 | Barcelona Places To Avoid Reviews | Tips 1 - 10 of 36 |  |
 | |  |  | Places To Avoid: A Fake City | Tip Rating:   |  |  | |  |
Poble Espanyol (touted as a "one hour" way to get to know Spain) is just a couple of fake buildings, some with painted on windows, and fake artisan workshops. There is one interesting contemporary art collection there, but it's not included in the price of the ticket and they ask you for more money at the door.
If you have to go in - and I would say don't waste your time - try and organize a group of 15 from the people standing on line, even if you don't know them. Then it's only half price. Don't feel uncomfortable about it - people are usually very happy to save a buck, and every place you want to go into on Montjuic costs about 7 EUR. They ask where you're from, so just say "America," or whatever, and go in through the separate entrance for groups.
Get a T-10 travel pass (a real bargain, at 6.65 EUR for 10 rides) - pronounced "te deu'" - which can be used on any form of transportation. Stamp it in the machine. A date and time will be printed out on the back (rather faintly). It can be used 10 times. After that the machine will not accept it. You can share it with a friend - just pass it back over the turnstile. Pick up a free map from your hotel or the tourist information bureau. Each time, choose a section of the city and walk the streets. Leave a Comment
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| | | | Places To Avoid: FORUM OF CULTURES | Tip Rating: | | | | |
Barcelona 2004 and there is propaganda for The Forum of Cultures everywhere. But Forum of Vultures would be a better name. The exhibitions and the site (a concrete jungle in an industrial area of the city) are very disappointing. The event's themes are Peace, Sustainable Development, and Multiculturalism - all very worthy topics. But the practices of the event's commercial sponsors tell a very different story: INDRA (missile systems, the Eurofighter, link-ups with US companies involved in 'Star Wars II' projects); ENDESA (Spanish power utility whose dirty thermal power stations make the company Europe's 4th largest CO2 polluter); Nestle (pushes bottle feeding in the Third World, contributing to 1.5 million baby deaths a year according to UNICEF), and so it goes on. In fact, the whole US $ 2.5 billion-plus project is little more than a wheeze to justify massive property speculation and position Barcelona as a kind of latter-day San Francisco in the tourism stakes. Greenpeace and Amnesty - among other NGOs - have pulled out of the event in protest. Environmentally aware tourists should therefore be in no doubt as to what awaits them - a kind of Disneyland in which the multinationals have hijacked decent ideas for their own nefarious purposes. In fact, the whole project seems cursed. Two acrobats collided in mid-air in one of the early performances and the troupe pulled out. The much trumpeted (and sinfully ugly) Herzog & Meuron building leaked, and a couple of priceless Chinese terracotta warriors on exhibition were damaged. The Tibetan monks were thrown out of the Forum at the Chinese government's behest because their stand mentioned the atrocities committed by the Peking regime in their land. The Forum organisers caved in - the Chinese Terracotta Warriors provide the key exhibit - and the corporate sponsors have their own reasons for keeping the Chinese sweet. End result: the Tibetans have been exiled to a small tent at the end of the Ramblas boulevard in the city.
Visit the Tibetan monks in their tent at the Columbus statue end of the Ramblas boulevard. Watch monks making a mandala and give them a bit of moral support to help make up for the shabby treatment meted out to them by the Forum organisers. Alternative 2 Take a trip to Montjuic castle, overlooking the city. Gazing towards the northern end of Barcelona, you will see a mess of skyscrapers and cranes emerging from Barcelona's traditional low-rise cityscape. That is the Forum site and its associated rampant property development . Alternative 3 Write a letter /postcard in English to Mayor Clos, Ajuntament de Barcelona, Placa Sant Jaume, 08002 Barcelona (SPAIN) Leave a Comment
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| | | | Places To Avoid: Forum of Cultures | Tip Rating:  | | | | |
If you are reading this, you may be thinking of visiting the Forum of Cultures in Barcelona. After all, there is something of a media blitz, carefully orchestrated by the Spanish political establishment and big corporate sponsors backing the event. Not surprisingly, the local media (never outspoken at the best of times) tamely echoes the press notes churned out by the organisers. One of the Forum's stated aims is sustainable development. Many environmentally-conscious tourists may consider visiting the Forum on the strength of this. Unfortunately, this would be a big mistake. The criticisms made by Greenpeace in the courageous El Triangle newspaper [Issue 693, 26th July 2004, p.15] are eloquent. A summarized version is set out below. 'The Forum is a disaster for the Catalan coastline', stated Maria Jose Caballero, Director of Greenpeace's Coastline Campaign. Greenpeace has just published its annual report on the state of beaches in Spain and cites Barcelona's schemes as a glaring example of unsustainable development. Caballero says Barcelona City Council's attitude is 'appalling'. The annual report highlights the way 'The last vestiges of Barcelona's coastline have been buried under masses of reinforced concrete'. Greenpeace is particularly critical of the way in which the Forum site has turned the coastline along this stretch into a concrete jungle. 'There is simply no excuse for this' argues Caballero, 'the Council has taken over public land, built on it, and charges admission into the bargain'. Note: Greenpeace withdrew from the Forum organization a couple of years ago when it became clear that big business was hijacking the event and betraying key principles. Amnesty International has also withdrawn from the Forum, in this case in protest at the human rights abuses committed by many of the event's commercial sponsors. Leave a Comment
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