top 3 things to do in BARCELONA.

i'm very excited. but don't have any suggestions, yet.

Was it called Aloha; a Polynesian themed tiki bar? With dark boothes that go a long way back? Anyway, we went there a lot this summer and after long hot days in Sonar and abondaning the night stuff's hellish bus ride.

For record shops: Carrer de Tallers, near Catalyuna metro stop
Also stop by one of the cafes in the square, one road parrallel but to the south for great cheap eats.

Avoid Pans & Co. for food.

Drink Estrella Dam seconded.

The area/borough called Exiample is nice for walking around in.

dad humor is so great, even over the internet.

any chance anyone here has also stumbled into a fantistic veggie restaurant in barcelona? we were wandering around the barri gotic, and managed to find the one place in barcelona where there's no ham in everything...and can't remember what it was called, or what street it was on. grr.

wait, that's not what you're supposed to do at orgies? god, you canadians are so weird!

Parc de la Ciutedad (sp? where the zoo is, anyway) is a lovely place for a picnic and a wander - gardens, zoo, beautiful fountain.

Top tip - get one of the Barcelona passes, or a two-day pass for the open-top buses which gives you free/reduced entry into various places.

ihttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/Barcelona004.jpg

It had an elaborate menu that told you what the drinks tasted like, but not what was in them (in Spanish)

ihttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/Barcelona003.jpg

and they came in menko containers.

ihttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/Barcelona002.jpg

ihttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v292/aldo_cowpat/Barcelona001.jpg

Yes, that's smoke from dry ice.

Everyone OTM re Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell.

Take the cable car from Barceloneta to Montjuic for some lovely views of the city.

there's some jazz fest on so i'll be giving that a wide berth.
any gigs and such we should know about?
any hidden-away backstreet hot spots?

ha, are you actually jim, who's coming with me? he'll be horrified if there's a jazz fest on.

go to the club in Poble Espanol!
'Discoteca'

Food Markets: La Boqueria is cool but touristy - aim for the one on the border of El Raval/Eixample
Sant antoni

any hidden-away backstreet hot spots?

dot club - at the end of my old street!

best cinema ever - cine ambigu

i always like Fon Fone, which is better than it sounds from here. escudellers is dutty, but again was round the corner from my house....

suzette on tallers. good for crepe.

ive written stuff on other threads too.

I love being OTM about things. It seems to happen so rarely. Ole!

clubs? bars? gigs?

any advance on layo and bushwacka at RAZZMATAZ?

barwise, I really liked Rubis, it's in the gothic quarter, though I can't remember exactly where. It had an Irish barman and was really relaxed and quiet.

I found some of Barcelona a bit nuts though, so so many beggars and guys offering to sell weed, it'd drive you up the fucking wall if you had to live there.

But yeah Razzmatazz is really something, you wouldn't know what to watch there half the time.

anything going on?

i see FREELAND is playing the razz...

I'm old now and taking my parents.... museums? Spanish Civil War stuff? Restaurants? etc?

The Picasso museum is pretty great. It focuses on his earlier years. Right in heart of the Born district.

cal pep is a good tapas place, tho v popular and big queues. also la cova fumada and bodega firmin in barceloneta area - the first is a legendary tapas bar, the second a small place with nice beer/wine and simple but interesting dishes.

it is a serious food city so that's only scratching the surface really.

el vaso de oro is also excellent in barceloneta - foie and steak is amazing (huge slab of foie gras on steak) as is the beer.
spend a whole day walk around that area eat and have a drink as you go.

macba is always good for a visit too

touristic things:
- that market La Boqueria
- gaudi buildings - la pedrera i enjoyed
- cable car

avoid la rambla at night

the Miro museum is great

la rambla is okay-ish imo the more away from the main city you go - i mean not to hang out on but to walk down or cut across or whatever. don't get me wrong it's obv hell on earth at times but i don't consider it dangerous or anything, just irritating getting propositioned every three seconds.

agree with ken about barceloneta.

just gonna throw it out there, if your parents would enjoy it at all, going to see barcelona is prob worth it. it's a good occasion, interesting peoplewatching. assuming it's not a massive game you can get tickets on the day in the barcelona club shop near the sagrada familia.

Depending on how much your parents are willing to spend on dinner, the meal I had at Manairo was probably the best I've ever eaten. But there's exceptional food pretty much everywhere, and a lot of it is pretty cheap.

(Caveat, don't eat anywhere near the Sagrada Familia for all the obvious reasons)

Noting all this :)

Re: food we're staying in an apartment in Sant Antoni. We plan on making breakfast ourselves, and sandwiches for picnics etc but then yeah, trying some restaurants. Probably at the cheaper end - my parents get uncomfortable in upmarket joints.

bar del pla & bar brutal are in a kind of touristy area (i think?? from memory) but were both legit & delicious -

https://suitcasemag.com/guides/barcelona/bar-brutal-can-cisa/
https://suitcasemag.com/guides/barcelona/bar-del-pla/

also super friendly ppl working there

for a lunch check out Can Paixano for a fun experience and really cheap cava. It gets packed but it's kinda part of the charm
https://g.co/kgs/ip5Kz0

As mentioned above Cova fumada is a must get a bomba for sure

The bus turístic lines are really good as far as those type of things go.get on and off never a long wait to be picked up

Based on the number of people in Barcelona who engage in them and the amount of time spent by each person on average, the Top 3 Things To Do in Barcelona are:

- sleep
- work
- eat

walking, driving and pissing didn't quite make the list

: /

Getting robbed it a legit thing to look out for though. One friend phoned me from Barca and the phone was stolen out of his hand mid convo. Another friend had a bag containing a laptop stolen. It was at his feet in an outside cafe.

