"Barcelona - check it out!" a Barcelona Travel Page by Harold_Godwin

Barcelona is a city I know well. I've visited three times as a tourist. I lived there for two years, and I go back regularly to look up friends.

It is a good choice for a short city break. Cheap flights from the UK to Girona (an hour's coach ride from Barcelona) by Ryanair, or to Barcelona itself by Easyjet make this possible without breaking the bank.

So what does Barcelona have to offer to tourists? I've set out what I see as the main strong and weak point below:

STRONG POINTS

- Gaudi architecture, as well as buildings by Domenech i Montaner.

- A relatively compact mediaeval and 18th century old quarter.

- A decent climate (but not mid-Summer - when high temperatures and humidity make the place unbearable - and not in the early Autumn when torrential rains provide a scaled-down version of the Monsoon).

- Prices that are still about 15% lower than in the UK and most of northern Europe (but far from being the bargain Spain of yore).

- A generally relaxed social atmosphere.

WEAK POINTS

English is not spoken very widely or well - incredible bearing in mind 15% of the city's income comes from tourism. The Spanish school system and insular media bear much of the blame for poor language skills.

Noise. A densely populated city with 500,000 scooters and motorcycles (many of them without silencers). The locals are naturally noisy and seem oblivious to the problem. If you have sensitive ears, this city is not for you.

Lack of city squares. Much of Barcelona is laid out on a grid iron pattern. The original plan was for small public parks inside each block. That was swiftly forgotten and those spaces are now taken up with workshops, ramshackle buildings, and garages. Montjuic, Collsorola and a few small parks offer the only respite from hot city streets.

Poor information and signposting. Another amazing oversight for an economy largely based on tourism. Things are getting better but it is a slow process.

Hell for non-smokers. Spain lags miles behind most of northern Europe when it comes to smoking concerns. Your chances of finding a non-smoking area in restaurants are very remote. Poor ventilation in many places means you are likely to end up eating your paella in a thick fug.

An unbearable climate in late July and August. Temperatures usually soar into the upper 30s and low 40s (Celsius) and relative humidity can reach 90%. More than flesh and blood can stand.

I have just come back from a visit to Barcelona, so this is hot off the press. I visited the city's Forum of Cultures - a 141 shindig on the themes of Peace, Sustainable Development, and Multiculturalism - all very worthy topics. But the whole thing is a disaster - little more than a very expensive stunt to suck in tourists.

For a kick off, the setting is awful - an industrial wasteland. It's built over a sewage plant and right next door to a power station and a waste incinerator. It's ringed by ugly get-rich-quick property development and is just a stone's throw from one of Barcelona's poorest and most dangerous ghettoes.

All this might be forgiven if the content was good. Instead, it's a kind of post-modernist Disneyland full of naive audiovisuals about the world's problems. Greenpeace and Amnesty are boycotting the event in disgust. I recommend you do the same - there are lots of more interesting ways to spend your tourist dollars in the city.

I'll post to the 'Tourist Trap' category in due course.