Barcelona Under the Stars

There's a pretty smart initiative for the coming month - assuming the weather behaves itself. I've spoken before about some of the best places for a rooftop cocktail in the city, and really only touched on a few places. However, from the 3rd to 7th May you have the opportunity to step up to 36 of the city's best terraces (many rooftop) with a variety of different activities ranging from hip hop music, magic shows, cinema screenings, gastronomy demos to literature readings.



Launched via the Gremi d'hotels de Barcelona, the idea is to encourage the locals to take more of an advantage of the fantastic spaces throughout the city to go out for dinner and a drink. There is also a photography competition running throughout the 5 days for those with a fancy for snapping with prizes of ipod shuffle, camera and a night in a 4 or 5 star hotel up for grabs.

Funnily enough the first night is the return leg of the semi-final of the Champions League between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid. Barça look to have the tie pretty much wrapped up after Leo Messi's brilliant sparks of individual skill this week, but hey - pretty cool place to watch the match, right?! For a full programme of events and dates, see the website here. Do you fancy any of the nights? Let me know in the comments.

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Easter Graffiti Anyone?

It's been a while since I've posted about graffiti, but for those new here, it's worth mentioning that I quite like it. Not the scrawls and the tags left almost everywhere possible, and I'm not that impressed by those that are like transfers (although some are great - like real Banksy style) - I mean the real arty stuff that takes time, effort and real imagination and above all skill.

So with the week being Holy Week, and me having covered some of the cool traditions in the past such as the processions I didn't want to repeat stuff you'll already know, but have a lot of respect for this time, too. So when I saw the graffiti here below, I thought it might be (cheekily) appropriate to post.



It was raining, so it's a little bit blurred, but you can clearly see the "back from the dead" zombie theme and click for a bigger pic. Good Friday today, so maybe I'm posting a bit early as no-one has risen/come back from the dead just yet, but there you go. Not sure how long the work will last either, as the council are pretty quick in spending the public's money covering up some perfectly good stuff - but this is on a building site, so may be safe for a while. Thoughts? Leave me a comment guys.

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Copa del Rey Big Screen Or Not?

This evening sees the second of four encounters of FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid - the first being a 1-1 draw in the league on 16th April. Jose Mourinho has been heavily criticised for the way he went about the game, but has responded by being "not bothered" in typical style.



Tonight's game is the final of the King's Cup and obviously cannot end in a draw. The game is being played at Valencia's Mestalla stadium and tickets have been sold out for a long time. Barça are perhaps favourites with their record in the cup (25 wins) and their all-round football this season plus their slender lead in La Liga too.

I was alerted this week for plans of a Big Screen to broadcast the match at Plaça Catalunya, so imagine my surprise when the big screen today is displaying the note of "The match will not be broadcast" ?! Now, I don't know if that's because it was TV3 and the match is not going to be broadcast on TV3 or if the powers that be have really decided not to put the match on at all.

Unfortunately, FC Barcelona fans have a poor record of public behaviour (whether they win or not) and given the date co-incides with a huge influx of tourists due to it being Easter Week, maybe the authorities have decided against people being caught in the crossfire? There was no-one around to ask and check, so I'm unsure!!?

Let's hope for a great match this evening, much more open as points are not at stake, and another great dress rehearsal for the up-coming semi-finals of the Champions League featuring the two teams again.

Anyone shed any light on the big screen? Is it or isn't it? Seems a waste to set the whole thing up, then not show the match, right?!

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Las Arenas Finally Opens its Doors - Or Does it?

If you believe the publicity slapped across many of the buses flying round Barcelona over the past week or so, tomorrow should be a pretty important launch day in Barcelona. The white elephant that is Las Arenas Bull Ring at Plaça Espanya is (allegedly) opening it's doors tomorrow to the public.



