Barcelona Goes 3D

This week the City Council announced that it was going to create a brand new website making visitors to the site able to view the whole city of Barcelona directly from their computer. It's a kind of google maps/Microsoft Virtual Earth idea, but better. At least from the advance press releases on the site, the new virtual Barcelona includes an enormous amount of detail, and you can even go in and out of certain buildings.



We'll have to wait until next year before the site is up and running, but the benefits are even stretching as far as the local Fire Brigades who would be able to see the structure of a burning building on the site before arriving and having to asses the site of the blaze. Local or new businesses could check the area for developments, etc. Tourists can check out the street their apartment or hotel is located on, and what else is around. Film-makers can see real-time locations in outstanding detail. The ideas and possibilities are endless, and the graphics look amazing.



Barcelona Media and the city council are presenting the project at the Barcelona Globalgeo which is running at the moment at the Fira de Barcelona at Montjüic.



The project boasts the possibility of viewing over 120,000 buidlings with 250 specific buildings in greater detail. It certainly looks like it'll be the new cool thing to come out of Barcelona. And the ad revenue it could create is also huge (no plans yet, I'm assuming!).

For cheap Barcelona accomodation try looking at studio apartments in the city. Also, read up on the city with this great Barcelona tourist guide.

Great things to do in Barcelona for FREE - Part 3

OK, well, maybe I should re-post this as "Great things to do in Barcelona for less than a Euro" as this is not strictly a free activity, but for 70 cents, you can't complain...

Montjüic mountain in Barcelona offers a great escape for families and anyone really wanting to escape the hustle and bustle of Barcelona. There are some fantastic views of the city from up there, as well as the Olympic Diving boards, Botanical Gardens, A Cactus park, the Greek theatre and the Miró foundation, and of course the cable car ride up to the top of Montjüic castle.

Barcelona's tourist bus stops at various places in and around Montjuic, but as I'm trying to offer some money savers for the coming months, then I can highly reccomend taking the Funicular de Montjüic.

The Funicular is a bit like a train, but it's pulled on a cable and while one goes up, the other goes down. Funiculars are used to climb inclines and can be found at the back of Barcelona at Tibidabo and also on day trips outside Barcelona at places like Montserrat.

It's a fun way to get half way up to Montjüic and if you can get a seat at the front, you'll see the oncoming train as you go up/down - the trains are without drivers, and controlled solely by the cable.

The Montjüic funicular leaves from Paral·lel metro station, on the entrance next to Carrer Nou de la Rambla. It's included in the metroploitan transport area, so it can be used as one trip if you arrive from the station from elsewhere (you don't need to pay again, just walk straight through, as if changing lines on the metro) and if you arrive there on foot, you can just use 1 trip on a T-10 journey card which is the equivalent of 70 cents - so come on guys, almost FREE?!

Don't forget, you can also make considerable savings on accomodation choices in Barcelona with cheap apartments to rent in Barcelona instead of going for the more traditional hotel rooms, for example.

Modern Art? Don't Ask Me!

Regular readers will know how much I like Barcelona Graffiti, and that I consider it a great way to spruce up some of the terribly drab alleys and shutters around Barcelona's old town and the other neighbourhoods, too. For me, those talented guys and gals are the real modern artists. Check out this really cool no parking sign at Calle Angels I spotted the other day.



It's the old Ghostbusters logo, which has been adapted for the no parking sign. Classic, and always something to make me smile.



Now let's compare that to a recent trip of mine up to Montjüic and the sculpture garden next to the Miró Foundation. It's the first time I'd been in the garden and it's just behind the Greek Theatre, a little walk along from the Funicular. It has to be said that there's not a great deal in there, and if I didn't know that it was supposedly the sculpture garden, I would have had no idea this is supposedly "modern art" - ok, maybe the metal plaques with the artists' name and title of the work could have been a giveaway.



