We packed up things in Barcelona after what seemed like six eventful days, rented a couple of cars, and made the three-hour trip to Languedoc, in France. The north of Spain and the south of France have much in common, linguistically, culturally, historically. But they seem very different to me. Let me count the ways.

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  For most of the people who live here, and perhaps even a higher fraction of tourists, Barcelona never needed to make a comeback. But my wallet was stolen here, and I was inconvenienced by a wildcat transit strike, and I was a bit down on the place. It rallied today, in a couple of […]

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I first saw the Sagrada Familia basilica/church, what there was of it, in 1992, during a break (for me) at the Barcelona Olympics. I remember leaving with two impressions:

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I knew about Barcelona’s dire problem with pickpockets. No overview of the tourist experience in this city is complete until it mentions it. Do a Google search for “barcelona pickpockets” and hundreds (thousands?) of results come back. Among the titles: Barcelona “Worst City for Pickpockets” … Barcelona’s Fatal Flaw: Pickpockets … And one entire site […]

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It just worked out this way. In Barcelona around the weekend of October 7, when FC Barcelona and Real Madrid were scheduled to play. A colleague writing about the match. Me mentioning I was going to be in Barcelona. His note that he knew someone who might have tickets. My inquiry … And there we […]

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Back to B-Town! Don’t really need an occasion to visit Barcelona, but we have one: The 50th anniversary of the wedding of Leah’s parents. We went west from the UAE and they came east from Los Angeles … And it involved one major surprise:

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