Blog
My time for backpacking travel has well and truly past, the economic accommodation options have moved over to leave space to more comfortable and mostly private hotel rooms at the very least. The thought of sharing a shower with strangers doesn’t quite cut it when I organize my holidays nowadays. What was perfectly normal as a student when travelling was all about adventure on a budget is now a distant memory that I cherish dearly. Hostels are great for young people and budget travelers. There are plenty of good hostels out there; the important thing is to choose the right one for your needs. Always put cleanliness and safety first, there are many sites online that help you do just that. Hostel World is a good portal as it covers hostels worldwide and is even available as an iPhone App and Android App making available more than 25.000 hostels at your fingertips. Hostel rooms are not just dorms, those are just the cheapest option, and hostels also offer private rooms with en-suite facilities. Barcelona is a popular destination with young people and like most big cities offers a huge range of hostels. You can stay as central as La Rambla for less than 10 Euros a night! This kind of money obviously buys you a bed in a shared room, but if you need your privacy then 25 to 30 Euros per person per night will get you a private room to share just with your friends or your partner.
Blog
Budget Travel
Romanesque. New display
The MNAC preserves the world’s most important and varied collection of Romanesque art. Highlights include the ensemble of mural paintings taken from churches in the Pyrenees. These include one of the masterpieces of world art: the apse of Sant Climent de Taüll. The reorganisation of the Romanesque art displays began on 15th November 2010 when the galleries closed to the public. They reopened on 30th June 2011 and, in addition to highlighting the mural paintings, the new gallery layout also puts in the spotlight objects created using other techniques which Catalan Romanesque art excelled in, such as painting on wood and wood sculpture, and metalwork and gigantic stone sculptures. The new layout also describes the evolution of the collection and the techniques for removing mural paintings.
Devorar París. Picasso, 1900-1907
The exhibition traces Picasso’s artistic development from his arrival in Paris in 1900, where he discovered a thriving international art community, to 1907, when he had grown into a leading figure of the Parisian avant-garde. One of the most important aspects of the exhibition is that it shows the habitual traits in Picasso’s work. The artist was never an imitator, but he eagerly absorbed the discoveries and ideas of his contemporaries and the history of art to construct his own personal style. The show brings together some 60 works by Picasso in different media, and 20 more by artists such as Cézanne, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, Rodin, Steinlen and Gauguin in order to give an idea of the visual stimulus that Parisian life and art represented for Picasso during the first decade of the 20th century. The exhibition also features photographs and other documents about the Paris of the time.
Barcelona Design Festival
The Barcelona Design Festival is a major event that seeks to make the city the world design capital and centres on two core events: it kicks off with the FADfest Festival and ends with Barcelona Design Week, which runs from 17th to 21st October. These events will be linked by a whole host of activities, exhibitions and itineraries so that you can enjoy design in the city.
Barcelona's Patron Saint Festivities
As summer gathers strength and the warm weather settles in, many neighbourhoods and districts within Barcelona get ready for their own festivities. These are the traditional Patron Saint Festivities, which last for a few days and fill the streets with activities, music, concerts, dinners and games for the younger ones. This tradition is much loved by the people of Barcelona, as it allows for more interaction between neighbours and direct participation, all thanks to their pride for belonging to the same neighbourhood.
Don’t miss out the Barcelona's Patron Saint Festivities:
Sant Pere, Santa Caterina and La Ribera: from 23 June to 3 July
El Carmel: from 1 July to 10 July
Poble Sec: from 16 July to 24 July
Raval: from 14 July to 17 July
Gràcia: from 15 august to 21 August.
Sants: from 22 August to 31 August.
Poble Nou: from 9 September to 18 September.
La Mercè (Barcelona's great festivity): from 22 September to 25 September.
