Residents welcome removal of number 116 route, often used to get to Park Güell While some places will go to any lengths to attract visitors, residents of La Salut neighbourhood in Barcelona are celebrating a move to wipe themselves off the map. For years, residents had complained that they could not get home because the number 116 bus was always crammed with tourists visiting Antoni Gaudí’s Park Güell. The park is the city’s second most popular attraction after the Sagrada Familia basilica ..read more

From Seville to Venice to Amsterdam, Europe is learning to improve locals’ lives by curbing tourists’ enthusiasm Originally built for the grand Ibero-American Exposition of 1929, Seville’s ­flamboyant neo-Moorish Plaza de España has for nearly a ­century been one of the city’s major ­attractions, an ornate ­showcase for Spanish architecture and ­decorative tiling. But the several thousand visitors from around the world who throng the plaza every day, on foot or in horse-drawn carriages, may soon have to pay for the privilege, with proceeds from a planned entry fee going towards its u ..read more

From boutique to industrial chic, and apartment hotels to dorms, here are rooms to suit every budget in Catalonia’s much-loved city There’s always a buzz at Casa Bonay: its chic bars, reasonably priced rooms and restaurants – just a stone’s throw from the city’s imposing Arc de Triomf – are a draw for both visitors and locals. With mosaic-tiled floors, statement sliding doors and floods of natural light, sleeping quarters here are an oasis of cool and calm, complete with Mubi streaming and yoga mats. The rooftop is split between a seasonal dining space and guest-only urban garden, while downst ..read more

Fifty years after his death, the city where Picasso spent his teenage years now offers vital insights into his life and work Pablo Ruiz Picasso was born in Málaga and spent most of his life in France, but it was arguably in Barcelona that his evolution as the most celebrated artist of the 20th century began. The family moved to Barcelona in 1895 when Picasso was 13 and he lived and studied there for nine years before heading to Paris in 1904 ..read more

From Málaga to Madrid, there’s a fiesta of special exhibitions this year in the places where the artist lived and worked Pablo Picasso sits on a bench in Málaga’s Plaza de la Merced. Staring ahead, notebook in hand, elderly and made of bronze, he is as much a part of the city as the sea. It’s a wistful work. Picasso spent almost all his adult life – and died – in France, but no 20th-century artist is more Spanish than Picasso, with his bull motif, machismo, defining image of the civil war and fondness for Málaga wine. “Living abroad,” he said, “one becomes even more Spanish ..read more

Our slow travel expert takes a 12-hour odyssey from Mediterranean Catalonia – via Cervantes, bandit and sherry country – to Atlantic Andalucía Two long-distance trains leave Barcelona Sants station just after nine each morning. There’s the French TGV to Paris, 668 miles and almost seven hours to the north. The other train, much the more interesting of the two, is the 09.05 to Cádiz, a journey of 12 hours, covering 800 miles. This is one of Spain’s finest domestic train journeys, a great cross-country transect linking the Mediterranean coast of Catalonia with the Atlantic shores of Andalucía. T ..read more

Turning a Spanish city break into a train trip to remember by visiting three cities and exploring their distinctive food, art and culture Now that travel restrictions are easing, the European city break is back on. But since it’s been so long for so many of us, why stop at just one destination? Step forward the multi-city break: put three cities together, link them with easy-to-book train or bus journeys and you’ve got a full-on adventure. I decide on Spain for my first post-Covid trip, plotting a route from Bilbao to Barcelona and then on to Madrid. Together, the trio of cities promises an un ..read more

From international hotels to Spanish flavours with a twist, the best new openings in the Catalan capital ..read more

From Pyrenean peaks to flamingo-dotted deltas, a new tour draws visitors away from busy Barcelona On a hushed, narrow street decorated with wrought-iron balconies in the small Catalonian city of Solsona, local guide Ivan Viladrich has just pushed open the unassuming wooden door of an 18th-century building. Hidden inside are two pairs of intricately sculpted gegants (Catalan dancing giants) whose history goes back to the late 17th century. In the next room, there’s a 330-year-old wooden dragon (the Drac de Solsona), weighing almost 100kg, surrounded by all kinds of other mythological animal fig ..read more

An ambitious project is under way to turn one of the world’s most overrun streets into an the ‘immersive art centre of southern Europe’ Once a byword for the worst excesses of overtourism, Barcelona now aspires to be a role model for other cities that once put all their eggs in the tourist basket. It is reinventing itself and reclaiming public space for the city’s residents, starting with its most famous boulevard, La Rambla. “The crisis has exposed the weakness of a model based on one economic sector, tourism,” said Jordi Rabassa, the councillor for Ciutat Vella, the oldest and most-visited p ..read more