Barcelona! This is one of the great cities of the world. It's not huge, but it's well run, enormously varied, fun and beautiful. This is Catalonia. Though Spanish is spoken here I think the Catalans don't see themselves as "spanish'. After the cruise we stayed here for a couple of nights to wind down and enjoy the old quarters near the port. The primary road north from the port - the Ramblas - was in the middle of a long remodeling and was a traffic nightmare, but the street restaurants and vendors didn't care - they just set up and worked around it all. These quarters have survived remarkably well with commerce at ground level and living apartments higher up. A lot of strong feelings have emerged as outfits like AirB&B eat up space that residents w ould like to live in but the city is handling it - mostly by imposing a painful 'tourist tax'.