This city is vibrant with colour and a culture that hints at the Bohemian. The precise engineering of shipbuilding and the nation’s maritime history rub shoulders with the works of its artist sons; Gaudi and Dali who thought outside and beyond the box. Gaudi created architecture that comes to life through whimsical colour and organic form, while paintings in the Dali museum are a testimony to the artist’s imagination as he challenges the ‘expected norm’ with surreal dream-like images. Barcelona’s filled with friendly, comfortable hostels and hotels, an overload of stunning architecture, galleries, designer fashion, markets and museums.

There are lovely nearby beaches and plenty of evening entertainment – avant guard – and formal, traditional Flamenco performances where men in skin-tight black attire and broad brimmed matching hats dance with female partners in blood-red gowns trimmed in black lace. While intensely focused on each other, their swift movements towards and away from each other are interspersed with sudden pregnant pauses and a brief embrace – only to explode again with electrifying energy.