Quintessential Barcelona

Quintessential Barcelona

Grazing: Tapas & Wine Bars

Few pastimes in Barcelona are more satisfying and exciting than spontaneous wandering, tippling, and tapas-hunting. Whether during the day or after dark, meandering semi-aimlessly through the Gothic Quarter, Gràcia, Barceloneta, or the Born-Ribera district offers an endless selection of taverns, cafés, bars, and restaurants where wines, beers, cava (Catalan sparkling wine), or txakolí (a fresh young Basque white wine served in the increasingly popular Basque taverns) accompany little morsels of fish, sausage, cheese, peppers, wild mushrooms, or tortilla (potato omelet). If you find yourself stuck on Passeig de Gràcia or the Rambla in bars that serve microwaved tapas, know this: you're missing out. The areas around Passeig del Born, Santa Maria del Mar, Plaça de les Olles, and the Picasso Museum are the prime tapeo (tapa-tasting) and txikiteo (tippling) grounds.

Openings, Presentations, Lectures & Musical Events.

Check listings in the Guía del Ocio or in the daily newspapers El País or La Vanguardia to find announcements for art gallery openings, book presentations, and free public concerts. Often serving cava and canapés, these little gatherings nearly always welcome visitors (if it's announced in the papers, you're invited). Famous authors from Vikram Seth to Martin Amis or local stars such as Javier Marías or Carlos Ruiz Zafón (author of The Shadow of the Wind) may be presenting new books at the British Institute or at bookstores such as La Central. Laie Libreria holds jazz performances in its café, while the travel bookstore Altair has frequent book signings and talks by prominent travel authors. Events in the town hall's Saló de Cent are usually open to the public, providing a glimpse into the city's cultural life.

Sunday Sardanas, Puppets & Castellers

The Sunday-morning papers carry announcements for local neighborhood celebrations, flea markets and produce fairs, puppet shows, storytelling sessions for children, sardana dancing, bell-ringing concerts, and, best of all, castellers. The castellers, complex human pyramids sometimes reaching as high as 10 stories, are a quintessentially Catalan phenomenon that originated in the Penedés region west of Barcelona and are performed regularly at neighborhood fiestas or key holidays. Most Sunday-morning events are over by two o'clock, when lunchtime officially reigns supreme, so an early start is recommended. The Barcelona town hall in Plaça Sant Jaume is a frequent castellers and sardanas venue, as is Plaça de la Catedral. The Fundació Miró regularly holds Sunday-morning puppet shows and children's events.

Soccer: FC Barcelona

As FC Barcelona's soccer fortunes soar, sports bars proliferate throughout the city. Though the pubs showing soccer near the Rambla are usually heavily populated by foreign tourists, the taverns and cafés in Barceloneta, El Raval, Gràcia, and Sarrià are generally local penyas (fan clubs), where passions run high. To see what fútbol really means to rank-and-file Barcelona fans, these little bars are the places to check out. Notoriously intolerant toward supporters of FC Barcelona adversaries, especially Real Madrid, locals will be unhappy if a visitor cheers for anything but a home victory. For the real thing, of course, there is the Camp Nou stadium and the FC Barcelona museum; strangely, the stadium, though beautiful, often seems soporific compared to the taverns and bars where 90% of Barcelona's soccer fans get their weekly hit of "the opium of the masses."