Sunday in Barcelona, and the Gothic Quarter is doing its best impression of a human river. I am not complaining. I knew this was Circuit week, with something like sixty thousand visitors pouring in for the big LGBTQ+ club festival. The Plaça de Catalunya interchange being shut for works is not helping, so everyone is walking. I am walking too, because my metro line is half a memory with the L1 cut and the L9 shafts, and sometimes the pavement is faster than the replacement buses.
I let the crowd carry me past the Cathedral, its Gothic spires grey against a sky that cannot decide if it wants to be blue or just hazy. A couple of guys in festival wristbands are taking selfies with a pigeon. The pigeon looks unmoved. I weave into a side street where the noise drops by half, and the sun, which had been pounding the square, suddenly has to work through narrow canyon walls of old stone. This is the Barcelona I came for. The one that still smells of damp medieval walls and yesterday's coffee.
I have a coffee at a little place near the Palau de la Música Catalana. Not the concert hall itself, just a corner bar with a noisy espresso machine and a counter of pastries that look older than the building opposite. A café con leche sets me back about two euros, and I watch a man in a crisp white shirt read a paper and occasionally glance at his phone. He is here every day, I decide. He is the permanent antidote to the temporary flood.
The Palau is a UNESCO-listed gem by Domènech i Montaner, and even from the street you can see the mosaic pillars and the wrought-iron balconies that look like they are about to sing. I do not go in. I have tickets for something else later, and the August queue outside is a solid wall of branded caps and bottled water. I make a mental note to book ahead online for anything inside. It is the only way.
I am heading for the Picasso Museum. I have seen the queue snaking around the block on Carrer de Montcada before, and today it is a patient, sun-baked serpent. I have booked online, as you absolutely should, and I flash my phone at the door and walk past the line. Inside, the five medieval palaces swallow the heat. The rooms are cool, the light is low, and the work is all early Picasso. The blue period, the harlequins, the raw skill he had as a teenager. It is strange to be so close to the beginning of a century of art.
I stand in front of a painting of a woman with her hands clasped. No, I do not know the title. I do not need to. It is the quiet that gets me. Outside, the city is vibrating with bass and festival fliers, but in here, everyone whispers. The museum passes, the minutes pass, and I am not thinking about NIE appointments or bank accounts or the price of a flat in Eixample. I am just looking.
When I come out, the sun has won. The sky is a pale white-blue, and the air over the port is shimmering. I am hungry. I am also thirsty, and I have a plan. I am walking down towards the water, into El Born proper, and I stop at a bar that does not have a name on the door, just a chalkboard offering vermut and tapas. I order a glass of something cold and a plate of patatas bravas, and I sit at a table with a view of the street. The bravas are about five euros, the vermut maybe three. It is a lunch, and it is a ritual.
This is the thing about August in Barcelona. The tourists fill the Rambla and the Sagrada Família, but the residents who can leave, leave. The flats are empty, the locals have gone to the coast or the mountains, and the ones who stay are running the bars and the bakeries and the metro. I am starting to see the skeleton of the city beneath the festival skin. It is a city that knows how to do a long lunch, a long dinner, a long anything. The Spanish have a word for it: sobremesa. The time spent at the table after the food is done, just talking, just being. I am not Spanish, but I am learning.
I decide to walk it off towards Barceloneta. The August sun is a hammer, so I duck into the shade of the narrow streets, past the laundry strung between balconies and the old men playing cards on crates. I come out at the beach, and it is a wall of bodies. The sand is packed, the sea is a grey-green soup, and the lifeguard whistles are in constant use. I do not swim. I just stand and watch the waves, and I think about how this whole shoreline was remade for the 1992 Olympics. They brought in sand from Egypt, they built a brand new neighbourhood, and now it is one of the most famous urban beaches in the world.
I buy a cold bottle of water and sit on a wall near the port. The harbour is full of tourist boats, their horns making that low, mournful sound. A few gulls are screaming over a spilled bag of chips. I watch a family try to build a sandcastle in the wet sand, and the tide keeps taking it. It is a good metaphor for something. I am not sure what.
I walk back through Barceloneta towards the old town, and I am thinking about the practical side of this whole adventure. The bank account is nearly sorted. The NIE application is a process, and I have a cita previa booked for later in the week. I have been told, and I will believe it when I see it, that once you have the NIE, everything else unlocks. The empadronamiento, the padron, the little piece of paper that says you live somewhere. That is the key to the city, apparently. Every service, every contract, every medical appointment, it all wants that padron.
I am about to cross a busy junction when I see a familiar face. It is the man from the bar with the white shirt. He is not wearing the shirt now. He is in a faded t-shirt and shorts, and he is walking a small, determined dog. We nod at each other, the way people in a neighbourhood do. He lives here, I think. He is not a ghost. He is the city itself, out for a stroll before the evening begins. It feels like a small victory, being recognised, even in passing.
I stop for a proper dinner, because I have earned it. I find a place near the port called La Lolita Barcelona. It is a bit more than tapas, a proper sit-down meal with a glass of wine. The menu is Mediterranean, the room is noisy in a good way, and I order the esqueixada, a cold salt cod salad, and a plate of croquetas that are creamy and golden and gone in about three bites. The bill, with the wine, comes to about thirty euros. It is not a cheap dinner, but it is a good one. And I am learning that I would rather pay for good food than for a better view sometimes.
After dinner, the night is still warm. I walk up towards Passeig de Gràcia to look at the Modernista facades in the evening light. Casa Batlló is glowing, its shimmering mosaic roof like a dragon's back, and La Pedrera is a stone wave about to break. These are the icons, the postcards, and they are magnificent, even when you are jostled by the crowds. I do not go in. I have been before, and the queues are criminal in August. I just stand there and look, and I remember that Gaudí was not just a mad genius, he was a man who built for the city he loved.
I am tired. My feet are the kind of tired that you only get from a day of walking on stone, and I am ready for the metro, if it decides to cooperate. I take the L2 from Universitat, which is running, and I am back in Poblenou in twenty minutes, door to door. My flat is a box of warm air when I open the door. I turn on the fan, open the window, and the street below is alive with the sound of people enjoying the evening. I am not in the bed yet, but I am on the way.
I am also thinking about the eclipse. The twelfth of August is nine days away, and I have been told it will be visible from northern Spain. I am not sure if I will be able to see it from Barcelona, the path might be a bit further north, but it is something to watch for. Maybe I will get a glimpse, or maybe I will just feel a weird shift in the light. That is the kind of thing you remember, even if you do not see it perfectly.
I am lying on my bed now, the fan turning, and I am thinking about the day. I walked through the old city, I looked at Picasso, I ate well, and I have started to feel like this place might actually let me in. Not as a tourist, but as a resident. It is a slow process, a lot of paperwork, a lot of walking, and a lot of patience. But today, in the quiet of the Gothic Quarter, in the noise of the market, in the salty air of the port, I felt a crack in the door. A tiny, almost imperceptible shift.
And that, I suppose, is the real travel. Not the postcards, not the queue for the museum, but the moment when the city stops being a backdrop and starts being a place you could live in. It is a feeling, and it is worth every form, every appointment, every euro spent on coffee and patatas bravas. I am going to sleep now. I have more walking to do tomorrow.
This is Mateo, in Barcelona, reminding you that the best way to see a city is on foot, with a cold drink and an open schedule. Hasta la próxima.
I am going to sleep now. I have more walking to do tomorrow.