You’re not alone
In the first world, medical advances have allowed to improve the quality of life and the life expectancy of aids sufferers, however, it seems as though social rejection is still going strong. The Art Aids Foundation fights to change ignorance and prejudice through art. The exhibition "You’re not alone” has brought together the works of 14 artists who contribute towards getting rid of the stigma brought on by Aids, with an innovative view. Through the different works, we can contemplate the variety of views on this illness throughout the planet. Some of these works have been conceived specifically for this exhibition and they aim to fight against the illness and the prejudice it generates.
Pere Noguera. Archive stories
This exhibition puts into order a series of photographic and film archives which represent a view and a reading of an era, the period of the 1950’s and 1960’s in Barcelona, under Franco’s regime. Through the images of the artist Pere Noguera, spectators can discover a social memory which allows them to understand the reality of this period from a modern perspective. As he said himself; “Nothing dies completely, waiting to be read one day for another use”.
Palau Experience
The Palau de la Música Catalana now offers a new way to discover and experience its beauty. For the first time you’ll be able to walk on the stage in the main auditorium and see the Palau through the performers’ eyes while raising a glass of cava to the muses around you. The guided tours will be a unique 50-minute experience. In the afternoons and evenings in August you’ll be able to visit the Lluís Millet room and enjoy the grandeur of the concert hall from the balcony. This is an exclusive experience, a modernista toast to a unique concert venue.
Dansalona
This will be the second Dansalona event, a showcase of culture that puts Barcelona and dance in the spotlight and sets out to share experiences and emotions with the universal and varied language of dance.
Dansalona combines events and performances in open-air and indoor venues, offering a quality and prestigious programme designed for everyone: a celebratory initiative that invites the public to interact in a variety of spaces with a wide-ranging selection of different dance disciplines, including flamenco, tap, folk, country and eclectic dance performances for family audiences. This year will be the first time Dansalona will be working with dance workshops. Performers will be opening their studios to give the public an insight into the creative process. Another initiative will be a joint project between the Mercat de les Flors and the Teatre Lliure: they will be playing host to an activity combining film and dance in the Plaça de Margarida Xirgu with free admission. La Caldera, in the Gràcia district, will also be taking part in this new series of performances.
All the indoor entertainments will be staged at the public and private theatres that are part of Dansalona.
Dansalona combines events and performances in open-air and indoor venues, offering a quality and prestigious programme designed for everyone: a celebratory initiative that invites the public to interact in a variety of spaces with a wide-ranging selection of different dance disciplines, including flamenco, tap, folk, country and eclectic dance performances for family audiences. This year will be the first time Dansalona will be working with dance workshops. Performers will be opening their studios to give the public an insight into the creative process. Another initiative will be a joint project between the Mercat de les Flors and the Teatre Lliure: they will be playing host to an activity combining film and dance in the Plaça de Margarida Xirgu with free admission. La Caldera, in the Gràcia district, will also be taking part in this new series of performances.
All the indoor entertainments will be staged at the public and private theatres that are part of Dansalona.
San Miguel Mas i Mas Festival
Perhaps more than any other festival, the San Miguel Mas i Mas is the most wide-ranging and open musical event in the entire country. There’s something for everyone, from night owls who are looking for the electronic, heavy sounds of rock, and those who look to classical music as a source of serenity and cultural enrichment, to those who want to be bewitched by the freedom of expression of jazz. More than 150 concerts at different venues guarantee the diversity of this, the ninth festival. This summer in Barcelona, you’ll be able to choose from the superb 30 Minutes of Classical Music at CX La Pedrera or black jazz at the Jamboree, one of the city’s historic jazz clubs. You’ll also be able to discover the unbridled strength of flamenco at the Tarantos Club and enjoy the modernista beauty of the Chamber Hall at the Palau de la Música Catalana which hosts the Palau 30’ season, building on the success it enjoyed last year. A new addition to the line-up is the Moog Rock Club, a venue showcasing the latest in rock. The scheduler has also added a tribute to one great musician and composer, the trumpet king Miles Davis. The first concert will be held on 31st August at the Sala Apolo, and feature a superb big band made up of top Catalan jazz performers.
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