Barcelona

[icklekid]

Dh and I have booked a short child free break to Barcelona on mon-thu (first in over 5 years) and if I’m honest I’m gutted about all the rioting. Neither of us have ever been and we were so looking forward to a much needed relaxing break and time to work on our marriage.

Anyone living out there or visiting at the moment? Is it safe? Will we still be able to enjoy ourselves? Areas to avoid or still go to? Just sat here wanting to cry right now!!

There have been peaceful protests by the Independence supporters, National police have been making the situation worse, as have infiltrators and fascist groups. I am in Catalonia and the main stream media have not been reflecting the real situation. A colleague on the ground in Barcelona has been regular updating on this website, where you will find out the real situation from tourist who are there now:

community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/spain/infox-situation-in-barcelona-october-2019

The Independence movement advocates a pacific approach siting Ghandi and Martin Luther King as their inspiration, however they effectively organised a march of hundreds of thousands of people across Catalonia to meet in Barcelona on the day of the General strike and the Spanish Government have told police to instigate an investigation into them as Terrorists, so things not likely to improve in the short term.
Here is another link to the organisers Twitter account where you will see many videos from the weekend of police brutality. It is NOT rioting!
twitter.com/hashtag/TsunamiDemocr%C3%A0tic?src=hash&f=live

Another source of information is Tripadvisor where the Catalonia/Barcelona forum is very active:

www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowForum-g187496-i43-Catalonia.html

I’ve just got back. Our road had the protests on it.
We were fine. Lots of police and smaller groups of protesters each day.

Loads of areas not affected at all.