Barcelona
Barcelona is split up into multiple barrios (neighbourhoods), each of which has a slightly different character. They can be roughly split between the old town (Ciutat Vella) and the new town.
The Neighbourhoods
There are four parts to Ciutat Vella:
El Gótic (gothic quarter)
This is the tourist centre of Barcelona, equivalent of the West End. It's lovely to walk about it, but gets busy. It's the bit of the old town to the north of La Rambla, and south of Via Laietana.
El Born
This is where we used to live. It's a bit less touristy than Gótic, and has a lot of lovely bars and restaurants. La Vinya del Senyor is an incredible wine bar overlooking Santa Maria basilica, and the bacon dates at Ziryab might be the best thing I've ever eaten. It's the part of the old town north of Via Laietana, and is one of our favourite parts of the city.
Barceloneta
This is technically part of the old town but doesn't look like it. It has the beach, marina, and basically nothing else. The parts that aren't the beach are a bit shit.
El Raval
El Raval is the part of the old town to the south of La Rambla. There are some good bars and restaurants there, but my advice is usually to avoid it. If you heard a horror story about someone having a bad time in Barcelona, it probably happened in Raval.
There are also a few parts of the new town worth visiting:
Poble Sec and Sant Antoni
This is my favourite part of Barcelona, and where we always stay when visiting. If we moved back, we'd try and live here. It's super central, but a bit less touristy. Carrer del Parlament is where we first stayed in Barcelona, and is one of the coolest streets for bars. Carrer de Blai is also amazing, and has loads of pintxo bars (a basque variation of tapas).
Eixample
This is the city centre part that's not the old town. Passeig de Gràcia is here, which is Barcelona's version of Oxford Street. It also has the Sagrada Família, which is incredible to visit if you haven't seen it -- even if you just walk past.
Gràcia
This is a nice, more chilled part of the city. It's a bit hilly, but has some good restaurants outside the city centre. I would never usually go there, but not for any good reason. The Gaudí park (Parc Güell I think?) is here, which is great. It was just far away from where we lived and slightly uphill, so we didn't go much. I think the science museum is there (it's definitely near there), which is well worth visiting: it's the most interactive museum I've been to, so is very kid friendly, but generally it's just a really fun museum.
Poblenou
This is the best part of Barcelona if you want to go to the beach then stroll to a nice restaurant. It's a bit out of the centre, but one problem with Barcelona is that the parts near the beach are usually a bit shit, they're either super fancy and you'll pay £50 for a slice of bread, or they're just not very nice at all. Poblenou is the exception to this.
Touristy Daytime Things
Below is what I think are the biggest tourist attractions in Barcelona:
- Sagrada Família
Going to Barcelona and not visiting it is like going to London and not visiting the Houses of Parliament. It's the most famous thing, it's an incredibly stunning piece of architecture, and they've been building it for nearly 150 years. It's such a monument either to humanity's ambition, or humanity's hubris, depending on your perspective. In 2020 they ran out of limestone in Catalunya, so have been using stone from Yorkshire to finish construction.
- Castell Montjuïc
There's a funicular and a cable car up from Diagonal in Poble Sec. The castle is pretty nice, but the best part is the views of the city you get from up there.
- Tibidabo
The mountain at the back of Barcelona. You can get up there by a funicular, and it has the most amazing views of the city. There's a big church on the top of the mountain that you can see from basically anywhere in the city, and for some reason there's an amusement park next to it. There's some good hiking around there if that's your thing.
- Plaça d'Espanya, lower Montjuïc and the Olympic Park
This has some beautiful buildings, a big art gallery, and the old olympic stadium. I never really explored round this part, as the first time I went there it was the hottest day ever and I got heat exhaustion, so just associate it with that!
- Parc Güell
Gaudí's park. It's really pretty, a bit weird, and has some really good views. It's worth visiting if you have time.
- Arc de Triomf and Parc de la Ciutadella
These are both really nice places, and would definitely check them out if I was nearby, but I don't think they're necessarily worth going out of your way for. I might be a bit jaded because I used to walk past them every day to go to the gym.
A Three-Day Itinerary
If I were going for three days, I'd probably do the following:
Day One
Spend one day on the beach and by the marina, and spend the evening in El Born, visiting La Vinya del Senyor in the early evening, then eat at Ziryab, then go Mariposa Negra for cocktails.
Day Two
Spend the next day going up either Montjuïc or Tibidabo, possibly starting at Plaça d'Espanya if I was doing Montjuïc, then I'd hang around Poble Sec in the evening, eating and drinking on Carrer de Blai, and probably making my way towards Parlament.
Day Three
Spend the final day walking around mostly central. I'd check out the Barcelona Cathedral, walk around some of the small streets around Gòtic (and maybe Born), before walking up to Plaça Catalunya. I'd then jump on the metro to Sagrada Família, walk around that (and maybe go inside?), then head down to via Arc de Triomf and go to H Bar for food. Then I'd get a taxi back into the centre, going for drinks either in Born or Poble Sec, depending on where I was staying.
Restaurants
The best pasta we've ever eaten (and we've been to Italy a lot!) It's like £5 a plate, a really no frills restaurant, but it's absolutely mind blowing. I dream about this place.
Directly under our old flat. The bacon dates are the single best thing I've eaten. It's middle-eastern spanish fusion, they serve Palestinian lager, and they specifically hire deaf people.
The street has loads of Pintxo bars, which are the Basque version of tapas. Everything comes on bread with a toothpick in it, and they count up your toothpicks at the end to charge you. Really good for a relaxed drink with some food. I usually end up in Pincho J, but only because that's the first one I went to.
Standard spanish style cuisine. We used to go here a lot, but mostly because it was really close to our flat. I soft recommend. Good if you want paella and steak.
Pretty authentic feeling spanish food. The sort of places the locals will go to. Good tapas!
Fine dining, tasting menu type food. Really nice, but very expensive.
Bars
Absolutely beautiful wine bar opposite a cathedral. If this was just someone's house it'd still be worth visiting because of how beautiful it is. The oysters are great as well.
Olja's favourite bar in Barcelona. They make incredible cocktails, in handmade pottery cups. They'll even try to sell you the cup to take home with you.
These are Barcelona's two "best" cocktail bars. I think I prefer Mariposa, but that's because you have to queue for both of them. I don't think we ever made it to Paradiso, but Dr Stravinsky is very good, if you're serious about cocktails.
If I wanted to watch sports, this would be my go-to place. It's an Irish bar in Spain, so you know what you're getting. If that's for you, I think this is the best one. I think if this pub was in the UK, I'd occasionally go.
A fun rock bar. Relatively chilled out, although I always get this place confused with the rock bar by Glasgow Central, so take from that what you will. I had a couple of fun nights in here though.
Fun little bar playing lots of 90's britpop and the like.
A really cool metal bar, but a bit dodgy. Like it was a bit of a weird vibe when we went there, so I'd be careful, but I could also see you having a great night in this place. It feels weird to recommend, but I think if I was in Barcelona with friends, I'd risk going there, but it didn't feel like the safest place in the world.
And in general anywhere on Carrer de Blai or Carrer del Parlament. I don't have a specific recommendation because we'd just go in whichever one looked good at the time.