Life in Barcelona

I have just moved house in Barcelona and I have been lucky enough to land in the trendy, old town, El Born district, behind the city cathedral! The one big problem about living in Barcelona is how many TEMPTATIONS there are, with regards to shopping!

You need to take care of your money in this city – as you are likely to spend it! Barcelona is on its way to becoming one of the top shopping capitals in Europe. In contrast to London, Berlin or Amsterdam, Barcelona is not only fashionable and trendy but, in my opinion, it also offers much more reasonable prices! I like Barcelona´s love affair with small speciality stores, as opposed to larger chains of shops selling the same things. The city´s obsession with originality and design is echoed in the incredible number of new, cool shops! No-one seems to open a shop which is not trendy or stylish, even if it is just a small butchers selling home-made catalan sausage!

The narrow streets of El Born are amazing and the shops and boutiques are diverse and charming. El Born offers shopping alternatives to the big brands and the area is in fact still not widely known as a shopping area, which makes it all the more tantalizing to stroll around the quiet winding streets and to discover small shops, new labels and innovative designers.

As well as trendy clothes and accessories, some of the city´s best Tapas bars and Restaurants can be found in the small streets of El Born and I can´t wait to try them all out one by one. A famous bar amongst foreigners and locals alike is ‘Cal Pep’. It’s almost always crowded and you have to wait in line as they don’t take reservations, but it´s worth every minute! You sit at the bar and the food is cooked fresh in front of you.

Other areas of the city, like the ‘Barrí Gotic’ (Gothic Area) invite you to combine shopping and culture. Here there are many historic buildings and local museums in amongst the shopping possibilities.The Roman centre of Barcelona accommodates numerous bizarre antique shops, small bookstores and young fashion designers. Or you can go to ‘El Raval’ if you are looking for music stores, second hand shops, or alternative clothing. There is a large international population in this district which results in an eclectic mixture of foreign supermarkets and international clothes shops. My favourite is the Scandinavian style Snö Mito Nórdico, who have 2 concept stores for clothes, beauty products and design objects imported from Scandinavia! I feel in the mood this weekend to shop until I drop. When you move house there are a lot of things you suddenly need to get!

- Hege -

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 8th, 2007 at 3:58 pm and is filed under Food & Wine, General Barcelona, Other, Shopping, Things to do. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.