Hi there mate. I was in Barcelona in 2019. More precisely, in the city of Calella. Great city, great people. By the way, I don’t understand why Barcelona is called an unsafe city. My plane arrived at night and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a taxi, so I decided to walk around the city at night until the morning. Maybe I was lucky, but there was no one scary or aggressive that night
well... i have been in barcelona quite some time the last three years and i havent seen anything strange. Just take care of your pockets and avoid certain zones at night. Like every other big european city.
true true. btw i was walking around railway station, i think this is not a safe place in every country. but I'm alive haha moreover I even didn't meet any homeless guys or something
I've been in Barcelona three times and every time I saw a tourist getting robbed/pick pocketed. I'm very spectical and scan people around me all the time.
Once we were sitting in a street cafe, just by the sidewalk and there was this well dressed man, in business casual, holding a briefcase. We was standing at the entrance to a building and reading his phone. He slowly creeped to a table near us and tried to take a laptop bag hanging from the chair. The English speaking guy from the other table and I stood up and chased the asshole down the street.
I was in Rome in 2014 with my four-months pregnant wife, and we enjoyed the experience so much that I have no words. We were there for three days. We woke up early in the morning, walked half of the day to see the historic places, and we spent the last third of the day in the Trastevere. I had always had a positive opinion of Italy, but that travel made me fell in love with the country.
Fantastic country, nice people, great food, nice prices.
I think there are three Spain areas:
* Spanish cities
* Spanish country sites
* the touristic coastal areas, crowded with white tourist hotels and appartments ... which I don't like
It's beautiful. Many times. Amazing.
Seriously, Spain is a huge country with a diverse gastronomy, rich culture, beautiful cities, towns, nature and hidden gems.
Just (as in 2hours ago) got home from a week in Madrid.
Everyone was friendly, nearly all of them spoke English, food was good and cheap.
I liked it a lot.
I have been to Spain once. When I was 14 years old. We visited the Alhambra. I've never seen another place like it. Now more than 20 years later I can still remember it vividly. Absolutely beautiful
Otherwise I am sad that I never had the chance to return. The people were really sweet and always happy just about me saying gracias or hola. Just good memories.
We also drove by night through the Extremadura and stopped in the middle of nowhere. Don't know why but that moment and the Alhambra really stuck with me. I hope to return one day
I've never been to Spain, but i learned Spanish. My favorite of foreign languages! You read as you spell and no weird sounds that you just can not pronounce like in English, French or Polish.
Been several places in Spain and walked 80% of the Camino, I really liked it. The people are a little shy but always friendly. The landscape is very different from region to region. I like it and will come back, love the food
My dream motorbike trip is to reach malaga from Italy and tour around from malaga up and up until the pyrenees. Sights, food, art, history, culture, music... Does that tell you much about my perception of Spain? 😅
Lovely people, no matter which region I went to. The most fun kind too - can't speak English very well but REALLY want to chat with you. The climate is a bit extreme for my tastes, but I prefer the cold so that's just me. Great food, very pretty nature, pretty and lively albeit dirty towns and cities. Didn't really feel like I was in danger anywhere. Reasonable prices for a tourist if you're not an idiot about it.
It took us so much time to make it clear we were just looking for a supermarket to a group of local people in random cafe because they were no shit speaking/understanding English at all !
This was back in 2010, during the football "vuvuzela" World Cup, too soon for smartphone to guide us, no translator, just us and them during 15-20min of non sense discussions 🙈. In the end Spain won the final game. What a good time we had celebrating the cup with everyone there.
Food quality is uneven. Some parts of the country have fantastic food (Andalucia), in others you're going to be eating pescado con papas everyday (looking at you Asturias!). Food in the cities is generally much better then the countryside.
People: Spaniards are generally friendly and helpful. In this respect rural areas definitely win. However, Spaniards have relatively poor language skills compared to other European countries (only Italians, I find, are worse).
Cities/towns/architecture: Spain is a clear winner in this category. Spain has some of the nicest cities and architecture in all of Europe. In particular, there's lots of old architecture(of course) but even the modern architecture seems to be playful and pleasant and manages to avoid the depressing grey Brutalism that's so common in most of the rest of Europe. A solid example of this is the Metropol Parasol in Seville. Also, Spain has avoided the urban sprawl which plagues much of northern Europe, which means everywhere is quite walkable, and it's quite easy to get out of urban areas. Some cities in Spain unfortunately are suffering from overtourism (eg Barcelona).
Natural beauty: Some parts are very nice (and many parts of the Camino Santiago are very nice), but Spain doesn't quite manage the natural beauty you can see in the Alps, Scandinavia or Ireland/Scotland, as most of the country is fairly flat and dry. However, it is more varied then most of the rest of Europe.
Weather: It goes without saying, excellent.
Economy: not great. Especially in the big cities, it feels like the math doesn't work for regular working people. You have rents of 900 euro+ when typical salaries aren't much more then 1500. A lot of young people feel quite hopeless. Likewise, many rural areas are depopulating and dying. They deserve better.
