According to a report in elPeriódico, the Catalan government has proposed classifying 438 buildings from the 19thand 20thcenturies as assets of national or local interest (up from only 81 today).
The proposal would redress the disproportionate representation of the Modernista movement on the existing list: Gaudí, Montaner, and Cadafalch account for 30 of the 81 works listed today.
Currently, buildings from 1850 to the present with protection as a Cultural Asset of National Interest include 36 corresponding to Modernism, 17 to Noucentisme, nine to Rationalism and none to Postmodernism or the School of Barcelona.
The new list aims to protect 130 works of the School of Barcelona, including the Olympic buildings.
Under the new list 141 buildings from 1981 to 2000 would be protected, 150 from pre-war Rationalism and post-war Rationalism, 43 buildings aligned to Postmodernism, 40 in Noucentisme and 37 in Modernism.
In a recent Guardian article, Stephen Burgen argues that Barcelona has been ruined by tourism.
You couldn’t disagree that the queues for the tourist sites can be long, despite the opportunities for online bookings, nor that La Rambla is an overcrowded mess full of tourist tatt stores, nor that La Boqueria can be difficult to navigate and is increasingly about ‘juice bars and assorted take-aways.’
Not everyone in Barcelona welcomes tourists
But.
If you travel off season, you can generally book tickets to attractions online and completely skip queues. La Rambla may be a little overwhelmed with tourist crowds, but ducking down a side street – particularly in the El Raval direction – you’ll find a community with its own unique culture and feel. (Oh, and there are some decent restaurants to be found on La Rambla, though they are, admittedly, uncommon). And despite having to fight through the camera-toting tourist hordes, you can buy some excellent fresh fruit, vegetables, seafood, meat and supplies at La Boqueria (I’m assuming fresh rabbits don’t count as assorted take-aways).
In short, tourism has affected Barcelona and the way people live, but life goes on.
Residents have adapted to the onslaught in various ways.
Almost none of that adaptation includes the major tourist attractions: how frequently do you think Barcelona residents want to visit La Sagrada Familia and Casa Batlló? Do Parisians visit the Eiffel Tower on a regular basis? Surely the only difference the crowds make is to tourists themselves and traffic flow in the immediate vicinity. Don’t want to get caught up in the queues at Casa Battlo? Don’t go there. Easy. And if you really need to get a Gaudí fix without the crowds, try some of the less well-known attractions such as Palau Güell.
Probably not locals
The same is true of La Rambla – personally, I do my best to avoid the place, though there are some plant sellers with more range than any other suburban places I’ve found.
La Boqueria is a difficult one – going early is a good start, and the stalls that serve the tourists tend to be at the entrance, so are pretty easily avoided by entering from the sides or rear. That’s where you’ll find stalls like the amazing Bolets Petràs, specializing in all things mushroom, but also featuring a stunning selection of edible flowers and baby vegetables. This is not a tourist-focused business. And there are plenty more.
And while paella in ‘a startling shade of chrome yellow’ is a sad reality, the dining scene in Barcelona is otherwise incredible, and arguably the city couldn’t support so many fabulous restaurants without tourism.
Interestingly, Burgen argues (or maybe the sub-editor does, it’s hard to know) that Barcelona was ‘of the coolest destinations in Europe just two decades ago’, which reminds one of the standard backpacker trope that any destination was much better before it was ‘discovered’.
The crux of that trope is that we travellers, as opposed to tourists, have secret knowledge and are pioneers out in the big wide world ‘discovering’ new destinations, rather ignoring the fact that people already live in most of those destinations (never mind; they’re but bit players in this delusion). It was a sad and tired trope before low cost airlines and mass tourism, and it is well past time to retire it.
But I will concede a point. I first visited Barcelona around 20 years ago (okay, maybe more like 30, but don’t tell anyone lest I be accused of ‘discovering’ the place), and did feel a sense of excitement about what I experienced. The difference? Technology.
Travellers today are slaves to online rankings. If you want to get a taste of Barcelona without the mank, simply skip the top 10 ‘sights and landmarks’ on TripAdvisor (or at least be prepared to find crowds at these attractions).
Unfortunately, the on-line-listicle culture does filter into the less-travelled lane. I started to notice queues forming near a favourite local restaurant (Arume) around its opening time, and it took me a while to figure out what that was going on. Somehow it has managed to take the top spot in TripAdvisor for being the best restaurant in town for paella, and thus the queues.
Compared to the ‘chrome yellow’ mush that passes for paella in most tourists places, Arume’s is actually quite good, but it’s hardly the best paella in town; TripAdvisor contributors are pretty easily led. It’s the other food at Arume that wins it for me. The bright side is that by the standard local 10pm dinnertime most tourists are already heading back to their hotels.
If the culture of unqualified recommendation in the lifestyle media wasn’t already bad enough, TripAdvisor takes it to a whole new level (there’s a whole other blog post in this).
And there is another side to my argument – as a serial expat I know that even when you live in a place it can be hard to be seen as anything but a foreigner. But if you have some cultural sensitivity, you may well be welcomed despite that (and again, there’s another blog on the way!).
Behaving badly as a tourist doesn’t help – and Barcelona has more than its fair share of badly-behaved tourists. But despite that onslaught, Barcelona’s character is alive and well; you just need to do what the locals do and navigate away from them to find it.
Hotel Arts is like a bookend to Barcelona’s main beach, with the W at the other end. Arts is a long way from being the cheapest accommodation in town, but for foodies the price may be worth it – two-Michelin-star Enoteca Paco Pérez is in the building – and the service and views across the Med can’t really be matched.
The W Barcelona stands alone…literally. All the design flair you expect of the W brand sits at the end of Barcelona’s main beach. Whichever way you look there’s a view. Something of a new Barcelona icon.
We like a boutique hotel. And we like the rugged terrain (and wines) of this part of Catalunya. So a new 5-star hotel in a 12th century monastery at the foot of Montsant sounds rather tempting.
Terra Dominicata features 26 rooms and a restaurant, in a peaceful location on the edge of Montsant National Park. I suspect we’ll be visiting before too long.
The private house of a wealthy industrialist, Palau Güell represents an early Gaudí commission. A fascinating insight into the lives of the one-percenters of the time, and less crowded than the other Gaudi buildings on the tourist trail.
Not the rodent-loving Disney, dummy – disseny is Catalan for design, and as Barcelona is a design hub, a museum of design is a fairly obvious choice. From furniture to fashion, decorative arts to graphic design, there’s plenty to see here. The Museu del Disseny also serves as the venue for some travelling exhibitions (we caught the brilliant ‘David Bowie Is’ here), so keep an eye on the schedule.
Call it a catch-all for contemporary culture – we try to get along to the annual World Press Photo exhibition, but it is probably worth keeping an eye on events for when you’re in town.
Buy the Barcelona Museum Pass or Art Passport and gain priority entry to Fundació Joan Miró, the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB),the Museu Picasso, Fundació Antoni Tàpies, and Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), and avoid the queues.
The Palau de la Música Catalana is a spectacular modernista concert hall designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner. It’s well worth taking a guided tour, or better still, do that and also attend a performance – there’s plenty going om throughout the year, and if the show’s a bit dull there’s always the magnificent stained glass skylight to wonder at.
