VISITING

 1. Beaches

• Platja de Barceloneta: Located close to the city centre, offers children’s beach toys and a string of restaurants up on the patio walkway.

• Platja de Bogatell: Popular with tourists and offers several seafood and tapas bars on the beach that get even more crowded at night.

• Platja de Mar Bella: the city’s only official nudist beach also offers volleyball nets, sailing, basketball nets, a BMX half pipe, and water sports.

• Platja Nova Mar Bella: A good place to go to blend with local families.

• Platja de Nova Icària: More expansive than some of the other beaches, good for beach volleyball or frisbee.

• Platja de Sant Miguel: Very popular and very crowded, with a fair amount of young beach-goers.

• Platja de San Sebastiá: One of the closest beaches to the city centre.

Visit the official city website (www.bcn.com) for more information. The Centre de la Platja (Beach Centre) is a handy seasonal service with books for loan, ID bracelets for children in case they get lost amongst the crowds and sports and sand-castle making equipment available.

To avoid the city crowds, there are many nearby beaches that are worth checking out: discover more here . Or perhaps you prefer a swimming-pool .

2. Dia de Sant Joan: Each year, the night before June 24th, the Dia de Sant Joan (St. John’s Day), is celebrated all over Catalunya with bonfires and impressive fireworks displays. The festivities begin as darkness falls with concerts and dance performances tucked amidst the pyrotechnics, which last all night. Traditional coca cake and cava are consumed and many people in Barcelona head to the beach to see the sun rise (although if you're not a fan of crowds, you should definitely give this a miss).

3. Festival Grec: Arguably the biggest cultural extravaganza in Barcelona, the festival starts this year on June 13th and runs to August 1st: the invited country is Japan, with various dance and music performances hailing from the land of the rising sun, while there's theatre in English with Eurydice and musicians Corinne Bailey Rae (July 21st), Dee Dee Bridgewater (July 24th) and the McCoy Tyner Trio (July 23rd) all on stage. The Teatre Grec, a Greek-style amphitheatre on Montjuïc houses the majority of the nearly 50 music, dance and theatrical performances that bring in audiences from all over the world; in addition, a special restaurant is open throughout the festival (including the days when there is no scheduled event at the Teatre Grec) set in beautiful garden surroundings and offering fine views of the city, with food provided by local restaurant Sifó. Various other venues around the city give this cultural festival an all-encompassing feel. See www.barcelonafestival.com for more details of what's on at this year's event.