Ten things to do in Barcelona

Barcelona & mdash ; this is Rambla, La Rambla. A real Barcelonaan is required to walk along this street at least once a day & hellip; Rambla — this is the Bird market with livestock that sings, chirps, coughs, whines, gnaws, rustles, snorts, snuffles, mews, hisses or just keeps silent as a fish, being inherently it. These are newsstands La & rsquo; Vanguardia, flower benches, baguettes & raquo; where you can always grab a crispy baguette with the famous dried ham-ham. These are tobacco stalls Estanc. In a country that gave tobacco to the world, smoke everywhere — This is a paradise for smokers: in the subway and shops, there is an unspoken green color for tobacco lovers. Although there are some inscriptions in the subway cars & laquo; Do not smoke & raquo; — we & laquo; do not lean & raquo ;, and they have — & laquo; do not smoke & raquo;.

Barcelona — these are the streets, turning from Rambla, diverging on both sides, like branches of trees that served as a prototype of the columns of the Sagrada Familia Temple. Two meters to the right or left of the central street — and you get into quarters, hung with linen, on the walls of the inscription Kill Bush, near which the Americans are photographed. These are Pakistani hairdressers, Moroccan coffee houses, student, punk companies and gatherings of old anarchists, peacefully playing lotto, pickpockets, Latinos, crazy mimes — street actors. It is a constant demonstration of emigrants and representatives of different parties who are in favor of protesting, accepting, considering, in the end, the abolition of something & hellip;

1. Go down the Rambla to the sea in the early morning, when the Barcelona old men just sit down in cast-iron armchairs with fresh newspapers, & laquo; live pieces & raquo; people are smiling, and tourists still have breakfast in hotels. On the way to dive into the jaws of the Boqueria market, ask the price for cheeses and sausages and look at the funny characters that painted the wall to the right of the entrance. Turning to the street Ospital, find on one of the houses a homemade bas-relief depicting a mermaid in an embrace with a diver, and drink coffee on the terrace in the courtyard of the medieval hospital of the Holy Cross. Do not be tempted by kebabs, Pakistani pizza and other Asian joys of the Raval district, which you actually went to, return to Rambla, reach the sea, sit on the sand and look at the water for a long time.

2. Climb the hill of Montjuic and walk up to the entrance to the fortress of Montjuic for the sole purpose of — bypass it to the left and look at the top of the trading port. To see even rows of multi-colored containers, and on the horizon in a cold fog to see black dry cargo ships — just like on the screen of a Soviet slot machine "Sea Battle".

3. In the Picasso Museum horrified by the gloomy academic sketches of the young artist. To revive in the hall number 8, where some of his merry Parisian paintings fell. In the Hall & laquo; Meninas & raquo ;, where Picasso's variations on the topic "Menin & raquo; Velasquez, run from wall to wall, watching as the picture of a famous Spaniard gradually falls to pieces under the firm hand of another.

4. A couple of blocks from the museum in the store Dom (Avinyo, 7) to buy gifts to friends — like alarms, the mechanism of which is flooded with water, and the seats on the toilet, painted so that it seems as if they are wrapped in barbed wire. The neighboring door is sold by espadrilles — cloth sandals on the wattled soles worn by Catalan folk dance enthusiasts and Hollywood stars.

5. After an appetite, go to dinner at the Els Quatre Gats on Montsio Street. Once here, Picasso and company drank, then the cafe was closed for 75 years and reopened in the late 70's. The interior was completely restored, the menu was printed according to the Picasso model (this was his first order), hired arrogant waiters and poked candles in the toilet. Go straight to the far hall and for € 12 to eat a very nice dinner. If the menu of the day is a merlin, take it without hesitation.

6. Wander into the square in front of the church of Santa Maria del Pi. On the first and third Sunday of the month there is a fair of natural products. Long to consider the towers of honey cans of all existing shades of yellow — almost white floral, greenish eucalyptus, dark acorn, golden ginger.

7. Go to Park Guell, where gingerbread houses built around Gaudi schoolchildren, driven by a teacher of physical education. Look at the city from a huge balcony, along the perimeter of which stretches a long mosaic bench, — From here one can clearly see the squared quarter of Eixample. Leaving the park, go to the right and find on the street Coll del Portell a mysterious building, similar to the factory, — with a pipe, balconies of steel rods and an entrance through a transparent tunnel. To fall into a light stupor, realizing that this is just an apartment building.

8. Look at the concert at the jazz club Jamboree — The most intelligent place on the crazy Royal Square. Order a cocktail and have enough patience: the barmaid has been hampering him for so long that it seems that he has time to discuss with his colleague all the latest news.

9. To buy clothes from the winter collections of local designers. For these purposes, for example, the store Lurdes Bergada (rambla Catalunya, 112).

10. Arrange a final dinner in the fish restaurant Can Costa in Barceloneta (passeig Joan de Borbo, 70), not the most notable, but one of the most delicious on the waterfront. Order firm fideua and heroically eat everything: all this mountain of vermicelli with fish and shellfish in fat sauce can only be mastered from a great love for Barcelona.

Special offer for those wishing to visit the incredible Barcelona in the period: 16.07 - 06.10.2013