Yeah, Barcelona is raved about by many that visit, but does it cut the mustard, or rather can it, given the many indescribably pugent odours that permeate all places within the city?
Walks down the back streets in the Barri Gotic show you a city full of chique, well decorated places and peeps who actually look cool, arty and interesting- unlike around Hoxton. Barce seems pull this off without ending up looking pretentious and know-it-cool. So this is a major plus. That and the fact that you can get a beer for less than £1.50 served by trendy looking waiters and waitresses who don't give you the supercillious impression that they are actually just doing the job to get by and are in fact in the middle of writing a novel, producing art or directing a film, the likes of which you could only aspire to. You know what I'm talking about- it's annoying even when in the rare case it may be true.
However, for all this chique boutique street feel, there is the ever present aroma produced by those who couldn't be arsed to find a bar or public toilet (ha ha ha, there aren't any fucking public toilets) and had to relieve themselves in these dark alley ways. This would be ok if it was done in the same get-your-willy-out-at-the-back-of-a-kebab-shop-and-piss-serrupticiously-with-no-one-being-the-wiser way that we do it over here, but in Barce there are no such alleys. The alleys are the roads. This means that you are pretty likely to find some bloke with his knob out pissing in the street.
Okay, still not sounding that bad. Imagine, your feeling rough, you're hung over having gone to a REAL SEXY PARTY and you are trying to navigate the streets on a hot day, but you are blinded by a literal haze of yellow vapour streaming up everywhere round you like pugent serpents of the devil willing you to wretch your bacon sarni all over the place. Not pretty.
In conclusion: Barce is wicked, but beware the piss and pack one of those surgical masks.
Have you had an experience slightly tainted by the 'natural aromas' present in an area, if you have, I would like to hear from you.
Cruely
menhir
The aroma is ever-present in other localities of Barcelona. They have a very open sewage system under those designer drain covers. It is the same in the coldest of weathers I can assure you. I was given to understand that it was worse in December than it had been in the previous Autumn!
Apart from that, watch your purses, wallets and saleable goods like cameras, video cams etc. The pickpockets are skilled artists at their trade. The harder side, which there is, true muggers, also operate effectively and leave a great deal of distress in their wake. Law and order is not well-enforced in Barcelona, it is at the level of tinkering; highly superficial stuff.
Sadly, the decent Catalonians are highly embarrassed by this particularly darker aspect of their city life. It is a beautiful city with so many interesting things to experience and discover.