Barcelona travel info

At two in the afternoon, the bar counters in the Gothic Quarter fill with the scrape of tomato on toasted bread and people shouting for 'una caña'. Walk fifteen minutes towards the sea from those lanes and you're on Barceloneta beach. Gaudí in the morning, sand in the afternoon, dinner not before nine: that's the shape of a day here.

The Eixample is a strict grid, which makes it all the stranger when a balcony shaped like a skull (Casa Batlló) or a rippling stone façade (Casa Milà) appears between ordinary apartment blocks. The Sagrada Família is still being built, cranes and all. Climb to Park Güell or Montjuïc and you can see the whole city tilting down towards the water.

There are two bits of homework: book the big sights like the Sagrada Família and Park Güell in advance, and keep your phone and wallet glued to your body on the metro and Las Ramblas. Do that, and the rest is eating, walking and looking at the sea.

Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat Airport (BCN)