Yes this is good to remember

Lunch at Balthazar in L'Eixample is excellent value (my parents loved it there), Bar Velodromo also. Romesco for really cheap home-style cooking, Xemei is amazing but maybe it's silly to go to Spain for Italian. Can Josep is Gracia is nice, a bit rustic. Aim to get to these places as soon as they open for lunch otherwise it's a bit of a wait.

Also a reminder to not call the city of Barcelona Barca

I think the thievery stuff is a bit overstated - once you're not on ramblas at 2am it's prob fine - the same as any other city. tho i can't even get my own wallet out of my trousers quickly tbh.

if you're ever hungry for crisps this particular flavour is top, top
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/87d/Ruffles-potato-chips-corrugated-York-eso/B003TSXQC4

i understand that it may not be exactly the kind of things you were looking for

http://yourspanishcorner.com/765-large_default/ruffles-de-jamon.jpg

these ftw

I got very mad with my friend at the time we stayed when i asked for york'eso and they brought back jamon :/ :/ :/

Again i doubt this will be on your agenda anyway but

pro tip: don't buy the €1 cervezas from the men wandering around on the street at night. we followed one of them once to see where he kept his stash and the particular vendor kept his in the wheelie bin, under the bin bag :( :(

(alternatively just enjoy the beer and don't follow them to find out their origin)

lol they sometime put them in the sewers as well to keep them cold

but sometimes it's 4:30Am and you need a beer \_(シ)_/

true and you just need to get literally shitfaced

I think the thievery stuff is a bit overstated - once you're not on ramblas at 2am it's prob fine - the same as any other city. tho i can't even get my own wallet out of my trousers quickly tbh.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Wednesday, March 8, 2017 5:25 AM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

thievery stuff not overstated in my experience, if anyone i know who is even remotely a rube goes to barcelona they get something stolen from them. I've seen people pickpocketed multiple times while on the metro there, I've had someone attempt to pickpocket me twice, once in l'eixample and once (less surprisingly) in el raval - both really obvious attempts and unsuccessful - i used to have a small wallet that i carried in one of my front pockets which was difficult for even me to get out quickly.

but yeah miro museum, parc guell, sagrada familia, picasso museum, barcelona cathedral, national art museum of catalonia, macba all worth seeing

weird, i've been two or three times in the last few years and didn't find it as sketchy as i remembered it. didn't see any pickpocketing and nothing happened to me. but even when i went as a teen off my face for 72 hours i never got robbed. i came to believe it was mostly just a bad reputation. like once i went to bucharest and i read in two guidebooks to "beware of wild dogs" - when i got there i didn't see a single dog and when i told this to the locals i was working with they found it the funniest thing ever. not the same but i did kinda assume barcelona was only a thievery centre if you've got your wallet hanging out the back of your loose-fit dockers.

i haven't been in about 6 years now so it might've changed significantly but i was there about 5 times in my early 20s and every time i was there i either saw someone get pickpocketed, had someone try and pickpocket me, or talked to some other scottish person who had been pickpocketed or had their camera stolen or whatevs. generally i think the people who were victims were daft, inebriated, and had things lying out on patio tables or as you say a wallet in a loose back pocket or the like but think the reputation is somewhat deserved if overplayed

make the hour's drive or so north to the Dali museum

Was there a couple of years ago, for three days at most, and someone I was with had their jacket stolen. Other than that, awesome city.

... a Scottish person, so had it comin' to 'em prolly.

Come to think of it, I'm working with a woman from Barcelona just now and she mentioned the thievery.

by the way i did this, it was awesome

got kinda museumed out by the end of our week but the picasso museum was a highlight - i had never seen most of the teenage stuff. and the las meninas series is a legit artistic "experience" rarely encountered in life

the market - boqueria - is terrific obviously, though maybe not so much if you're familiar with european open-air markets in general. there is a LOT of duplication - i.e. 15 different juice counters, 10 different places all selling the same ham etc. however the fish market in the center of it is outstanding and what i really don't understand is how goddamn cheap it all is. fish that would cost three times the amount in a place like marseilles. fresh juices for 1 euro.

probably my favorite thing though was the spanish civil war walking tour, led by a legit historian. just amazing amounts of info about the various anarchist and communist factions in barcelona at the time, the aerial bombing campaigns, anti-clerical violence, international brigades, and all of it tied to physical stuff - buildings, streets, shrapnel damage etc - that is still there at placa de catalunya, barrio gotica etc.. also i had no idea the number of spanish refugees that had fled to france and basically were kept in camps with no access to medicine and very little food. also an utterly harrowing history of the short life of photographer Francesc Boix. anyway TOTALLY worth it and made the rest of my trip there richer. http://iberianature.com/barcelona/barcelona-walking-tours/about-us

cosine barceloneta as a place to just wander about, particularly once you get off the boardwalk. those little streets, my god, i can't even imagine the atmosphere during a match. anyway loads of great little restaurants squirrelled away down there. kids playing ball in the street etc.

some great bookshops in barcelona as well. altaïr and la central (which has three locations?!) are both amazing.

also a shout out to àcid sulfúric, a brand-new art gallery in poble sec that i just happened to walk past which has hilarious, disturbing, politically engaged work on the walls right now on the theme of corruption. https://www.acidsulfuric.com/

and can't let this post go without mentioning the 100000 amazing craft beers available in barcelona. forget the cava imo.

yeah spain generally has gone wild for the beers. my parents have a place near estepona, a little town on costa del sol, nothing particularly special about it, but even there the brews are local ipas and stuff

Are the Carmel bunkers open again, or still ridiculously easy to break into? Best view of the city hands down.