Barcelona in Spain is one of the most vibrant and exciting cities to visit in Europe. With great markets, bars, shops and eateries, as well as beaches and much more, Barcelona is a place which is worth spending your holidays on.

Beaches in Barcelona
Barcelona has number of beaches which may not be the best in Mediterranean but they are decent enough to spend hours of your days there. Nova Icaria is the closest one to the Olympic marina which makes it the busiest one of them all.

Mar Bella is great for water sports where you can hire sail boards, kayaks and hobie cats. Bogatell is a very long stretch of sand and also features a separate walkway for joggers and cyclists.

Must-see locations
You definitely have to go to the city’s most famous La Rambla at least once. Go to the market stalls where you will find everything from street artists to tapas bars. You can also find the cathedral and a number of smaller churches. You also need to see Guadi’s most famous work, which is the Sagrada Familia Catholic basilica.

Eating in Barcelona
There is a wide variety of local cuisine, with many authentic tapas bars available to try. If you want to eat during a busy day then fast food is the best option. You can try Spanish fast food stuffs such as a spicy sausage or Spanish omelette.

When people choose to go on holiday to some of the world’s most popular destinations, they obviously want to spend time getting a real taste for the place and its lifestyle. Unfortunately, not everyone can afford a 2 week holiday from their daily schedules. So sometimes, even a long weekend is enough time to enjoy a short break. For this purpose, city breaks have been introduced for those who do not always have the time for a long holiday.

There are a number of places to choose from when it comes to booking city breaks. But if you are looking to have fun on your short holiday, Barcelona is the perfect place to visit. Because city breaks are so short you want to make the most of the time you have at your destination and Barcelona is perfect for this.

City breaks to Barcelona would never be as much fun without taking trips to the beach. The city has some wonderful beaches that are great to visit both, in the day and at night. You can choose from relaxing in the sand or trying out some adrenaline pumping water sports.

One of the other great things to do on a city break to Barcelona is to visit their cultural and arts sites. From the historical structures to their beautiful monuments, live music venues to the Olympic park, the city has a number of beautiful places to see. Local transport makes it even easier to travel around the city to see all of the must see sites.

Barcelona is definitely one of the most beautiful cities in the world. With a rich cultural and artistic history, the sights and sounds of Barcelona can only be truly understood on a visit there. If you are planning on going on a cheap holiday to Barcelona, there are some basic considerations that you should make. Barcelona is one of the few cities that are extremely kind to shoestring travellers. If you plan to come to Barcelona this season, you should check out the various cheap accommodations, food locations and more in order to have a wonderful holiday in Barcelona.

Barcelona has some of the most amazing restaurants and cafes in the world. The Catalan capital has a large list of bars, pubs, restaurants and cafes which are amazing to look at and to eat in. In order to find cheap and excellent food in Barcelona, you should mingle with the local folk for a better understanding of the cuisines. While the meat of choice for the locals is fish, Barcelona has a great many cheap restaurants that offer the choicest of meats at affordable prices. Tapas can be the best and cheapest snack in Barcelona. Available at almost every eatery, Tapas should figure on top of your list of foods to try out.

Barcelona is the perfect place to have a wild and fun filled cheap holiday with your family and your loved ones.

Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, Spain. This metropolitan city is located at the mouth of two rivers - Llobre and Besos. Barcelona, Europe’s largest city on the Mediterranean coast, it is a hub for sectors like finance, media, commerce and trade. It is an important cultural centre and a great tourist destination. If you are looking for cheap holidays, you are in for a treat in Barcelona. Some of the best attractions that are worth visiting within the city include the following:

The Spanish Village
This museum consists of life-size buildings representing the architecture of different parts of Spain. Built for the 1929 Exhibition in Barcelona, this open-air set up gives the feel of a real village.

Font Magica
Again, built for the 1929 International Exhibition; this spectacular display of music, water aerobatics and lights is Barcelona’s biggest ornamental fountain.

Imax Port Vell
Barcelona’s most innovative cinema, the IMAX Port Vell, screens movies on a massively large screen. The lights, sounds and sights make you feel like a part of the film.

L’Aquarium de Barcelona
This marine leisure and educational centre is one of Europe’s biggest and most important Aquariums. It gains its importance from the understanding of undersea life it provides through its great variety of Mediterranean species.

Mirador – Collserola Tower
Since the 1992 Olympics, this tower has been an iconic part of Barcelona’s skyline. Its observation deck which is the highest point in the city offers an amazing view of the surrounding areas.

Mirador de Colom
Mounted near the sea at the end of Barcelona’s Rambla, is the Columbus monument. A lift inside takes you to a viewing gallery, 60 metres above the ground.

Parc d’Atraccions del Tibidado
This amusement park is full of fun and entertainment, and attracts the young as well as the old. It has been standing on Barcelona’s highest point for more than a century.

A new initiative in Spain has launched in Barcelona to offer free internet access in several new Wi-Fi ‘hotspots’.

Already, those on holidays and city breaks to the city of Barcelona as well as the city’s local residents are able to access the world wide web through 170 hotspots round Barcelona. These hotspots are marked clearly with a ‘W’ sign.

The city’s council has announced that it intends to increase the number of available Wi-Fi hotspots from 170 to 300, almost double, by the end of this year and by 2010 there should be a total of 500.

Many people take their laptops and internet-enabled mobile phones on holidays with them and now they’ll be able to use the internet in public places around the city, in places such as markets, libraries and museums.

