All Abroad

Barcelona: So cool it’s hot!

Barcelona is just about the perfect European city destination. By day it is a buzzing metropolis. By night it is one of the world’s clubbing capitals. It is a place steeped in history with some of the world’s great art and architecture.

And if all this gets a bit too much, the capital of Spain’s Catalan region has miles of beaches where for much of the year you can recover from the excesses of clubbing and culture. Combine that with a sparkling local cuisine that draws not just on Spain for its inspiration, but on neighboring France and Italy too. Nowhere else can quite match the magic.

Start the day with a stroll along La Rambla. This is perhaps the best-known walking street in the world. Cars are relegated to a poor second place while pedestrians jostle through the flower stalls, living statues and birdcages. It is a never-ending carnival.

Sports nuts should not miss the Nou Camp, home to Barcelona FC and Europe’s largest soccer stadium. On match days its 98,000 capacity means getting a ticket is generally far from impossible. The ground also contains the city’s second most popular museum. Only Picasso’s art attracts more visitors than this shrine to soccer.

In the afternoon the city eats and sleeps. Lunch is at 2pm and most places shut for siesta until 5pm. At 8pm there is another transformation as the stores close and the people get ready to party.

This is a place where everything happens late. Restaurants do not fill up until 10.30pm. It is not uncommon to see families sit down to a meal at midnight.

Down by the beach, around the Eixample or in the Gothic Quarter, the clubs are in full swing at 3am. Most shut at 5am or 6am, and, although the weekends are busiest, there never seems to be a quiet evening.

And after just a few Barcelona nights and you’ll discover why the siesta is a way of life!