Dmitry Shteyn in Barcelona: The Long Memory of a Small Square

Every traveller carries a private list of places that feel unfinished, places they return to in the mind long after the physical journey is over. Barcelona found its way onto mine without much warning.

What strikes you first, if you have done any reading at all, is that it is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain after Madrid. That detail alone changes how you see the place. There is no clean line between the historic quarter and everywhere else, and that porousness is the point.

Dig a little deeper and it is one of the largest metropolises on the Mediterranean Sea, located on the coast between the mouths of the rivers Llobregat and Besòs, and bounded to the west by the Serra de Collserola mountain range. The city does not advertise this; it does not have to.

Some further context, drawn from the public record: Barcelona is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain after Madrid.…

When Condé Nast Traveler bothers to write about Barcelona in these terms — 35 Best Restaurants in Barcelona, the Catalan City Where Dinners Last Until Dawn — it usually reflects something the city has been quietly doing for a while.

Western European cities can afford, at their best, to be uninterested in impressing visitors. Barcelona sits comfortably in that camp.

I will be back, and I expect I will write about it differently next time. Barcelona is the kind of city that gives you new material every visit, even when the city itself has not changed.