Overall: Probably one of Europe's top tourism destinations (for me, it's competing with Italy for the number 1 spot), and the fundamentals are great, but the economic problems mean I'm in no rush to move there.
I lived in Madrid for a year and have visited other cities and islands. There’s some things I adore about Spain and others I can’t stand. I found the culture very different from my own (British), both for better and for worse. Overall though the country has a place in my heart, and I’d consider going back. I still practice the language, I love it.
Been to Catalonia during Covid, my friends recently came back from Madrid, one of my best mates at work is from Alicante.
What can I say, I love Spain. Great food, great alcohol, great landscapes, super friendly people, not too expensive, just superb. And I think this goes both ways, because I've met a lot of Spaniards in Poland and they seem to enjoy it as well.
I’ve fallen in love with Spain ever since visiting Seville about 2 years ago. I’ve seen been back to Seville this year and now I want to keep going back to Spain and see more! It’s just so nice
I used to go to France a lot with my family but I always thought i would prefer Spain and I guess I was right
I’m from the uk btw : )
But I don’t want to visit the places full of drunk twats from here haha
In my opinion, Spain is authentic almost everywhere. Towns as small as Alcañiz have among the highest population densities in Europe. \[[Source](https://qgiscloud.com/Tobi273/EUGrid/?l=raster_overlay%2CEinwohner&bl=AerialWithLabels&t=EUGrid&e=-23327%2C5015260%2C-7071%2C5022816)\]
5 of the innermost square kilometres in Milan aren't as densely populated as the center of Alcañiz. \[[Source](https://qgiscloud.com/Tobi273/EUGrid/?l=raster_overlay%2CEinwohner&bl=AerialWithLabels&t=EUGrid&e=1018943%2C5692990%2C1027071%2C5696768)\]
In Spain, people are actually living in the core of a city, which gives those neighborhoods an authentic vibe. Although a lot of tourists visit Mercat de la Boqueria in Barcelona, there's still plenty of residents living closeby. The square kilometre of the Mercat de la Boqueria would be the most densely populated area in Germany.
I'm British. When I went to Fuengirola it was horrendous and I hated it. I go regularly to Barcelona and might move there at some point, I love it. Like all places it has good and bad parts.
Absolutely wonderful, I’ve always felt so happy whenever I was in Spain! One of the culturally richest countries I’ve seen. As far as I can remember I’ve visited Palma, Valencia, Barcelona and Malaga and it was when I worked for a cruise line so all my visits were short and sweet. Hope to be able to return for a proper vacay with my family (recommendations welcome).
If you like mountain tiurism, the north is great. Several towns are beautiful too (Teruel, Alquézar, mountain small cities). We have a lot of visitors from NED, GER, and FRA for campings.
I have this dream of buying an old arid farm and regenerate the country side over the last years of my life. Seems like a worthwhile thing to do all things considered.
I visited Tenerife in 2022 and was in Malaga&Granada last month. As a Slovenian, I felt great in Spain. People are nice and kind. The pace of life is slow, and the climate is good. 🌴☀️🏖️I would definitely live in a coastal town or on an island in Spain. Also, I love your white villages, like Mijas Pueblo and Frigiliana.
School trip to Barcelona. Two days were lost to rain that actually flooded the metro. For the rest we just saw the usual things. Also saw a terrible match against Osasuna.
I've toured the east and south coast on a motorhome.
So I spent a total of four months during winter 2022 at Barcelona, Almeria, Malaga, Benalmadena, Fuengirola, Torremolinos, Sevilla, Granada, Ronda, Nerja, Marbella, Sierra Nevada (snowboarding) etc. etc.
Great hiking places, beautiful cities and great food. It gets a bit too hectic and crowded for my Finnish mind :)
Been over 10 times all over Spain! (My family used to own a house in Barcelona and just bought a new one in Torrevieja)
Amazing country and I'm so excited to visit again in 10 days! 🇮🇸❤️🇪🇸
Hey amico, I obviously visited Madrid, Ibiza, Mallorca and Barcelona, but I like to visit little cities so, for example, these are some places where I stayed overnight, in different times
Badajoz, Pamplona, Ciudad Rodrigo, Jaca, Toledo, Zaragoza. I visited your country in a VERY LONG road trip, going to Portugal and back (staying in Ciudad Rodrigo before going to Coimbra and re-entering after leaving Lisbon via Badajoz, LOL).
Been all over Spain working as a roadie for various bands. Some of the best memories-San Sebastian and driving in tour bus across the north-central part of Spain and the absolute beauty of the small villages along the way.
As a Spaniard myself I understand that most of the comments are from people visiting touristic places, that's fine but allow me to suggest to you that the "top left corner", Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and Northern Castille-León will surprise you. Milder weather, greener landscapes and, of course, nice people and superb food.
From 6th to 9th grade I had to choose between studying Spanish, French or German. (It was called modern languages). I chose Spanish cause it was the biggest.
To this day I can still say "El lobo puede ir rapido".
