The longer you leave it before going to Barcelona, the more likely you are to have to ponder the question: 'Was Gaudí a saint?' when you get there.
Earlier this year, after pressure from devotees, the Vatican agreed to assess Spain's most famous architect, Antoni Gaudí i Cornet (1852-1926) for canonisation. Saints must be more than just holy - they need to enact miracles, and so the search is on for a miracle or two. So far there is little for his supporters to boast of - a man who found a job the week after his wife prayed in Gaudí's unfinished church of the Sagrada Família is about the extent of it.
Devotees point to his great piety and the fact that for the final 15 years of his life he devoted himself to the church, working and sleeping there, and existing only on bread and water. Some consider Gaudí's work miraculous enough. Others joke that the fact that it survived the civil war unscathed might be considered a kind of miracle. George Orwell thought the Sagrada Família an abomination that the partisans should have destroyed.
Helpfully for the pro-canonisers, the city of Barcelona has designated 2002 the year of Gaudí, though it is hard to see how Catalonia's beloved son could be given greater official or commercial prominence than he already enjoys.
Gaudí was not always as pious or abstemious as he became in later life and, if his secular buildings are reflections of his personality, he must once have been witty, romantic and sensuous. Used to mixing with avant-garde poets, artists and musicians in his youth, Gaudí also attracted the patronage of the newly rich city merchants for whom he built what some call eccentric follies and others works of grace and genius. As he barely worked outside Barcelona, he has become identified with the city and you can see almost his entire oeuvre on foot.
More and more of us are choosing to visit Gaudi's city: British Airways Holidays has revealed that it sends more visitors to Barcelona than to Paris, previously its top European city. If you are one of those taking a short break, you must make an early decision about time. Dividing your waking hours into one-third Gaudí, one-third eating and drinking and one-third shopping is a possible mix. But remember, if your trip includes a Sunday, shops and many restaurants are closed, making this a good day for visiting La Sagrada Família and further-flung Gaudí delights such as the hilltop Parc Güell, planned as an Art Nouveau garden suburb.
Make sure to raise your eyes from street level: We saw an unexpected facade by Gaudí's follower Lluís Domènech i Montaner, whose famous works include the Palau de la Música Catalana, among other less heralded exteriors and interiors. To our surprise, too, the rundown but clean Hotel España which we had booked by telephone, turned out to contain Domènech mosaics and a mural by the artist Ramón Casa.
A walk up the Passeig de Gràcia (which runs north-west from the Plaça de Catalunya) combines all three activities. This is the Bond Street of Barcelona with wonderful bargains to be had at a half or a third of London prices. Here you will find, suitably interlaced with bars and coffee shops, fine Spanish shoes, accessories and superbly cut women's clothes from chains such as Adolfo Domínguez.
In the same street, in just one small section, between the turnings Consell de Cent and Aragó is a string of modernist buildings by Gaudí and contemporaries. They include the Lleó Morera mansion by Domènech; two buildings by Enric Sagnier; and the neo-Gothic Casa Amatller, a mansion designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch. Next comes Gaudí's Batlló house with mosaic façade and its Disney-esque operatic balconies (which Gaudí described as a 'vision of Paradise'). Across the street, a little further up, is the famous Casa Milà also known as 'La Pedrera', an undulating vision of what looks as if it must be cast concrete but is in fact carved stone.
Barcelona is a city for walking and autumn and spring are the best seasons to do that. In the evening you can promenade and pose along the Ramblas avenue as Barcelona's citizens have done for decades. On a Sunday morning you can watch the performance and mime artists, some camouflaged as stone and metal statuary. You could spend three days just taking side turnings off Las Ramblas, with its flower and sweet stalls and, sadly, caged songbirds.
Stop for fish tapas in the market bars - half way down from Plaça Catalunya on the right-hand side and buy cheese and small green peppers for frying to take home.
Another foray would be through the Barri Gòtic, the old Gothic quarter. Stop off here at Plaça Reial to see one of Gaudí's first ever commissions - street lamps for the City of Barcelona. That year, 1878, Gaudí had just finished his diploma and would have been 26. The city used his design (hallmark Gaudí with ornate yet clean modern lines) but did not commission anything further. Still, what British city is today asking 26-year-old architect graduates to replace its dull street furniture?
If, around seven or eight o'clock, you find yourself near the seaward end of the Ramblas and your English body clock is claiming dinner then it's a good time to hunt tapas. It is still far too early to sit down to serious Catalan dinner and you will get bad service or indifferent food if you try. Head for Plaça de la Mercé, along the last left turning off Las Ramblas before the main seafront road. From here walk down the Calle Mercé. You will find the Bodega la Plata at no 28 on the right hand side.
Last year, the Guardian nominated this tiny bar the best in Europe and they may be right. When we visited out of season, it was busy, certainly, but despite the recommendation, the clientele was still almost all local. The tiny tiled (and sawdusted) parlour can seat only about 12, while a further dozen can hover around the two-metre bar and spill into the nar row alleyway. The price of a plate of sardines (the only thing being served when we went) and a glass of wine served from one of three barrels was about £2.
Fifty yards further down the same street on the opposite side is a bar with no name where surprisingly tasty barrelled cava is even cheaper - 150 pesetas or 60p a tumbler. The bar with no name has what you may mistake for a stuffed parrot outside until it springs terrifyingly and noisily to life the minute you cross the threshold. A jamon and bread tapas here makes a decent lunch.
