Ten things I’ve learnt in five days in Barcelona

1. Barcelonans love all things organic

Recommended: Woki Organic Market

2. Affordable food is everywhere
Recommended: Macchina, Origens, Veg World India

3. Wednesday is cinema night
Four euros for any film. Be warned, long queues!
Recommended: Cine Verdi

4. There’s an English language bookshop a three minute walk from my apartment that stocks a wide range of non-fiction and fiction.
Recommended: Hibernian Books, Carrer de Montseny 17, 08012

5. Catalan flags are everywhere!
Hanging from balconies, pasted onto lampposts and graffitied on walls.

6. Flamenco rules!
A packed out and intimate performance at Flamenco Barcelona featuring an hypnotic cantaor y cantaora, a tight three-piece band and a spellbinding bailaor.
Recommended: Flamenco Barcelona, Carrer Progres, Barcelona

7. Protest lives!
It seems wherever I go, protest follows me.
See: Stop Pujades Transport

8. Gaudi is great
So say the hundreds who queue to visit the master’s work.

9. Sex is out in the open
Billboards for call girls and escort services (sorry, no pictures, but they’re there on the motorway driving out from the airport into the city centre).

10. Do believe the hype
Barcelona is rightly known as the capital of culture and is called “inspirational.” For once, this isn’t just marketing flan.