I just got back from Barcelona. We stayed in a nice apartment between Las Ramblas and Barri Gotic.
We accidentally timed our stay to coincide with La Merce, which is a HUGE festival lasting nearly a week. We managed to catch a couple of parades, Els Castellers and plenty of local dancing.
We also managed to check out La Catedral (very cool and free), La Sagrada Familiar (lifts broken and the stairs were too scary too attempt - pricey unless you really like watching cathedral builders ), the Picasso Museum was cool - I never realised he did such good portraits, my favourite work of his is hanging at the UN HQ in new york iirc.
It was nice to get away from work and the net and computers for a week, I even managed to avoid british newspapers for a week, although I attempted to keep up with the news on spanish TV, which reminds me - barcelona has a population of 4 million and has its own TV channel, which was pretty good, london has a much bigger population and no TV channel and nothing to match the parties that barcelona can throw.
