Barcelona is a wonderful city. The first thing that is going to hit you when you arrive is the beautiful architecture all around you, including the amazing creations of Gaudí, truly jewels of design and construction.

Next you'll be pleasantly surprised at just how helpful and friendly the people are for a city of it's size. Whatever your preconceptions are of the Catalonians, they'll soon melt away as they do their best to make you welcome in their stunningly beautiful city.

The main gay area in Barcelona is called L'Eixample or Gayxample (Eixample is pronounced eye-sham-play), but let's start at the beginning. The beginning being the street everyone first heads for in Barcelona - Las Ramblas. It runs from the port, to the center of town, stopping just a few blocks short of the gay village and is famous for Barcelona's best street performers. It's a constant highway of people walking up and down it to see it's many visual delights. A word of warning though, it is a favourite spot for professional pick pockets, never put your wallet in your back pocket and don't leave anything unattended, even for a second. When the sun sets is when Barcelona really comes to life. After a hot day, the boys come out to play! Barcelona's gay scene is lively and stylish but remember in Spain you don't go out to eat until 10pm, the bars don't get going until midnight and the discos don't even open until 3am, so get some sleep in before you go out because you will be out all night drooling over those gorgeous Catalonian boys.

The gay area is called L'Eixample or nick named GayEixample and is north-west of the center of town within walking distance but can also be reached by Metro from either the Universitat or Urgell stations. If you get off at Urgell take the Villarroel exit. The gay scene is lively and there's plenty of variety. Everything you'd expect from a major city's gay scene but with the added bonus of bronzed Spanish boys all over the place.

The best way to see all of the major sites in Barcelona is to take the Tourist Bus (Bus Turistic) from Plaza Catalunya in the center of Barcelona. It's just 18€ for 1 day or 22€ for 2 consecutive days. There's 44 stops along the route, and you can get off where ever you like, then hop on one of the next buses that come along. There's 3 distinct routes, and your ticket covers you for all of them. The north route, south route and Fórum route. Each stop is announced in English, and you'll find info about each one in the guide they give you. The entire tour of all 3 routes, if you don't stay at any location, lasts 5 hours. Barcelona has fabulous new metro trains installed in 2007, take 'em, you'll be amazed how quick and easily you can get around.

To top it all off, you have Sitges, just down the road, which you must check out as well. Not only is Sitges beautiful in every respect, from it's quaint, narrow streets to it's beautiful beaches but in terms of sheer convenience for the gay holiday maker, there's nowhere else like it. Everything from the gay bars to the gay discos to the gay restaurants to the gay beaches to the gay cruising area to gay shopping to your gay hotel are all within a 5 minute walk of each other. It's the perfect gay holiday in a neat little package! Diversity is the norm in Sitges rather than the exception and people from all walks of life are made welcome. If you've always wondered what the world would be like if we could all live side by side without sexual orientation being an issue, this is where to see how it's done! If you've never been to Sitges, you really don't know what you're missing. It has a very special culture. It may not be blatantly obvious at first, but once you take a step back, relax and watch what's going on around you, you'll realize what a very special place Sitges is. 
It's an easy 35 minute train ride away from Sants train station, or better yet, from Paseo de Gracia station near the gay village.

Barcelona won the 1999 RIBA Royal Gold Medal for its architecture. This is notably, the first, and as of 2006, only time the winner has been a city, and not an architect.