Life & Style

Aiming to control better the number of tourists visiting Antoni Gaudí’s famous Park Güell and to obtain revenue to pay for security and maintenance, a few months ago Barcelona City Council approved charging an entrance fee. Friday 25th will be the first day that visitors will have to pay for a ticket in order to access Gaudí’s monuments located in this park in the Catalan capital. The rest of the park will be open to the public as it used to be, without entrance fees. Up to Wednesday noon, 1,900 tickets had been sold for Friday, representing 23% of those available. In addition, the City Council delivered 25,000 cards for the park’s neighbours, in order to allow them access to the park’s entire area, including the zone where Gaudí’s monuments are located.

The acquisition of a parcel of land adjacent to Barça’s facilities in Sant Joan Despí (Greater Barcelona) will see the club’s training facilities, the ‘Ciutat Esportiva’ increase its size by 20%. FC Barcelona have bought a 26,811 m² estate immediately next to its current Masia and training fields, where Messi, Neymar, Iniesta and all the other Barça stars train on a regular basis. Currently, the parcel of land holds the tennis club ‘El Forn’. The cost of the acquisition amounts to €8,270,000, plus VAT, and it will be paid over a five-year period. FC Barcelona’s Director for the Economic and Strategic Area, Jordi Moix, will hold a press conference in the next few days to outline and explain the club’s purchase of the land.

Following a public tender, the Port of Barcelona has approved giving the private company Formentera Mar the construction and management of the city’s new yacht marina. The company will invest €30 million within the next 2 years to build moorings for 134 boats measuring between 15 and 40 metres long and a dry dock capable of storing 150 12-metre-long boats. Furthermore, the marina will have a restaurant, a viewpoint and technical facilities. It will be located next to the harbour’s north mouth, the Barceloneta beach and the W Hotel tower. The marina’s water surface will be 50,000 square metres. It will strengthen Barcelona as a cluster for the marine industry.

The Balfegó Group, which captures wild tuna to breed them and sell them to Japan, has launched a new ecotourism project: scuba diving surrounded by the Atlantic bluefin tuna, the world’s largest tuna species and a food delicacy. The ‘Tuna Diving Tour’ is located in L’Ametlla de Mar, on Catalonia’s Costa Daurada. Visitors sail by catamaran to the Balfegó Group’s giant bluefin tuna cages – situated in the middle of sea –, and then dive amongst 400 tuna, some of which are 2 metres long and weigh 250 kg. Each trip involves 20 visitors and they will receive a tour and learn about the process of catching and farming the endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna. The tour starts at 10 am, lasts two hours, and takes place every Sunday throughout the year.

FC Barcelona will contribute 30,000 euros to subsidise part of the cost of extending the metro’s operational hours in order to guarantee public transport to and from the Camp Nou for the Spanish Super Cup featuring Barça and Atlético Madrid. The football match will start at 11pm on Wednesday 28th August and will not finish until 1am. Barcelona’s underground transportation ends at midnight on weeknights and the Mayor had requested the Spanish Football federation (RFFE) to reschedule the match to an earlier time. However the RFFE refused and Barcelona’s Mayor, Xavier Trias, warned that they would not prolong the metro’s operational hours, with each extra hour costing around 30,000 euros.

Barcelona’s famous annual street festival, ‘Festa Major de Gràcia’ kicked-off on Wednesday evening with streets intricately decorated by neighbours and live music being played well in to the night. The event, in its 197^th year, draws an estimated 1.5 million visitors and has activities for all ages including: firework displays, ‘castellers’ - Catalan human towers, decorated streets and open air concerts taking place in 47 stages. It was traditionally a religious festival for locals of the neighbourhood, but for the last five decades it has become popular with Catalonians. Furthermore, in recent years, foreigners have also discovered it. Each year the festival begins on the 15^th of August and lasts for six days.

On Thursday, Europe’s biggest gay and lesbian event started and will receive an incredible 70,000 attendees from 50 countries around the world. The internationally renowned ‘Circuit Festival’, which is in its 6^th year, lasts between the 8^th and 18^th of August, and presents a wide reaching program of cultural, artistic, sporting and party activities. According to the event organisers, 70% of visitors come from abroad and during the 10 -day event they will spend a total of €100 million in Barcelona. Those attending the festival will stay in the Catalan capital for an average of seven days, and it is estimated that each visitor will spend €250 per day.