If there's one thing that Spanish building companies do well, it's being very late with everything. Palau Güell's restoration seems to be taking longer and longer. The project over at Las Arenas was supposed to be finished years ago, too, and work was actually paralysed there for months while one company blamed the other at the height of the crisis.

So is it actually opening tomorrow? Well, according to the buses, yes, but there is almost no information online about this at all. In fact, I've been preparing this post for a few days due to me running out of time and having to go somewhere whilst researching. No images can be found of the launch publicity. And a google search throws up more job opportunities for new shops inside the place than anything else. I found the actual website by pure chance (it's not ranking for its own name which is bad news).



The place looks like it'll be great, with tons of shops and floors, cinemas, restaurants, gym, direct metro access and a rock and roll museum (?) amongst other things. The facade has been maintained, but is not actually the facade of the building and there's some kind of running track up on the roof if reports are to be believed.

Perhaps they want to quietly launch, in case it all goes wrong/isn't really ready. I've driven past there on a few occasions recently, and it certainly looks nowhere near being ready to be opened to the public (and let's face it, health and safety is not a HUGE deal over here). With a cost of over 80 million Euros and an already overdue date, maybe it's better just to keep it quiet and leave the fanfares for later? Anyone shed any light on the topic? Please let me know in the comments...

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Easy Champions Quarter Draw for Barça

The draw for the quarter finals of this year's Champions League has just been announced and looking at the fixtures, you'd have to fancy Barcelona to go straight through with pretty much no fuss - with no disrespect to Shakhtar. Here are the fixtures:


Real Madrid vs Tottenham

Chelsea vs Manchester United

Barcelona vs Shakhtar Donetsk

Inter Milan vs Schalke 04

The semi final draw would therefore be:

Real Madrid/Tottenham vs Barcelona/Shakhtar

Inter/Schalke vs Chelsea/Man Utd

Quick thoughts? A very tasty looking semi-final between Barça and Real looks likely - Guardiola has the enviable selection problem of having everyone fit apart from Puyol and Abidal at the moment, and I'll tip them now to definitely get to the final (although I would have done before today's draw as well!).

As for Chelski vs Man U - that's going to be a really tough one to call and will depend entirely on who turns up on the day. I fancy Chelsea, just because cracks seem to have appeared in Manu U recently and Chelsea already have the psychological advantage of beating Utd this season - a result which kind of kick started their season again. I'll stick my neck out and say Chelsea over the two legs to meet Barcelona in the final.

What about you guys? any predictions ? Please share in the comments below!!

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Press Panic for Air Strike OK vs Japan

A huge sigh of relief today for the tourism sector of Spain, but really the whole of Spain (which depends so much of the tourism trade) as an agreement has been reached over the proposed strikes of the air traffic controllers of Aena - Spain's public airport infrastructure.

As well as the chaos left from the volcanic ash of last year, Spanish air traffic controllers held the country to ransom with a random strike - a fact that went unnoticed in the majority of the European press. With tourism noting that the problems Israel had suffered earlier this year had begun to benefit Spain as well as the increase of foreiners visiting Spain each year despite the crisis, the announcement this month of the proposed strike in Easter Week, Summer and many other bank holidays and public holidays dropped like a bombshell and was widely reported in many newspapers, TV stations and websites around Europe with countries like Germany and the UK practically encouraging their citizens to go elsewhere.

So, what's the problem, then? Well, despite the strike now being called off, the column inches and TV stations are (quite rightly) giving non-stop information of the tragedy and possible nuclear disaster in Japan, and have no plans to dedicate time to clear the air - pardon the pun there - with news that the strike has been called off. Travel agencies desperate to save the Easter and summer holidays are fearing that it may just be too little too late with many European families already making alternative arrangements for their sunshine breaks.

So, if you're planning a trip to Barcelona this year, fear not!! and check out some last-minute Barcelona deals to save money. For a quick look at the city sights, see this Barcelona Guide.

And for the more serious problem happening in Japan right now, please donate here.