 Hospital Sant Pau / In Las Ramblas |
 by Philip Game
They’re native-born Spaniards but their first language is Catalan, not Spanish. For what it’s worth, the bullrings have fallen into disrepair.
Once the capital of an independent kingdom, Barcelona is above all a European city, greater than the sum of its parts. The promise of another crisp winter’s day quickens the senses, a feeling in the air reminiscent of London or New York. Classical music emanates from a recumbent bundle of rags on a park bench… even the derelicts have style.
A treasure-house of visionary art and architecture, the Catalonian capital has been home to Pablo Picasso and to Salvador Dalí, to Antoni Gaudí – creator of the unforgettable and unfinished church of Sagrada Familia – to the Surrealist film-maker Luis Buñuel and to lesser-known visionaries like Lluís Domènech i Montaner, creator of the phantasmagorical Palau de la Música Catalana.
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