Want to see some photos of food? I’ve got plenty.

I can confirm, in fact, that the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains in and around Barcelona. People have drowned in less. Barcelona is not really designed to cope with this amount of rain. There are a serious amount of impermeable surfaces and less than ideal drainage, so puddles abound.

What can you do on a rainy week in Barcelona?

Museum of Natural Sciences

This is a well curated collection of natural history specimens housed in the Forum Building close to the seafront. The entrance fee is very reasonable (two of us got in for around €5 together, and free for kids) and the building is worth seeing from the design perspective alone. It’s an equilateral triangle partially suspended above the ground. The museum itself takes you back from the beginning of the universe through to modern humans and animals, showcasing videos, fossils, minerals, and a variety of taxidermy specimens.

The area around the museum includes the Diagonal Mar shopping centre and some adjacent shops, restaurants, and cafés.

Sagrada Familia

The most famous building in Barcelona has to be Gaudi’s iconic cathedral which is still under construction (and has been since 1882). The visage dominates the skyline and is true to his organic architectural style with a lot of rounded edges which must be a nightmare to build. On this occasion, with a four year old in tow, we didn’t manage to see inside the building. We’ll save that for the next visit.

The Food

You can’t get more Spanish than tapas. We visited a small bar around the corner from Sagrada Familia called the Famous Bar Restaurant, but don’t let the generic name put you off. The food was delicious and the staff were friendly. We had jamon iberico alongside a bunch of other dishes and cava sangria.

Having said tapas is the iconic dish, it’s hard to walk around Barcelona without encountering paella. Market stalls. Bars. Restaurants. It’s everywhere, and being right on the coast, the seafood is delicious.

Another thing that is hard to avoid is a proliferation of brunch restaurants and cafés. We did give in one morning and had huevos rancheros and sweet potato with pulled pork which were pretty good.

There are plenty of markets, with the must visit destination the mercat de la bouqueria. It’s packed full of charcuterie and plenty of places to sit and have a snack or a drink at a wine bar. It does lean a little on the touristy side, but it’s still fun to wander around.

The market is just off La Rambla, the main tourist drag, which was by far the least attractive part of the city. There are a lot of roadworks at present which is causing pedestrian chaos, and there are innumberable shops selling tat and inappropriate thongs. Clearly there is a demand for junk, but that’s not the kind of tourism the city needs as reflected by the protests last year. We had an unpleasant encounter with a beggar offering our daughter a balloon, only to snatch it off her again and pop it when we told her we had no change (who’s even carrying cash?)

One of the highlights was hot chocolate with churros for dipping. The chocolate was incredibly thick and rich, unlike anything I’ve had before. Why this isn’t more popular in the UK is a mystery to me.

Wandering around the city there is no shortage of interesting stuff to see, with a tonne of Gaudi-designed buildings.