Having married into a family of cradle-to-grave Barcelona supporters, el Barça is naturally one of the main threads in the tapestry of my life here. My sons were carted to the Camp Nou almost before they could walk and talk. During summers in the mountains, I drove 15 kilometres of hairpin bends every day to [...]

The part of Barcelona I most love is the seafront: the whole shebang, from Maremagnum to Diagonal Mar. I love walking down Avinguda Joan de Borbó early in the morning when the sea sparkles. The seafront is the outing of choice with friends and visitors, the perfect escape from computer-bound life in the Eixample. The [...]

I’m not really into nostalgia wallowing or grumpy-old-woman rants. True, in my first years here, the Rambla wasn’t overrun by stag and hen parties in ‘Quiero Cerveza’ T-shirts—and there was no Starbucks! Huge trucks roared straight through the city along Aragón and the Avenida del Generalísimo (aka Diagonal). There was no ring road, much of [...]

In view of the mega debacle at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 last week, and the chaos last summer at Barcelona’s Aeroport del Prat, we can only wait in trepidation to see what happens when the new Terminal Sur opens in 2009. It’s already behind schedule. According to Aena, the Spanish airport authority, (I translate) “The new [...]

Back to the frenzy that is Barcelona in its normal state. I wake to the roar of engines and machines in our patio de manzana and go to the balcony to check. Oh great! They’ve come to clean off the obscene graffiti that appeared over the holidays in the playground below.
Later, mid morning, I [...]