Tips On Barcelona Sightseeing

Barcelona has a lot to be proud of. A city literally stuffed with spectacular architecture, historical and cultural places of interest, fantastic food and a vibrant nightlife, it is no wonder tourists flock to the area. There is more to Catalunya than Barcelona sightseeing however, including a glorious coastline, beautiful mountains and a fierce independent spirit that will be felt by even the least informed visitor.

Make sure you have a map detailing the places of interest when you arrive in Barcelona; it is surprisingly easy to get lost in Barcelona's bustling streets. A good place to start your tour is Gaudi's Park Guell, an open space filled with pieces of Gaudi's work including benches, archways, walls and balconies. It is a place where Gaudi's imagination really ad free reign, and you feel almost that the works of art are more natural than the plants and trees.

From here you can move easily on to Gaudi's iconic work, the Sagrada Familia. This church was started in 1882 but was not finished when Gaudi died in 1926. Various attempts have been made to complete the work to Gaudi's designs but the church is still not entirely finished and probably never will be. If you don't think you can capture the spirit of the church in your own photographs, you might want to check out the stunning images available in postcard stands that surround the building.

The Barcelona zoo was founded in 1892 and is located in the Ciutadella Park, next to the old town or Ciutat Vella. This is a great place to visit especially of you have children that are likely to lose interest in architecture and history. Some of the seven and a half thousand animals on display include pelicans, American buffalos and red kangaroo, as well as a specialist primate collection which the zoo is famous for.

There is an aquatic park within the zoo that provides a home to bottlenose dolphins among others. Dolphin shows can be seen throughout the warm summer months, and this can make a refreshing escape from the heat of the city. An acclaimed research program at Barcelona zoo is well known for sympathetic breeding of animals in captivity and protection of endangered species, which would otherwise become extinct.

The main avenue in Barcelona, La Rambla is a riot of color and bustle with flower stalls and street performers at regular intervals along the promenade. The main hotels and restaurants center around La Rambla, but you may get a better deal and more authentic dishes if you explore a little further out. One place not be missed is the Boqueria, a fantastic food market to one side of La Rambla, with exotic delicacies you have never even imagined.

The port area received a face lift with the Olympics in Barcelona in 1992. The Olympic village was situated right on the coast and the area is marked by the dual towers of the Arts Hotel, Mapfre Towers and Nova Icaria Square. The main Olympic sites can be found on top of Montjuic, a hill overlooking the city, and can be reached by cable car.

About The Author
Clinton Maxwell writes mainly for http://www.barcelona-information.com , an online site on the topic of travelling in Spain and Costa Brava. You can find his publications over at http://www.barcelona-information.com and various other sources for Barcelona Spain knowledge.

Staying in Barcelona for Extended Periods

If you have ever visited Barcelona, you know it is a place best experienced over a few months instead of a few days. Fortunately, the people of Barcelona know it as well.

Staying in Barcelona for Extended Periods

Like a fine wine, drinking in Barcelona shouldn't be rushed. Visit the city for two or three days and you will get only a small, rushed taste of the flavor of Barcelona. If you have time to spend weeks or months in Barcelona, you should do it. Staying in a hotel, however, isn't particularly attractive. Don't worry, Barcelona has a solution for you.

One of the biggest problem with staying anywhere for an extended period is the lack of accommodation. This is hardly the case in Barcelona. The city has a monstrous apartment rental industry devoted to visitors looking to stay for weeks, months or even a year.

As you might imagine, the apartments come in a variety of styles and prices. Almost universally, they come fully furnished with furniture, linen, towels and so on. Most, however, do not include cleaning, laundry, cooking and so on. Depending on how much you are willing to pay, you can get all of these.

The first step to finding weekly or monthly accommodation in Barcelona is to figure out where you want to stay. While your first thought may be to head to the most attractive, busy section of the city, you need to give it some thought. Yes, it is good to be close to everything, but Barcelona is a late night, bustling place. If you want to take a break from the fun madness, you might find the noise associated with living in the middle of the city is a bit much.

The most popular area of Barcelona is Ciutat Vella, also known as the old city. This is where the action is with nightlife and the exotic tastes of Barcelona. It has an old Roman feel, but never really seems to shut down. The old city is the central tourist destination, so finding accommodations is simple since they are very plentiful. Costs depend on quality, but you can expect to pay $100 to as much as you can splurge per night. Extremely nice places can be had for $150 to $200 a night, which isn't a bad deal if you bring a second person with you.

Barcelona is best experienced over time. Pick up weekly or monthly accommodations and you will enjoy yourself immensely.

About The Author
Rick Chapo is with http://www.nomadjournals.com - makers of writing journals. Visit http://www.nomadjournaltrips.com to read more about travel and the great outdoors.

Barcelona, Spain's Rebel City

Barcelona is a town with a history that like a good Catalan red wine is both rich and dark. Its foundations stretch back to at least the 15th century BC, if not earlier. Like so much of ancient Europe the Romans founded the first semblance of the town we know today as Barcelona. In the centuries that followed Barcelona was invaded by many powerful groups of people including the Visigoths, the Moors and the Muslim ruler Al Mansur. Plundered, conquered, nearly destroyed and under siege for much of its life, it comes as no surprise that Barcelona is also a city with a particular penchant for civil rights and freedom. Where the fight for liberty, and some evidence of both local and national political justice and peace, would eventually lead to Barcelona becoming one of Spain's largest strongholds for those who believed in the idea of anarchism.

