BROWSING IS BLISS IN BARCELONA.

Julia Gasper. Friday, 04 January 2008

I used to think that Barcelona was in Spain. However, having been there I now know that it is in Catalonia. Catalan signs, Catalan food, Catalan museums and Catalan history – they even had their own kings. Picasso was not Spanish, or even French: he was Catalonian. And the Catalonians have their own take on paella – they make it with very fine spaghetti and call it fideva. It still tastes just as good.

City of boutiques.

Barcelona definitely has the air of a capital city. It’s not just the sunshine and the longer days that lure people here for a break in the winter. Nor is it the new rail link to Madrid, since getting to Barcelona by plane is easy and absurdly cheap. The city is spacious and architecturally frisky, full of domes and statues, cheerfully painted or stuccoed facades, surprising and imaginative new buildings and Gothic or Romanesque masterpieces almost side by side. There is a tube train system, but the temptation is just to walk everywhere so you don’t miss anything. The older parts of Barcelona seem to consist of hundreds of narrow streets lined with boutiques, cafés and bars, where pedestrians can wander for hours, just window-shopping or amusing themselves. If you wake up tomorrow and find that all your jewellery has been stolen, go to Barcelona. I’ve never seen a city in the world so preposterously over-stocked with jewellery stores. The leather goods, antiques and knitwear are also browse-worthy. You don’t have to buy anything to enjoy yourself. Just revel in looking.

Stupendous array.

As for the covered food-market, it lives up to its reputation as one of the great markets of the world. It is stupendous. You could not imagine a grander array of meats, fish, bread, cakes, herbs, vegetables, flowers, fruit, nuts and every sort of produce, under one single vast roof. Everything is fresh, unpackaged, unadulterated, and inconvenient. They have skinned and gutted the rabbits for you, what more do you expect? When you get back to England and see supermarkets selling ready-made porridge in plastic bowls for a pound a time, you wonder what is really meant by progress.

In Barcelona they favour a sort of cascade style of Christmas lights, usually in gold or white. Hundreds of little blue lights sparkle in the trees. In the middle of the city, in front of the municipal hall, they put out a life-size Nativity scene, with Mary, Joseph, babe, shepherds and angels all grouped among the palms and orange trees of the city square.

Art and omelettes.

The Picasso museum, made by joining three old mansions into one, gives an insight into his gradual development and the stages he went through on his way to creating the famous masterpieces. From tiny drawings to vast canvases, everything is meticulously described and explained, though usually in Catalan. The National Art Museum (yes, it calls itself national) has a huge and really major art collection. You need three days and a pair of trainers or open sandals to do it justice. From the terrace in front of it you get a view all over the city, right across to the coast and the harbour, spires, domes, skyscrapers, and blocks of all sizes.

It really is mild enough in December to sit outside at lunch time, in a sheltered enclosure, overlooking the spiky marina. The cafés put their tables outside in sheltered city squares, even in the evenings just before Christmas. The whole city is bursting with restaurants, and those overlooking the sea are really excellent for fish and shellfish. But somehow the best experience in Catalan food is still, for me, the tapas bar. You may think that a set meal in a restaurant is good value compared to the tapas bar. Not necessarily. Tapas vary a lot in price, and if you choose carefully you can get a good meal sharing half a dozen tapas between two people. Tapas are tasty and have the essentials in them: meat, fish, cheese, olives, slabs of omelette and roasted pimentos are favourites. Another advantage is being able to get decent wine by the glass. So you know what you are drinking without having to buy an entire bottle all at once. In one tapas bar in central Barcelona, they served kebabs of three large, fat shrimps grilled in garlic butter for just three euros a throw. I could dine on a plateful of those quite happily.

Troubadours of the tapas bar.

In another tapas place, we had an unexpected extra. After we had finished our meal, and were on the point of leaving, the waiter, a tall, lean, dark young man, picked up a guitar and started playing, He strummed a mixture of famous classics and improvisations. Meanwhile one of the customers, presumably a buddy of his, who happened to have his saxophone with him, joined in. Soon they were deeply immersed in a real jam session. It was amazing. I really don’t expect anybody to believe this. They went on playing for nearly an hour and they were terrific.

The next day we went back and noticed the same waiter was not there. They told us he was busy giving a performance. Luck like that is unrepeatable and if you want to dismiss this as a traveller’s tale…well, I understand why.