Kind of looking for comments from someone that lives in that area if possible.
Wife and I go to a different country in Europe every spring. We were in Madrid in 2012 but now Doll is itching to see Barcelona as we’ve never been.
I don’t see any current warnings and most things on the web say tourists should continue with their travel plans. But if you know different let me know.
We’d probably be there May 4th through the 14th.
Impasse, to judge from the British papers. The regional parliament has yet to establish a government, since the narrow majority of independentist parties wants to put into office one of the politicians currently held in jail for exceeding their constitutional powers. It currently looks as though the political shadow-boxing will continue. If the talk is of new elections for the regional parliament, it hardly looks as though major trouble is about to erupt, but by May who knows?
Just confirming PatrickLondon’s information.
Between the Government of the Spains a while back, that of the US repeatedly, now Catalonia… I have more and more the feeling that governments are about as necessary as a push-up bra on a bull. Civil servants are more or less necessary; governments, pchs.
Without governments, there would be no such thing as immigration policies - borders would be meaningless, and anyone across the world could move to wherever they wanted. In addition, trade would quickly become 100% free everywhere, with no regulations at all. (That might sound attractive if you just think of every contract going to the lowest bidder, but if trade is 100% free even for monopolies and for criminals, then it doesn’t look so good anymore.)
In other words, one function of a government is to decide who should control the assets and who should not.
This is too long to use as my signature, unfortunately, but you’ve succinctly described all of the downsides of governments. Yeah, we need someone to enforce contracts, but you didn’t mention that.
Coupled with your stated location at the start of the post, for a moment there I thought you were swearing by your Prime Minister.
Some of the stuff you list is on its way to meaningless (Spain has some borders it watches heavily but it’s more because of our position at the edge than anything else); some works perfectly in the hands of civil servants - once they are in place. Which I do consider to be part of the job of governments: putting the civil servants in place (how is that working for the US right now?). In fact, the stuff which works perfectly in the hands of civil servants? It works better when they don’t have succesive governments flipping policies left and right and in-between.
And we apparently need a “tongue in cheek” smiley.
Well, also, remember Belgium… a few years ago it spent a year and a half without federal government and nothing particularly weird happened to the country.
As for the OP: pkbites, I wouldn’t worry. Just go and enjoy a beautiful city. The chances of riots or disturbances giving you problems during your trip are really low, verging on the non-existent.
Barcelona is not Belfast during The Troubles. Just enjoy your trip in May; the weather should be very good.
I myself should be there in April for a conference. I do not worry about traveling there, and you shouldn’t either.
(My qualifications regarding Barcelona: I lived and studied there when I was in College, and I go often back).
Well that is reassuring. Thanks for the post. 
I bought a package today. Non-stop out of O’hare and a hotel in the El Born district. Any opinions on that area?
We like to go to Europe in early to mid-May. Nice weather and the crowds are not as bad as the summer months. The only exception was last year when we went to the Netherlands in April for the tulips. Was a tad cool but otherwise nice.
Well, evidently one of the things you need to visit is el Born itself! The market, I mean. The only similar ones in the US are in Philadelphia and LA, but in Spain they’re traditional and in Barcelona there’s a bunch of them.
I discovered the one in Philadelphia within hours of arrival, since my hotel was across the street from it. This was in a pre-moving to town visit. Once I’d moved, I realized that what to me was “a piece of home” was super exotic to the Americans because they kept telling me I had to go see it and describing it in detail.
Your main issue when traveling to Barcelona will always tend to be, well, other tourists. And jacked up prices in tourist-y areas.
The regional Government interesting tactic of trying to accomplish political goals by shooting themselves in the foot over and over should have no bearings in your stay.
Just to remind you: Without a government, but with a civil service (which isn’t a totally terrible idea, at least compared to most Anarchist plans), the system would, quite literally, be the purest form of Bureaucracy: Rule by Bureau, or Ministry to our British friends…
…and not that Ministry, to our industrial-metal-listening friends.