In the most basic of essences anarchism is a system of political beliefs which dictates that a society (or group of people) will be free from laws, police, governments and other forms of imposing authority. Instead of this type of governed society anarchists feel that a libertarian culture should be founded around mutual cooperation and help amongst the members of the anarchist society.

When and what exactly planted the first seeds of anarchism in the people of Spain and the city of Barcelona is hard to say. Perhaps it was a result of the industrial revolution or a way of revolting against the stark rules and ideologies of Victorian Europe, not to mention the highly uneven distribution of wealth amongst the rich and the poor of Spain at the time. By the middle of the nineteenth century a visible anarchist movement had sprung up in Spain. At the turn of the twentieth century Spain had the largest anarchist community of any European nation, with the biggest following coming from Barcelona's industrial workers, who in 1911 formed an anarcho-syndicalist trade union called the National Confederation of Trabajo, or the "CNT". This union was the only one that was willing to take on members who were not qualified or able to join other unions.

On the whole, the ideals of the CNT focused largely on overthrowing the ruling Capitalists of Spain. Yet almost as soon as it was founded divisions sprung up amongst members of the CNT, some of whom took to radical acts and crimes that today would be classified as acts of terrorism. A large part of what the CNT and Spanish anarchism were about was demonstrating their opposition to the way that Spanish workers – primarily those in the lower classes of society - were being treated. Strikes and demonstrations, meetings and rallies were exceedingly common ways for the anarchists to show their stances and beliefs.

Towards the end of the First World War, and in the years that immediately followed, Barcelona was home to many strikes and protests against the ever-increasing rate of joblessness and the continual slashes in many workers' wages by factory owners. During this time the memory of a tragic uprising in 1909 which saw 6 people killed, 1, 700 charged with crimes and five executed for their alleged involvement with the uprising – including Francisco Ferrer, a well known Spanish free-thinker – was still fresh in the minds of the people of Barcelona as this is where the event had occurred.

In 1934 the CNT had some 1.5 million members and by the time the Spanish revolution began in 1936 this number had grown even larger. While it is nearly impossible to sum up the events of the Spanish Civil War that followed in a few lines, it can be defined as a conflict between the left wing parties of Spain (including anarchists, socialists, communists, and some republicans) and the right wing Nationalist party which was headed by the infamous Francisco Franco. By the end of 1939 Franco was successful in overthrowing the current Spanish Republican government and creating his own dictatorship. Thus the right-wing side had succeeded in winning the three year long civil war.

The Spanish Civil war may have officially ended, but the Second World War was just beggining and Franco's power in Spain was to remain strong for decades to come. The reign of Franco's government would not be shaken until the 1970's, however by this time a great deal of the country's left wing groups and anarchist parties had either been destroyed during the second world war, transformed into other groups or disbanded on the whole.

In the past thirty years Spain has seen continual freedom and rebirth, albeit with some setbacks, which may be a large part of why membership in groups such as the CNT has greatly declined. However, at the same time the CNT continues to exist today, and Barcelona is still considered to be Spain's "anarchist hotspot". While many thing both tragic and positive have come from Spain's long history of fighting, civil unrest and anarchism, one thing is for sure - the beautiful city of Barcelona will forever be a city with an unshakeable will of its own.

About The Author
Matt Goldman is a freelance writer who has been living in Barcelona with his wife and three daughters for the past 8 years. To read more about Barcelona accommodation possibilities, visit http://www.holiday-apartments-barcelona.com to which Matt contributes from time to time.
matt@holiday-apartments-barcelona.com

Hello from Barcelona

This is my first ever blog and I´ll have to be very brief since I only have about 11 minutes left at the Internet cafe. I am sitting here at the Maremagnum shopping mall in the port of Barcelona.

Theresa and I just came back from our tour on the blue Tourist Bus. (20 Euros for 2 days). What a fabulous city!

Yesterday we had dinner in the Gothic Quarter and got serenaded by one musician / music group after another. And today the bus tour, beautiful weather, brilliant sunshine, about 28 degrees Celsious.

We started in the port area, snaked our way past the Casino, the Olympic Village, the Zoo, through the Gothic Quarter to the hussle and bustle of Plaza Catalunya. Along the way we had a quick peak at Gaudi´s masterpieces: Casa Battlo and La Pedrera. The we came across the middle part of the city, up to the hill of Montjuic where we visited the Poble Espanyol (Spanish village), a beautiful 1929 replica of buildings from villages throughout Spain.

Then we passed the Olympic stadium, the Teleferic cablecar and came back down into the city where we are just starting to relax now in the harbour.

Tonight we´ll probably head up the Ramblas and check out some authentic Barcelona Nightlife.

About The Author

Susanne Pacher is the publisher of a website called Travel and Transitions (http://www.travelandtransitions.com). Travel and Transitions deals with unconventional travel and is chock full of advice, tips, real life travel experiences, interviews with travellers and travel experts, insights and reflections, cross-cultural issues, contests and many other features. You will also find stories about life and the t-ransitions that we face as we go through our own personal life-long journeys.

Submit your own travel stories in our first travel story contest (http://www.travelandtransitions.com/contests.htm) and have a chance to win an amazing adventure cruise on the Amazon River.

"Life is a Journey Explore New Horizons".

The story with photos is published at Travel and Transitions - Travel Stories (http://www.travelandtransitions.com/stories_photos/hello_ibiza_1.htm).