Barcelona: Spilled Milk #335

Why you should go to Barcelona this summer, even though everyone else is there, too. Plus: 20 restaurants I love and 10 great places to stay.

Barcelona in summer is, at first glance, everything you think you want to avoid: a sun-scorched carousel of cruise ships, TikTokkers in floppy hats clogging La Rambla and paella made for people who think sangria is a lifestyle. But dismiss it at your peril. Because beneath the selfie sticks and the cruise ship lanyards is a city so alive, so achingly vivid, that skipping it in summer means missing the Mediterranean’s most masterful balancing act. I LOVE this town, ancient and modern, sacred and irreverent, all chaos and craft.

You don’t go to Barcelona in the summer for peace and quiet. You go because it’s a city that thrives on performance, on heat, light, movement. It's Gaudí’s curving hallucinations next to medieval stone. It’s vermouth bars tucked behind Roman walls and markets where octopus glisten like sculpture. It’s Catalan independence banners flapping next to FC Barcelona flags and the anarchic magic of a place that knows exactly who it is and doesn’t care if you don’t get it.

Yes, the crowds are real. But so is the rhythm. This is a city that pulses with nocturnal energy, where dinner at 10 p.m. is early, and nights don’t end until the sun is yawning over Montjuïc. You’ll be elbow-to-elbow with locals and tourists alike, but that stops mattering in the smoky clatter of Bar Cañete or the anarchic brilliance of El Xampanyet. Everyone is just there to eat well, drink deeply and live with intention.

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Summer also happens to be when Barcelona looks best on and off camera. The sea is warm, the air thick with jasmine and ambition. Rooftop terraces become impromptu stages for jazz quartets and mojito-fueled declarations of love. The Gothic Quarter, though clogged with foot traffic, is still somehow bewitching in the dusk, when the light slices through alleyways like a Caravaggio painting.

And then there’s the food. This city eats like nowhere else. Whether it’s Disfrutar’s molecular sorcery or a grease-stained napkin from a neighborhood xurreria, Barcelona seduces your appetite with a wink and a knowing elbow to the ribs. It’s democratic in its deliciousness. You can eat like a king for €12 if you know where to look, and like a deity for €200 if you don’t mind a waiting list.

What seals the deal, though, is that Barcelona isn’t trying to be perfect. It’s too proud, too self-aware, too gloriously complicated for that. It’s a city with dirt under its fingernails, history in its bones and a mischievous sparkle in its eye. And that’s precisely why it’s worth every euro and every minute of your overstimulated summer.

Elbow through the crowds. Sweat through your linen. Learn how to pronounce “escudella.” Barcelona doesn’t care if you come prepared. It just wants you to show up and surrender to it.