat), so to speak. Valls and the surrounding region now produce upward of 5 million calçots annually. Calçot feasts take place in restaurants and homes between January and March, though the season is getting longer on both ends. On the last weekend of January, the town of Valls itself holds a public calçotada, hosting as many as 30,000 people who come to gorge on onions, sausage, lamb chops, and young red wine.
During the festival, you can learn how to grow calçots, how to make the accompanying salbitxada sauce (romescu) and, most important, how to eat them. The culminating event is the calçot-eating competition, when burly competitors from all over Catalunya swallow as many as 300 calçots in a 40-minute contest as the crowd cheers them on. Once the winner is decided, large grills set up all over town roast calçots over sarmientos (grape vine clippings), as red wine and Cava are splashed from long-spouted porrons.
+ CAVA
Catalan sparkling wine, called cava, is produced mainly in the Penedès region, 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Barcelona. Cava was created in 1872 by local winemaker Josep Raventós after the Penedès vineyards had been devastated by the phylloxera plague and the predominantly red varietals were being replaced by vines producing white grapes. Impressed with the success of the Champagne region, Raventós decided to make his own dry sparkling wine, which has since become the region’s runaway success story. Cava comes in different degrees of dryness: brut nature, brut (extra dry), seco (dry),semiseco (medium), and dulce (sweet). The soil and microclimate of the Penedès region, along with the local grape varietals, give cava a slightly earthier, darker taste than its French counterpart, with larger and zestier bubbles. Under Spanish Denominación de Origen laws, Cava can be produced in six wine regions and must be made according to the Traditional Method with second fermentation in the bottle using a selection of Macabeo, Parellada, Xarel-lo, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Subirat grapes.
+ IBÉRICO HAM
Jamón ibérico de bellota, or ham from free-range acorn-fed Ibérico pig, descendant from the Sus mediterraneus that once roamed the Iberian Peninsula, has become Spain’s modern-day caviar. The meat is dark, red, and tastes of the roots, herbs, spices, tubers, and wild mushrooms of southwestern Spain. The defining characteristic of this free-range pig is its ability to store monounsaturated fats from acorns in streaks or marbled layers that run through its muscle tissue. This is one of the few animal fats scientifically proven to fight the cholesterol that clogs arteries. The tastes and aromas, after two years of aging, are so complex—so nutty, buttery, earthy, and floral—that Japanese enthusiasts have declared Ibérico ham umami, a word used to describe a fifth dimension in taste, in a realm somewhere beyond delicious. In addition, jamón ibérico de bellota liquefies at room temperature, so it literally melts in your mouth.
+ SAUSAGE
Catalonia’s variations on this ancient staple cover a wide range of delicacies. Typically ground pork is mixed with black pepper and other spices, stuffed into casings, and dried to create a protein-rich, easily conservable meat product. If Castile is the land of roasts and Valencia is the Iberian rice bowl and vegetable garden, Catalonia may produce the greatest variety of sausages.
+ WILD MUSHROOMS
Wild mushrooms are a fundamental taste experience in Catalan cuisine: the better the restaurant, the more chanterelles, morels, black trumpets, or ’shrooms of a dozen standard varieties are likely to appear on the menu. Wild mushrooms (in Spanishsetas, in Catalan bolets) are valued for their aromatic contribution to gastronomy; they impart a musty, slightly gamey taste of the forest floor, a dark flavor of decay, to the raw materials such as meat or eggs with which they are typically cooked. Many barcelonins are proficient wild-mushroom stalkers and know how to find, identify, and prepare up to half a dozen kinds of bolets, from rovellones (Lactarius deliciosus) sautéed with parsley, olive oil, and a little garlic, to camagrocs(Cantharellus lutescens) scrambled with eggs. Wild mushrooms flourish in the fall, but different varieties appear in the spring and summer, and dried and reconstituted mushrooms are available year-round. Panlike Llorenç Petràs retired in 2010, but his Fruits del Bosc (Forest Fruits) stall at the back of the Boqueria market is still the place to go for a not-so-short course in mycology. Petràs and his sons supply the most prestigious chefs in Barcelona and around Spain with whatever they need; if morels are scarce this year in Catalonia but abundant in, say, Wisconsin, the Petràs family will dial them in.
Travel guide to Barcelona
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