Which are a lot smaller and more porous than tourists tend to think. Bar/restaurant prices around Santa María del Mar are super high because the whole area is considered super, super, coOOOoooOOOl right now, but in general and this even applies to restaurants overlooking the Sagrada Familia, the Cathedral or on Montjuic, prices are much more linked to quality than to location (food is: fancy, home-style, mass-frozen? bathroom is: dark, tiny and scary; like you could have at home; looks like it was stolen from a five-star hotel? waiters are: quick and efficient, slow and surly?).
El Born is a very centric area. You will have a lot of things to check out. You will also be close to the local government seat in Plaça Sant Jaume; if there are demonstrations for whatever reason, you will be in the thick of it (not that I think there will be any, really - the only day when there might be anything [like every year] is May Day, May 1st, and anyway you will be arriving later than that).
Make sure to walk down Las Ramblas, drinking from the Canaletes fountain at the head of that street. Don’t ask me why you should drink from that particular fountain; I can only tell you after you have done so (don’t worry, it is not a prank. It is just a tradition). Walk all along Passeig de Gràcia starting from Plaça Catalunya. No need to hurry; the city is very nice and you can take it all slowly. There will be tons of things for you to do and see.
And, of course, exercise the usual common sense when going to touristy places: do not give a chance to pickpockets, keep your eyes open, keep your passport and ID securely stashed in your hotel safe or in a nice drawer in your apartment (and carry only copies on your person unless you know you will need to show the originals, like if you are renting a car or something), keep a minimum of cash on your person (and distribute it around pockets and fanny pack)… You know, run-of-the-mill precautions. Unfortunately, all over the world touristy areas are magnets for pickpockets and their ilk.
And above all: enjoy your trip!!
If your worry is security/safety, then I don’t think you have anything to fear. I was in Barcelona during the height of the fuss last October, and aside from some ostentatious displays of Catalan flags on buildings, it was business as usual from a tourist perspective.
This is a hijack but I’ve been pondering it for a while.
On my Game of Thrones Blu-ray discs, before things really get rolling there is a screen with instructions on how to change the menu language into your favorite, English, French, German, or “Spanish/Catalonian”, in the appropriate language. The last choice puzzled me because while knowing very little about Catalonian, I had the impression it could be very different from Spanish.
This table in Wiki confirms that. While there are some cognates in both languages (mantega/manteca, tros/trozo) there are other words that clearly are not (nebot/sobrino, paella/sartén). Catalonian is not offered as either an audio track or subtitle so it is only the menu that would change.
My questions is how could the single instruction set cover both languages, by carefully picking the cognates, perhaps?
Or maybe it offers subtitles in both Castilian Spanish and Catalan at the same time?
Oh, it’s only the menu?
99.99999% cognates, which goes up to 100% with a bit of careful choice of words.
Episode = Spanish Capítulo, Catalan Capítol. Ok, so abbreviate to Cap., which btw is common in both languages; it won’t even look funny to speakers of either.
And with that little trick you can get money from the Catalan government (maybe the Balearic one too, they’re pushing Catalan real hard right now).
I think you’ll be more in danger from pickpockets and thieves than civil unrest.
Its a dead issue. I am sure that few in Catalan wants the split or the violence.
Its only a few who need to have some reason to claim the balance of power… by appealing to 5% , they get voted in and wield balance of power and go for things like this seperation.
I assume “put into office” meant “put into significant government position”, such as member of cabinet - Minister aka Secretary aka Chancellor, or even to government leader…
But then the parties want him out of jail, they may be just trying to play the situation for more from the Spainish government… either let him out of jail, or pay them to let them keep him in jail.
Deals…
Cute that they have him in jail … What charge is that ? Everyone breaks the constitution, as it is written … everyone could be held in jail for ever. The one crime in constitutions that has been enforced is treason …helping a foreign power hurt Spain. Catalan is not foreign. Sedition used to be a crime, but basically in a democracy the opposition parties must aim to destroy the current government, and so commit sedition, and a move to change the structure of government is basically what the govenment itself does, eg propose referendums to change the structure… that would be rather ironic precedent to set… “and by the way, 85% of you federal MP’s have tried sededition when voting for referendums, off to jail with you lot too !”. Its a strange precedent to set… Jail for “Exceeding constitutional powers”… Usually you just get an injunction and then he can be found in contempt of the injunction - Difficult to prosecute, but at least the actions that are contrary to the injunction can be said to not have been actioned.