For a more serious meal return to the Barri Gòtic or if you are feeling adventurous cross the sea-front road and head down a spit of land called Barceloneta, the old harbour area, crammed with brightly lit and slightly expensive fish restaurants. But in the back streets, which once housed dockers, we found Can Ros, a restaurant which served wonderfully adventurous seafood dishes including arròs negre, a delicious black (from squid ink) rice dish for around £5.
If you exhaust shopping and eating you might after all want to try the full Gaudí experience at the unfinished church of the Sagrada Família. Even those uncertain about its child-like overblown grandiosity, find they are moved by the exquisite detail of its vaulting and animal statuary and carvings. The museum inside with good archive pictures of the beginning gives a sense, too, of Gaudi's utter excitement and total involvement with the undertaking.
Gaudí worked on this project for 42 years, starting in 1884. At first he combined it with his most adventurous secular work. Eventually he devoted himself entirely to his church. In 1926 he was run over and killed by a tram, supposedly on his way to mass (an important detail for his canonisation hopes). So derelict and eccentric had he become that the 74-year-old architect's body was not at first recognised.
Sainthood is a way off yet. The Vatican has a backlog of some 3,460 other candidates, including Mother Teresa. But - miraculously enough - 116 years after Gaudí first became involved, well-wishers continue to pour money into the completion of his fairy-castle creation.
Currency
261.25 pesetas to £1
Getting there
British Airways (0345 222 111) from Gatwick or Heathrow, weekend Friday-Sunday in September £176.96 plus taxes, purchased at least three days ahead.
easyJet (0870 6000 000) from Luton, weekend Friday-Sunday in September £190 but watch out for special deals. Cheaper flights midweek (£160 or £100 booked two months ahead)
Go (0845 605 4321) from Stansted, weekend Friday-Sunday in September, flexible fares £126 each way. Cheaper special deals often available
Iberia (020 7830 0011) from Heathrow, Manchester and Dublin weekend Friday-Sunday in September £197.70
British Midland (0870 6070 555) launches a new service from Heathrow on 1 November with fares from £119.
Getting around
Barcelona tourist information office in Plaça de Catalunya for maps and bus routes; guided walking tours (1,000 ptas) start from here 10am Saturday and Sunday
Metro and buses Both are cheap, modern and easy to navigate
Taxis are green and yellow with reasonable, regulated prices
Must see
La Sagrada Família Work continues on Gaudí's astonishing modernistic masterpiece (or fairytale Gothic horror if you prefer). Gaudí lavished loving attention on tiny details including those invisible to all but the angels. Orwell thought the structure 'hideous' and wished it had been bombed in the civil war.
Metro: Sagrada Família
Combine sightseeing with shopping on the Passeig de Gràcia, north-west off the Plaça Catalunya. Here you will find good quality clothes, shoes and leather goods, and plenty of fine pavement cafés to rest and admire the architecture, which includes:
Casa Batlló, Passeig de Gràcia, 43 A dramatic revamping of an apartment block that Gaudí undertook for a rich textile manufacturer, the house is still in private hands. Here, too, you can set Gaudí in his Art Nouveau context since adjacent to the Batlló is the work of two contemporaries: Puig i Cadafalch and Domènech i Montaner.
Metro: Passeig de Gràcia
Casa Milà ('La Pedrera'), Passeig de Gràcia,92 is Gaudí's last residential building and he would have turned this stone-clad apartment block into a cathedral given half a chance. The owner vetoed his plan for a bronze statue of the virgin with archangels on the roof so Gaudí made do with an early version of his famous spires by building chimneys capped by mosaics made with glass from cava bottles. Tours are possible most days and a shop sells high-quality Gaudí souvenirs.
Metro: Diagonal or Passeig de Gràcia
Parc Güell, Carrer Olot, is a bus or tube ride to the north-west end of the city. Take a picnic and spend a few hours in this Unesco world heritage monument. The park was intended to be a kind of garden suburb for 60 very wealthy citizens, but only two houses and a fine caretaker's entrance to the park were ever built.
Metro: Vallcarca.
Palau de la Música Catalana, in the Barri Gòtic off the Via Laietana was built in 1908 by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, Gaudi's contemporary who shared his enthusiasm for intricate and colourful mosaic. The best way to see this concert hall - as lavish inside as out - would be to hear a concert there.
Tel 00 34 93 426 18 75
Metro: Urquinaona
Coming soon
October
World music festival
October/November
Pocket opera festival Barcelona.
International jazz festival
10-19 November
International festival of visual and puppet theatre
Where to stay
Hostel Residencia Opera
Cheap (£35 for large room which could sleep two or three), Calle San Pablo 20 (off Las Ramblas between Plaça Catalunya and the sea). Clean and comfortable (with air conditioning) and near everything you will want to see.
Tel and fax 00 3493 318 8201
Hotel España
Moderate (£40 including breakfast - and mosaics by Domènech i Montaner).
Sant Pau, 9, off Las Ramblas. tel 00 34 93 318 17 11 34 email: hotelespanya@tresnet.com
Hotel Colón
Expensive at around £90 for cool grandeur opposite the Cathedral.
Avenida Catedral, 7
tel 00 34 93 301 14 04
Eating
For traditional Catalan food try El Gran Café in the Barri Gòtic. Eat for £15-20 per head in the café's elegant but bustling turn-of-the-century dining room. For the best fish go to La Barceloneta , the old port area. At Can Ros , Almirall Aixada, 7, you can enjoy Catalan dishes with good wine for around £15 per person.
Further information
www.barcelonaturisme.com
www.bcn.es/english/ihome.htm
Spanish Tourist Office, London: 020 7486 8077
