Barcelona

Barcelona is a grid with its corners cut off: Ildefons Cerdà drew the Eixample in 1859 as an endless field of chamfered blocks between the old walled city and the villages on the hills, and into it Gaudí and his rivals set their sandstone dreams — the dragon-backed Casa Batlló, the wave-fronted Pedrera and, still rising after a hundred and forty years, the Sagrada Família, whose towers finally near their tips. Below the grid, the Gothic Quarter keeps the medieval tangle and the Ramblas run to the sea; above it, Gràcia and Park Güell; to one side, Montjuïc's hill; and along the bottom, since the Olympics of 1992, a working beach that a working city uses.

The traveller books the Sagrada Família for the first slot of the morning and stands inside the forest of stone as the light comes through; walks the Passeig de Gràcia for the facades and the Eixample for the corners; loses itself in the Gothic Quarter and finds the cathedral's cloister and its geese; eats at the Boqueria before eleven; climbs Montjuïc for the MNAC and the view, or Park Güell for the salamander and the roofs; swims at the Barceloneta and eats rice on the sand; and gives an evening to Gràcia's squares, where the city drinks vermouth outdoors as if it were a right.

The Guide's honesty: Barcelona receives more visitors than it has patience for, and the tension is real and fair — book the monuments ahead, avoid the Ramblas at night except to cross them, keep the phone and the bag close in the crowds, and spend money in the neighbourhoods rather than at the icons —; the summer is hot and full, and the shoulder months are the city's own; the metro is excellent and the taxis are honest; the Catalan language is the city's, and a 'bon dia' is noticed and returned; and none of this diminishes the fact that this is one of the great cities of the sea.