Just to whet your appetite, there is a tiled roof on the floor, a trolley with some glass being transported somewhere and a rather large concrete triangle with some blue paint splashed down it (yes, that's my little boy running around in the picture). I have a cringing suspicion that these all probably cost a fortune and were unveiled in some fantastic ceremony a couple of years back - please tell me I'm wrong if anyone knows!! Now I don't pretend to understand anything about art, and more so if it's "modern" like this, but I'll tell you one thing - give me the ghostbusters no parking sign anytime!!

Like what you're reading? Please leave me a comment and let me know!

For more information on Barcelona, see this cool Barcelona guide and for accommodation in Barcelona look no further than BCN Rentals.

The Coolest 7 square metres in Barcelona

Barcelona's old town surprises me all the time. I've touched before on some funky old town art galleries and wanted to share another one, which is perhaps a little more famous than the last one I wrote about.

7metros is a great space offering some cool expositions, and is located on Carrer Riera Alta, 60-62 This is the space at the front of buildings often used by some of the more innovative residents, who have macro-shops selling jewellery, bags, or other small necessities.



The idea behind 7metros, is that the space is a mere seven square metres, and if you check the web link above, you'll see some of the previous entries.

This week being Carnival accross the world, it was no surprise to see a festive filling to the 7 square metres. The window had a display with "María Escoté" and a coaster for "Le Swing". Cool.



Anyone else seen some cool fillings of 7metros? Please share below, I'd love to hear about it.

For more information on Barcelona, check out the Top 10 Barcelona Museums and don't forget apartments for families in Barcelona.

Great things to do in Barcelona for FREE - Part 2

Following on from my previous post about great things to do in Barcelona without spending any money, today's post is all about the Magic Fountains at Montjüic.


The fountain was build as part of the Universal Exposition, held in 1929, and is a water fountain which "dances" to music. There are various "shows" which last around 20 minutes, and have different music (sometimes strange choices - the Barcelona song made famous by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé and Celine Dion's my heart will go on?!). It's a great way to spend an evening in the summer, for example, and there are often fire jugglers between performances and things like this. I always feel like a little kid when I go and see them!

For times and other information, see the city's official website here.

Comments welcome as always guys, and for more information on Barcelona, see this great Barcelona Guide. Also, for your accomodation needs, I reccomend trying apartments for groups in Barcelona as a great alternative to hostal bunk beds.

English Hair Salon in Barcelona

So, let's go back about 9 & 1/2 years. I picked up an English magazine in a pub (might have been "Metropolitan", can't remember if it was around then?!) and saw an ad for an English hair salon - "Don't let your Spanish come between you and your hair!" by Anthony Llobet's hair salon. This was a God-send for expats like myself, and I of course made the call. I went up to Gracia, off Fontana Metro station, down a street and up a couple of flights of stairs into Anthony's apartment, which was well kitted-out with certificates from London and Germany, as well as some cool paraphernalia of Barber's shops around the world.


Things have moved on a lot since then, and Anthony now has a great salon - still in in Gracia - which has become something of an institution, as well as a cool salon in the old town Raval quarters, an Eixample Salon, and a new place in El Borne.


As far as I know, Anthony's the only guy in Barcelona who specialises in a "foreign" hair salon (his stylists are from Scandinavia, Germany, England, Spain, Barcelona itself, etc.) so is offering a great service for the thousands of foreigners living and indeed visiting Barcelona. I can highly recommend the salons (and no, I'm not getting paid to write this!) and have been using Anthony's Raval salon since it opened - even since my Spanish has been good enough to go to any old Salon anywhere. They're great professionals, and the salon itself is very cool (see images here!).

Anthony has salons in:

GRÀCIA - C/ Ros de Olano, 19 - Tel: 932 180 449 Mobile: 639 931 555

RAVAL - C/ San Pau, 122 - Tel: 934 413 177 Mobile: 645 257 506

EIXAMPLE - C/ Corcega, 364 - Tel: 934 574 211 Mobile: 691 330 188

BORN - C/ Carders, 34 - Tel: 932 954 871 Mobile: 645 257 628

Like what you're reading? Please comment below, and let me know your opinion if you've used Anthony's salons.

For accomodation, why not try apartments for rent in Barcelona as a great alternative to a hotel room. For more information about the city on a whole, see this great Barcelona Guide,