Eixample, Barcelona from the air

“It was around 7-8 years ago when I first stepped into the world that is Barcelona. I didn’t exactly choose a great time of year to visit (it was December) and I wasn’t staying in a particularly touristy area (Gràcia), but nevertheless I ended up falling in love with the city, making it my eventual home.

It’s funny, because over the past 7 years the city has seen the economy go from an all time high to a low. The first restaurant I ever ate at in Barcelona is now closed, many new shops have replaced old ones that just couldn’t make it… A lot has changed… Yet the city is always the same as I remembered it the first time I came here. I call this effect the Barcelona Charm.

So how can you experience Barcelona Charm; a memory of the city that carries on like a flowing story, as if you never left, each time you visit? Maybe if you experience the city the way I have, you’ll see what I mean. Read the rest of this article…

Tarannà, c/ Viladomat, 23

“She is lovely. She is flirtatious. She is passionate. Others call her Barna. Or, mistakenly, Barça, which only refers to the football club. Or, shortened, BCN. But I don’t call her by her nicknames. After several years of being together I began taking her beaches for granted, I got bored with her modernist buildings and I was not quite sure where things were heading. To beat the seven-year itch I moved to another part of town. There I discovered new eating-places. Barcelona knows the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

My perfect date in the city is on a sunny day in June. When I wake up in the morning some raindrops fall. Then the sun starts to shine like it is already summer and I have a late breakfast at Tarannà (c/ Viladomat, 23). Tarannà is the Catalan word for mood. And this place with a brick wall on one end, Parisian metro tiles on the other and vintage furniture certainly brings me in a good mood. I usually choose sweet muffins to accompany my glass of breakfast orange juice, but their savoury sandwiches are also really appetising. Read the rest of this article…