Barcelona sayings about the city, its streets and lifestyle.
Sometimes all you need is an inspirational saying or quote to change your whole mood. And even better if that saying is about your favourite city break destination: Barcelona!
Open your mind and allow these many different perspectives of the city to inspire you to come visit. From famous writers who called Barcelona home for a number of years to singer-songwriters who were inspired by the city. Not forgetting some typical Barcelona sayings in Catalan, the region’s official language.
1. Barcelona es bona si la bossa sona, però tant si sona com si no sona, Barcelona sempre és bona.
This typical Catalan saying was apparently coined by merchants who, when docking in the city to seek out potential buyers, would say that Barcelona was a good place only if they were able to sell their cargo!
2. In Barcelona I learnt things I thought I knew, when I actually knew nothing at all.
Roberto Bolaño
Roberto Bolaño was a Chilean writer who arrived in Barcelona when he was 27. He’d spend three years in the city, living in the district of Raval, with this Barcelona saying a beautiful reminder that, in actual fact, knowledge isn’t everything.
3. Barcelona is a very old city in which you can feel the weight of history; it is haunted by history. You cannot walk around it without perceiving it.
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Carlos Ruiz Zafon was a novelist, born in Barcelona, whose name has become synonymous with the city thanks to his famous Shadow of the Wind series. This is just one of his Barcelona saying, but there are many more!
4. Being in Barcelona “was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle”.
George Orwell
When writer George Orwell first arrived in Barcelona in 1936, he was astounded to find a city which lived and breathed revolution. It was in his novel ‘Homage to Catalonia’ that he penned the above words, inspired by the city’s spirit to keep fighting.
5. Barcelona is Gaudí’s and Rome is da Vinci’s.
Kamand Kojouri
Author Kamand Kojouri couldn’t have got it more right. Barcelona is a city in which Gaudí is everywhere. There’s Casa Battló and La Pedrera, his masterpiece the Sagrada Familia that towers over the city, and his sanctuary Parc Guell, to name but a few!
6. We were young, weren’t we? And Barcelona seemed not only beautiful and cultured, but, above all, the most fun city in the world.
Mario Vargas Llosa
We love this Barcelona saying by Peruvian writer and Nobel prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa, who lived in the city in the 70s. We completely agree, Barcelona simply has it all!
7. Roda el món i torna al Born
Another typical Barcelona saying in Catalan, which can be translated as “Travel the world and return to el Born”. In this way, it pays homage to the city’s beautiful central district, home to culture, shops and history, a place every traveller always dreams of going back to, no matter all the other places around the globe they see.
8. Barcelona was a mythical memory
Gabriel García Márquez
This Barcelona saying is by this famous writer, author of ‘A Hundred Years of Solitude’, who lived in the city for almost a decade. It captures perfectly the city’s fleeting essence, its streets steeped in history, and the feeling that once you leave being there feels like it was almost nothing but a dream. It is said that his novel ‘The Autumn of the Patriarch’ was written during his time here.
9. To travel across Spain and finally to reach Barcelona is like drinking a respectable red wine and finishing up with a bottle of champagne.
James A. Michener
This Barcelona saying reminds us that the city is like a bubbly glass of champagne, or rather cava. It is a place bubbling with life and simply irresistible!
10. The only street in the world which I wish would never end.
Federico García Lorca
This Barcelona saying can be attributed to the famous Spanish poet who was referring to Las Ramblas. Brimming with life and never empty, this sprawling promenade is a must see on your trip to the city. We think it’s one of the happiest streets in the world – but we’ll let you decide!
And unfortunately, this article has come to an end! We hope these Barcelona sayings inspired you to book your next trip to the city!
Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia,” however, is not a novel but a memoir; and it narrates the experiences which led Orwell to repudiate Marxism and set him on the path to the two works he is best known by today.
It is interesting, and disappointing, that Barcelona made such a drab impression on Giacomo Casanova when he spent time in the city in the mid-1700s–he seems to have found it drab and congested, by implication inferior to Madrid. His portrayal is all the more disappointing in that (as his name demonstrates) he was of Catalan ancestry, himself. (Of course, that was long before all that moderniste architecture took hold!)