The mayor for Barcelona Jordi Hereu said this technological initiative is; “Barcelona’s ambition applied to 21st-century systems.”

Ramon Garcia-Bragado, deputy mayor for urban planning, said: “This is not a commercial or professional service, but rather a public one.”

Barcelona is not the only city with aspirations to open Wi-Fi hotspots. Only earlier this month, the New York Public Library opened a new Wi-Fi hotspot to allow visitors to access the internet for free.

City breaks in Barcelona are popular all year round whether it is for a hen or stag weekend, last minute holiday or city breaks for shopping, but those heading to Barcelona in the next couple of months are bound to be delighted with the launch of their summer sale, which started on the 1st of July and is set to run until the 31st of August.

Shopaholics will be delighted with discounts that range from 50 per cent to 70 per cent on all sorts of consumer products, according to the Barcelona council.

Indeed, the 2009 summer sale is anticipated to be more popular than ever as the retailers seek to sell leftover stock following bad weather and the tough economic times from the spring.

Consumer products that are most popular generally include clothing, footwear and holiday equipment.

Of course, Barcelona is not only popular for its shops but also for its beaches, another area promoted by the city’s tourism council at the moment. The beaches are perfect for bookworms as there are books and other reading material for hire on the beach as well as some great sporting activities and workshops to take part in.

Holidays to Barcelona are available from most major UK airports with flights from a number of airlines.

It seems that thanks to the global recession, city breaks worldwide are generally cheaper than last year according to a Times Online report.

The report shows that figures from a study of 50 worldwide cities suggest that prices this year have fallen by up to 31 per cent since last summer.

The largest price drop appears to be in Spain, with city breaks in Madrid and Barcelona showing the greatest price drop, closely followed by Granada and Valencia.

For those British holidaymakers thinking prices may drop further however, Spanish hoteliers claim prices could now drop any further. Holiday deals in Spain are particularly well priced at the moment as Spain is suffering in the recession.

Similar reductions are being seen in other countries, such as Italy where city breaks to Rome are now 7 per cent lower, and cheap holidays are available in Bologna and Turin with prices at 19 per cent and 12 per cent lower than last year.

City breaks in places such as Venice, Milan, Florence, Geneva, London and Athens are maintaining their prices in comparison to twelve months ago.

With recent surveys showing that Brits are not being put off their summer holidays by the recession, it seems there are some great city breaks to be had at bargain prices.

With cheap holidays to Malaga, Barcelona and other cities throughout Spain, British holidaymakers see Spain as their “home from home” according to the national tourist board for the country.

A representative from the London based Spanish tourist office, Carmen Hernandez, confirmed that Spain’s promotion budget in the UK has increased over the last few years whilst it focuses on attracting more visitors to such cities.

The latest promotional campaigns focus upon the feedback they have received from British people on holiday in Spain.

Ms Hernandez said:

“We want to emphasise the idea of how Spain is a home from home for British tourists. Almost 90% of Britons who travelled to Spain in 2008 had already been there on holiday before. The links between both countries are undeniable and strong. [Britons] feel safe and secure there and they know they can communicate easily with people, drive on safe road[s] and get the best healthcare if they need it.”

Popular cheap holidays in Malaga, Alicante, Barcelona and others places in Spain are not only available cheaply but as last minute holidays too from a variety of airlines and airports, making Spain easily accessible for everyone.

Those struggling to decide between Egypt and Barcelona for their holidays this year may be interested to know that a new Egyptian exhibition recently opened in Barcelona.

The Egyptian exhibition opened in Barcelona on the 6 June and is set to continue until the 6 September at the Drassanes Reials, the medieval shipyards of Barcelona.

One claim to fame for this particular exhibition which is of great interest to many historians is that it features a few of the treasures that were discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamen. The exhibition is not just designed for educational purposes but for entertainment as well.

The Tutankhamen tomb was found in 1922 by the English archaeologist Howard Carter. Tutankhamen is probably the most famous of the Egyptian pharaohs and the discovery of his tomb sparked a worldwide interest in ancient Egypt.

The Barcelona exhibition covers 800 square metres and within that area tourists will be able to see the now-famous mask of Tutankhamen himself and replicas of the golden jewels buried in his tomb with him as well as a replica of his sarcophagus. This collection is quite unique in that some of these objects cannot even be observed in Cairo’s Egyptian Museum.

City breaks to Barcelona are an ideal choice for those looking to save money on their holidays in the current economic climate as there are numerous cheap holidays to Barcelona leaving from most UK airports with a number of airlines.

Those who are fans of the queen of pop, Madonna will be able to see her live in concert in Europe if they decide to combine a city break holiday with a visit to one of Madonna’s famous live shows during the summer this year.

Madonna is set to start her European tour with her first gig playing at London’s O2 Arena on 4th and 5th July, which will be followed by a live performance in the North West of England at Manchester’s MEN Arena on 7th July.

Madonna is then due to head over the English Channel to complete the rest of her European tour dates which will see her play live on the 9th July in Paris. Further concerts are scheduled; 14th July in Milan, 21st July in Barcelona and the 23rd July in Madrid with various other city break hot spots.

Madonna’s whole tour is to cover eastern European cities such as Prague, Tallinn, Warsaw, Budapest and finishes at the end of August.

Madonna is popular with fans all over the world as she is one of the most successful female recording artists in history with over 200 million albums sold worldwide.