Barcelona City Guide
Starting out in Barcelona
Barcelona has become a beacon for the modern lifestyle. The quality of life here is high, with good food, fine weather, the sea and the mountains and a beautiful dynamic city all combining to provide the ultimate refuge from the hectic lifestyle offered elsewhere.
Plaza Catalunya
Most people begin their tour of Barcelona at Plaza Catalunya, and this is a great place to start. From here people generally head in either up or down to begin their tour: Down the Ramblas, towards the Port area or Up through the shopping districts of Eixample.
The main tourist office is located here, as are central terminals for the bus and metro, there is even a connection to the local railways here for heading out of the city.
Barcelona by Night
Shows, bars, discotheques, concerts, terraces
and popular fiestas are just a few of the choices
that the city offers for enjoying the Mediterranean
night. By night Barcelona provides exciting
cultural activities, entertainment and leisure
for all tastes.
For those in search of an enjoyable night out on the town, the problem might be choosing what would be most to your liking from among all that Barcelona has to offer. To start off, you could drop into one of the city's many champagne or cocktail bars. The night, however, might also begin at a good restaurant, choosing from among a wide and varied range that includes authentic food from around the world, in addition to the traditional Mediterranean cuisine of the city.
For dancers, everywhere around the city are found discotheques, clubs and dance halls. For those who prefer to enjoy their music without having to move their bodies, the best thing to do is head off to one of the city's many live music clubs, offering almost daily shows in every style, from jazz and blues to African music, classical and flamenco. Visitors who feel the need to express their own musical talents can try out a karaoke club. Nor should we forget about other attractions of Barcelona by night: the theatre, the cinema.
Barcelona Museums
With the idea of being the city's true cultural
driving force, the museums of Barcelona
programme all sorts of activities, from
temporary exhibitions to itineraries and
workshops, offering attractive ways to
discover their historic and
contemporary collections.
The museums of Barcelona house a very valuable heritage, and the conservation and popularizing of that heritage, encouraging different sections of the public to get to know it by means of exhibitions and hands-on activities, is their primary function.
This is the context that underpins exhibition ventures such as the cycle Mediterraneum at the Museu d'Història de la Ciutat, which presents the Mediterranean as a space of cultural interchange, and the exhibition París-Barcelona, produced in collaboration with the Musée Picasso in Paris. In addition to displaying their own collections and hosting a wide range of temporary exhibitions, the museums also run a huge variety of activities: itineraries and evening visits, workshops for schools, courses and cycles of lectures and live music are coming more and more to configure the idea of the museum as a driving force of the city's cultural dynamic. The museums work to define differentiated types of provision oriented at specific audiences, and organize programmes such as Summer in the Museums and Christmas in the Museums.
The level of public response is one of the keys to success in the ongoing task of improving the city's museums. The number of people who visit Barcelona's fifty or so public and private museums each year is currently running at 7 million. Of particular note in terms of number of visits are the Museo Picasso (with its important collection of the painter's work, in addition to temporary exhibitions), and the Fundación Joan Miró.
News
Gallery
for more information on Barcelona go to www.bcn.es
articles and photos courtesy and copright www.bcn.es unless specified otherwise
Barcelona Key Information:
| Currency | Euro (EUR) |
|---|---|
| TimeZone | GMT +1 |
| Country Tel. Code | +34 |
| Bank Hours | Generally from 8:30 h to 14:00 h with extended afternoon hours on Thursday. |
| Electricity | Standard 220V 50hz, with 2-pin plugs |
| Languages | Castellano (Spanish), Catalan. Some English Spoken. |
| Single Fare | 1.20 (On Bus and Metro) |
| Coffee | Between 0.90 and 1.20 EUR. |
| Lunch Menu | Between 7 and 15 EUR. |
| Airport | +34 932 983 838 |
| Fireman | 080 |
| Emergency | 112 |
| Police | 092 |
| Citizen Information | 010 |
| Chemists | +34 934 810 060 |
| RENFE (Trains) | +34 902 240 202 |
| Medical Emergencies | 061 |
| Taxis | +34 934 811 085 |
| Tourist Office | +34 932 853 834 |
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