Or, ‘How Julie hopscotches the brief altogether and rambles off on a total tangent’

A panoramic view of Barcelona from Tibidabo

“First off, I have to make a confession. Rob invited me to write my version of a perfect Barcelona day many moons ago, and it’s taken me an oddly long time to get my finger out and actually produce it. Yet I love writing, and I love writing about Barcelona, so why the dilatory tactics?

Well, apart from the plangent bawl of “it’s such a perfect day…” (god I hate that song) resounding in my thalamus, I think it’s that I’m struggling with the whole concept of perfection. It’s a concept kindred with fluency. Mention its name out loud and you’ve broken something sacrosanct.

Or maybe I’m over-thinking this. Hmmm. Bear with me here.

I tend to see the best of Barcelona, I’ve noticed, when I’m with other people. When I look back over the last year, highlights always involve some kind of shared experience. It could be workmates down the pub on a Friday night, a party on the beach till 5am or just those fleeting instants that end up shifting all sorts of dubious paradigms. Then, I imagine myself standing up on Tibidabo looking down over the city, viewing the cityscape through a kaleidoscope. Read the rest of this article…

CosmoCaixa Barcelona

Posts were a bit thin on the ground last week. In fact they were non-existent. I had my family here. Six of them. Three adults and three children. All in my flat. And I invited them. I know!

So writing a blog post was pretty low down on the list whilst organising showering times was pretty high up. But all joking aside, it was great to have them here.

But what to do with them?

With ages ranging from 8 to 80 it can prove tricky finding something that they all can enjoy. My mum likes a church – Santa Maria del Mar, the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia, the Sagrada Família and Santa Anna (a tucked away church I will tell you more about another time). We trod them all. And the kids? Well they would spend a whole morning in Happy Pills if they had their way.

But for anyone with a similar dilemma I highly recommend you go to the CosmoCaixa Barcelona near Tibidabo. Read the rest of this article…