I visited BCN in September last year. Friends, family and colleagues had all raved about it, telling me it was their favourite place in Europe, how much fun I would have there etc. I purposely planned to be there for an entire week to experience every part of it I could. Stayed in a great airbnb apartment but after being there for a few days I was ready to leave - I was incredibly disappointed.
What I liked about it:
1. The architecture.
2. La Merce Festival.
3. The airport.
What I didn't like about it:
1. The amount of tourists. I have never, ever been surrounded by so many tourists in my entire life (including Times Square NYC, Ginza in Tokyo and Sydney Harbour). I could not get away from them no matter where I went - I was constantly being herded around like cattle (and I spent a whole afternoon attempting to explore the back streets . I felt like the entire city existed purely for tourism and the tourists greatly outnumbered the locals. And they weren't cluey tourists like in Tokyo they were the 'hold a giant map in front of my face while I walk through a crowd and scream for my American wife' tourists.
2. The food. Again, purely for the tourists. I had been learning Spanish the whole year and so knew a few things about Spain. There's no such thing as a tapas restaurant. Good paella isn't advertised etc. It was all bog standard food (I was expecting that tapas bars were found more in the North of Spain). I did go to Tickets Bar which was excellent (and not very expensive).
3. The beach. Rubbish. And again, full of tourists.
4. The people. The few times when I managed to communicate with people who weren't tourists they seemed dejected and irritated. Was abused by wait staff in some of the most popular tourists areas because I did not speak sufficient Spanish (despite their menus being in English). The 25% unemployment rate may have been the cause but I was expecting Spaniards to be passionate, fiery, energetic people. Those I found were just existing, purely to serve the hordes of tourists flooding through the city and didn't seem to care about anything.
5. La Ramblas. Was ready to be pick-pocketed, was ready for an explosion of sound, colour and sights. What I got was a street filled with junky souvenirs, overweight Americans sipping oversized margaritas during the never-ending 'happy-hours' and bored tourists wandering aimlessly looking for something interesting.
I felt like the IOC picked Barcelona to host the Olympics because it was interesting and undiscovered because of its Gaudi architecture so the city made a huge infrastructure investment and got the city 'ready' for tourists and now it's easy for tourists to visit because its set up for them but all the culture moved out when the tourists moved in! The only time I felt like I saw any kind of passion or culture was when we went to see parts of La Merce festival which we stumbled across in a park near our apartment. We didn't know anything about it (because it wasn't pitched at tourists) but had an excellent time there as there were no tourists and we got to see some real Spanish music, dancing, culture and food (and heard no English at all).
Admittedly 7 days is a long time in a city like that but I would never go to Barcelona again. There were lots of cities in Europe I loved (Paris, Stockholm, Mykonos etc) - is there something wrong with me or is this a true description of the city everyone raves about?
What I liked about it:
1. The architecture.
2. La Merce Festival.
3. The airport.
What I didn't like about it:
1. The amount of tourists. I have never, ever been surrounded by so many tourists in my entire life (including Times Square NYC, Ginza in Tokyo and Sydney Harbour). I could not get away from them no matter where I went - I was constantly being herded around like cattle (and I spent a whole afternoon attempting to explore the back streets . I felt like the entire city existed purely for tourism and the tourists greatly outnumbered the locals. And they weren't cluey tourists like in Tokyo they were the 'hold a giant map in front of my face while I walk through a crowd and scream for my American wife' tourists.
2. The food. Again, purely for the tourists. I had been learning Spanish the whole year and so knew a few things about Spain. There's no such thing as a tapas restaurant. Good paella isn't advertised etc. It was all bog standard food (I was expecting that tapas bars were found more in the North of Spain). I did go to Tickets Bar which was excellent (and not very expensive).
3. The beach. Rubbish. And again, full of tourists.
4. The people. The few times when I managed to communicate with people who weren't tourists they seemed dejected and irritated. Was abused by wait staff in some of the most popular tourists areas because I did not speak sufficient Spanish (despite their menus being in English). The 25% unemployment rate may have been the cause but I was expecting Spaniards to be passionate, fiery, energetic people. Those I found were just existing, purely to serve the hordes of tourists flooding through the city and didn't seem to care about anything.
5. La Ramblas. Was ready to be pick-pocketed, was ready for an explosion of sound, colour and sights. What I got was a street filled with junky souvenirs, overweight Americans sipping oversized margaritas during the never-ending 'happy-hours' and bored tourists wandering aimlessly looking for something interesting.
I felt like the IOC picked Barcelona to host the Olympics because it was interesting and undiscovered because of its Gaudi architecture so the city made a huge infrastructure investment and got the city 'ready' for tourists and now it's easy for tourists to visit because its set up for them but all the culture moved out when the tourists moved in! The only time I felt like I saw any kind of passion or culture was when we went to see parts of La Merce festival which we stumbled across in a park near our apartment. We didn't know anything about it (because it wasn't pitched at tourists) but had an excellent time there as there were no tourists and we got to see some real Spanish music, dancing, culture and food (and heard no English at all).
Admittedly 7 days is a long time in a city like that but I would never go to Barcelona again. There were lots of cities in Europe I loved (Paris, Stockholm, Mykonos etc) - is there something wrong with me or is this a true description of the city everyone raves about?