The Landscape of the Geniuses tourism project celebrates how the Province of Tarragona (south Catalonia) has influenced the work of four world renowned artists: Antoni Gaudí, Joan Miró, Pau Casals and Pablo Picasso. The route focuses on four municipalities in the Costa Daurada and the Ebro Valley, in which these artists spent a considerable amount of time, and explore how the region left a lasting impression and inspired them in the creation of their work. The route involves 270 points of interest and accommodation facilities that include: museums, architecture, restaurants, hotels and campsites. A tourist card gives access to all of the visitor centres along the route as well as numerous discounts.

The President of the Regulatory Council of Priorat wine appellation, located in south-western Catalonia, is anticipating an excellent grape harvest this summer as there have been no major setbacks that have affected the evolution of the vineyards. The hot and dry weather during August has led to a process of maturation that is very favourable in terms of colour and there is a good balance between alcohol and acidity. The President of the Regulatory Council of the word-famous wine region, Toni Alcover, expects there to be a high quality harvest with a quantity in excess of 5.5 million kilograms of grapes.

During the first six months of 2013, foreign tourists spent 10.5% more in Catalonia than they did during the same period of 2012, according to the Spanish Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism. In total, foreign tourists spent €5.73 billion in Catalonia between January and June, which represents 23.5% of the total amount spent in the whole of Spain. The average expenditure per visitor in Catalonia is €860, up 2.2% on last year. During the month of June, tourists in Catalonia spent €1.54 billion, which is up 9% from 2012.

The tourist slogan for the north-eastern Catalan county of La Garrotxa is “Rough land” because of the touch of the area’s volcanic clay. Aside from that unappealing logo, La Garrotxa is one of the most interesting tourist zones not only in Catalonia but also in Spain. This volcanic area, the widest in the Iberian Peninsula, has numerous natural, cultural and gastronomic interests. Its privileged location, between the Mediterranean Sea and the Pyrenees, makes the zone a perfect place for tourism in the heart of the countryside, allowing the visitor to forget about stress and discover unique landscapes, gastronomy, history and folklore.

After 32 years of success in the world of haute cuisine, this internationally renowned restaurant will cease its operations due to financial reasons. The restaurant located in Sant Celoni, 50km north of Barcelona, was decorated with 3 Michelin stars for 18 consecutive years, being the first restaurant in Catalonia to receive such a distinction. Can Fabes became famous under the leadership of Catalan chef Santi Santamaria, who passed away in February 2011. Santamaria was the first Spanish chef to be awarded with 7 Michelin stars, with restaurants in Catalonia, Madrid, Toledo and Singapore. Following his death the group of restaurants was directed by his daughter Regina Santamaria. “We tried to keep fighting for Can Fabes, but it was not possible as the restaurant was no longer economically viable” she told the CNA.

The Empordà wine Appellation located in north-eastern Catalonia has seen a significant increase in its export levels in 2012. With more than 40 small cellars and cooperatives, Empordà has a large assortment of red, white and rosé wines. Garnatxa of Empordà, a sweet dessert wine is also a typical drink from this area of Catalonia located in the Costa Brava. The main destinations of Empordà exports were the United States, Germany, Norway, Switzerland and Canada. These exports increased by 13% over last year with more than 750,000 bottles sold abroad from the total 5 million bottles produced.

Catalan cookery is known worldwide for Ferran Adrià’s revolutionary contributions and for ‘El Celler de Can Roca’ recently chosen by ‘Restaurant’ magazine as the best restaurant in the world. However the vast majority of Catalans have never tasted such haute cuisine and still defend their gastronomy as one of the richest in the world. It’s not about patriotic boasting: traditional Catalan cooking is characterised by an overwhelming variety of ingredients and cooking methods and no less than seven centuries of documented history.

CNA interviews, Albert Adrià, the dessert chef of El Bulli, which was run by his brother Ferran Adrià and was recognised as the best restaurant in the world on five occasions. BCN 5.0 is the new project by the Adrià brothers, with five different high level restaurants located on Barcelona’s Paral·lel Avenue. Although it is an associative idea, it is a personal dream of Albert Adrià, which has already three restaurants in the same area: Tickets, a Spanish tapas gastrobar; 41º, with one Michelin star, and PAKTA, a Japanese-Peruvian Nikkei one. Three new establishments will complete the BCN 5.0 project.