digitaldust

I´m in Barcelona right now (recovering from 3 nights of music festival) and I have to say it´s one of the friendliest and liveliest cities I´ve been too. The first thing I noticed was that there are sooo many cafe´s. Which is great for me cause I love everything about cafes… the style of food, the relaxed atmosphere, the social hubbub and most of all the coffee. When a cafe here gets it right, it gets it reeaally right on all counts. The decor in these places is spectacular, half the city´s population must be interior designers, every place looks hyper-designed, even the grungy ones look grunged up for effect. The other half of the city is just there to hang out in them, looking very cool wearing trendy clothes and sporting piercings and tattoos.

Barcelona is a very livable place, well at least I think I would be happy to live here. It´s also a more urbane place than I expected. I think it has the charm of an italian city but feels a lot more laid back, the people don´t seem to be trying as hard as the italians. Heather and I were also discussing that it also feels a lot like Paris, but not as big (obviously) and less formal; it just doesn´t feel like it has to make an effort to be elegant. All in all a great place, and well worth a repeat visit to go cafe crawling and tapas trawling.