Once called the Barrio Chino and more lately renamed the Raval, this is the kind of place where dark casks of vermouth line the walls, and the air is blue with cigarette smoke and sharp with salty fish.
The great mixture that El Raval has to offer, gives Barcelona this cosmopolitan and integration air that the city is famous for. The urban ecology that moves inexorably from artists to real estate developers to trendy professionals seems in full swing. Bookstores, boutiques featuring local designers, restaurants, small galleries and workshops, and the icily hip Casa Camper Hotel surround the museums.
Here you will find the super trendy swedish that came here to study desing or the Indian woman that gives a snack after school to her kid with pita bread, or lady Maria, the typical old Spanish woman that still dresses in black because her husband died 10 years ago.
This unique atmosphere makes is translated into arty bars and live night live.
Make sure you spend some time sitting having a coffee or a beer by Plaça dels Angels or Plaça Macba. Relax and do some people watching on the plaza in front of the museum, where young artists and locals sun themselves on the warm slate while skateboarders kick-flip around them.
It is as well one of the few spots where you can actually have a view, since it is a very spacious square next to the Modern Art Musuem.
MACBA, the museum, holds temporary exhibits and I recommend you check the Agenda just in case there's something worth it. Next door as well you can find CCCB (Contemporary Culture Center of Barcelona). The center opened its doors in 1994 to provide a focal point for creative energy in the city, as well, worth take a look to its conceptual exhibits and agenda.
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