Barcelona? Why go to Barcelona? We first visited it a few years back, receiving a good introduction to its architecture – there’s certainly much more than the fascinating, fanciful work of Antonio Gaudi’s — but almost none to its food. The brief tastes we had, though, were enough to lure us back.
For an eight-night stay, we decided to rent an apartment. We’d never done that, but a friend who travels there often had raved about the Barcelona apartment he’d used several times. After some investigation, we took the plunge. And for us, it worked well; there was plenty of space, a refrigerator and a washing machine. There was a full, if quite small, kitchen, but we figured that we’d leave the cooking to the professionals. And the price was right, considerably below most hotels..
Barcelona is not a city of gorgeous skylines. It is, rather, a city of fascinating individual pieces, where one can leave a splashy Richard Meier building full of modern art and within a couple of blocks
be in an old square that’s pedestrians-only, sipping a cool afternoon drink and watching art students argue while toddlers chase around a playground and a few sets of lovers get up close. There are many old neighborhoods best explored on foot; in fact, in many the streets are so narrow that the only transportation options are shoe leather or bicycles.
SIGHTSEEING: Of course, the city’s signature is its buildings. Gaudi’s masterwork is the Sagrada Familia church, the one that looks like a giant sand castle topped with upside-down ice cream cones. It’s still under construction and probably always will be. Why? Well, while it’s under construction, it’s a tourist site and charges admission, an impossible feat once it becomes a church. But not far from that is the municipal gas company’s new building, tall and round and protuberant, profoundly Freudian. Meier and Frank Gehry and Mies van der Rohe, as well as Gaudi’s contemporaries, Puig I Cadafalch and Domenech I Montaner, all have showpieces here. On this visit, the one masterwork 
we went back to see again was Casa Mila, the Gaudi-designed apartment house, which is a tourist site, but also has some offices for a bank, and apartments where Barcelonans still live. We went late in the day, because we wanted to see how the sunset light added to views from the roof. The obsessive Gaudi, who didn’t believe in straight lines, even designed the chimneys, including some that look for all the world like pals of Darth Vader. Like Frank Lloyd Wright, Gaudi even designed much of the furniture for the apartments.
We consider two other spots in the don’t-miss category. One is Park Guell, another Gaudi site that dazzles. It’s a city park, free to all, with entrance cottages that look like they belonged to Hansel 
and Gretel, a huge mosaic lizard that’s another of the city’s iconic images, a gurgling and glorious fountain and much, much more, culminating in a loooong serpentine bench that overlooks the city. Made of more mosaics in a technique called trencadis, it’s amazing, both front and back, and shockingly comfortable for a lazy sprawl in the sun. One suggestion: If you prefer walking downhill to climbing up, take the city bus 24 from Placa Catalunya, which lets you off at the side entrance. Much easier on the knees. All other public transportation stops are several long blocks below the main entrance.
The other attraction was the Museu Maritim, housed in the old royal boatworks on the shore of the Mediterranean. Be sure to use the audioguide in English (included in the price of admission) to fully appreciate this fascinating place, full of history and exhibits like the full-size recreation of a royal flagship built here in 1568 for the Spanish Armada. It’s definitely not just for boat lovers; in this old port city, maritime activities affect every aspect of life.
A museum with the works of Joan Miro and another for Pablo Picasso are 
delightful, and there is public sculpture everywhere, including a Roy Lichtenstein and a Gehry work on the beach along with one that pays tribute to Barcelona fisherman by stacking four representations of fishermen’s shacks on top of one another .
DAILY LIFE:
Barcelona is in Catalonia. While most signs are in Spanish and Catalan, which most people speak in their daily life. But they’re nearly always bi-lingual; Joe’s high-school Spanish worked passably well. Barcelona has been entertaining English-speaking visitors for a long time, and lots of people we met in places visitors might go had at least a minimal amount of English.
Yes, people really do stay up late in Spain, or at least in Barcelona. An 8 a.m. search for a café open for breakfast was almost fruitless. Lunch begins about 1:30 or 2 p.m., a few shops close for lunch for a couple of hours in the afternoon, and rush hour picks up around 7. At 8:30, the few people in restaurants are visitors, but the bars are full of locals beginning happy hour. The bars close at 3 a.m.
Public transportation is good, although buses and the subway don’t penetrate the very oldest parts of the city. Bike riders commonly use the sidewalk, perhaps a commentary on local drivers. Most guide books have subway maps; bus maps are harder to come by, but are posted on nearly all bus shelters. Warning: If you use the buses, make note of the time regular bus service ceases, which is surprisingly early considering this town’s style, and the curtailed night service starts.
For sightseeing, the Bus Turistic runs two loops around town with considerable frequency. They have on-and-off privileges so a rider can visit a site, or have lunch, and pick up a bus later on. The open-top buses provide great views and a beginning orientation to the town, and there are stops near almost everything on a visitor’s agenda.. Lots of that lovely-at-this-time-of-year Spanish sun, too, so figure on appropriate accessories. The harbor and beachfront can be seen from Las Golondrinas, small boats that leave from near the Christopher Columbus column at the foot of Las Ramblas, and cruise the harbor and beach opting for peace and quiet rather than canned narration. Las Ramblas, by the way, is Barcelona’s main street, wide but still crowded, lined with shops, street performers, cafes and other modern conveniences.
Swell, you say, but where’s the food? Oh, we’ll get to that in the next installment.