As a swede, the tap water is bloody disgusting! 🤮 tap water should not taste like chlorine 😭
But overall, i like the architecture, the heat (until it’s too hot), and well I would say the food but I’m a picky eater so I mainly ate pizza last time 😅
Great food, some places are seriously dirty, generally very nice people, very poor second language skills (I’m a native English/ fluent French speaker) and even in the touristy parts of the Pyrenees people speak neither.
Hi there mate. I was in Barcelona in 2019. More precisely, in the city of Calella. Great city, great people. By the way, I don’t understand why Barcelona is called an unsafe city. My plane arrived at night and I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a taxi, so I decided to walk around the city at night until the morning. Maybe I was lucky, but there was no one scary or aggressive that night
well... i have been in barcelona quite some time the last three years and i havent seen anything strange. Just take care of your pockets and avoid certain zones at night. Like every other big european city.
true true. btw i was walking around railway station, i think this is not a safe place in every country. but I'm alive haha moreover I even didn't meet any homeless guys or something
depends of the station hahaha
I've been in Barcelona three times and every time I saw a tourist getting robbed/pick pocketed. I'm very spectical and scan people around me all the time. Once we were sitting in a street cafe, just by the sidewalk and there was this well dressed man, in business casual, holding a briefcase. We was standing at the entrance to a building and reading his phone. He slowly creeped to a table near us and tried to take a laptop bag hanging from the chair. The English speaking guy from the other table and I stood up and chased the asshole down the street.
I do not argue🤝 Like i said, maybe it was just lucky night for me
pick pockets.
As as portuguese, I can assess from my experience of being in spain, that it is, in fact, very spanish.
Buen camino!
you did the camino de santiago?
As an Italian Spain feels like home where locals speak with a strange accent ❤️
All children of Rome :)
mediterranean bros
i was in italy on 2013 and i can say the same thing 🇮🇹 🫂 🇪🇸
I was in Rome in 2014 with my four-months pregnant wife, and we enjoyed the experience so much that I have no words. We were there for three days. We woke up early in the morning, walked half of the day to see the historic places, and we spent the last third of the day in the Trastevere. I had always had a positive opinion of Italy, but that travel made me fell in love with the country.
Fantastic country, nice people, great food, nice prices. I think there are three Spain areas: * Spanish cities * Spanish country sites * the touristic coastal areas, crowded with white tourist hotels and appartments ... which I don't like
did you went to north west coast? there arent so many tourists there
I was in Tenerife and Fuerte Ventura and they were nice! Never been in mainland.
It's beautiful. Many times. Amazing. Seriously, Spain is a huge country with a diverse gastronomy, rich culture, beautiful cities, towns, nature and hidden gems.
Just (as in 2hours ago) got home from a week in Madrid. Everyone was friendly, nearly all of them spoke English, food was good and cheap. I liked it a lot.
cool! im from madrid
Brotherly love 🇵🇹❤️🇪🇸
I have been to Spain once. When I was 14 years old. We visited the Alhambra. I've never seen another place like it. Now more than 20 years later I can still remember it vividly. Absolutely beautiful Otherwise I am sad that I never had the chance to return. The people were really sweet and always happy just about me saying gracias or hola. Just good memories. We also drove by night through the Extremadura and stopped in the middle of nowhere. Don't know why but that moment and the Alhambra really stuck with me. I hope to return one day
I've never been to Spain, but i learned Spanish. My favorite of foreign languages! You read as you spell and no weird sounds that you just can not pronounce like in English, French or Polish.
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One day we will make it happen! 🤝
...again! We lived many centuries together due to the Roman Empire!
i havent been to greece yet but some people say that greek sound like spanish if you dont understand it
Been several places in Spain and walked 80% of the Camino, I really liked it. The people are a little shy but always friendly. The landscape is very different from region to region. I like it and will come back, love the food
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i want to go!
My dream motorbike trip is to reach malaga from Italy and tour around from malaga up and up until the pyrenees. Sights, food, art, history, culture, music... Does that tell you much about my perception of Spain? 😅
Spanish people are awesome. Spanish polis are not.
Lovely people, no matter which region I went to. The most fun kind too - can't speak English very well but REALLY want to chat with you. The climate is a bit extreme for my tastes, but I prefer the cold so that's just me. Great food, very pretty nature, pretty and lively albeit dirty towns and cities. Didn't really feel like I was in danger anywhere. Reasonable prices for a tourist if you're not an idiot about it.
It took us so much time to make it clear we were just looking for a supermarket to a group of local people in random cafe because they were no shit speaking/understanding English at all ! This was back in 2010, during the football "vuvuzela" World Cup, too soon for smartphone to guide us, no translator, just us and them during 15-20min of non sense discussions 🙈. In the end Spain won the final game. What a good time we had celebrating the cup with everyone there.
Food quality is uneven. Some parts of the country have fantastic food (Andalucia), in others you're going to be eating pescado con papas everyday (looking at you Asturias!). Food in the cities is generally much better then the countryside. People: Spaniards are generally friendly and helpful. In this respect rural areas definitely win. However, Spaniards have relatively poor language skills compared to other European countries (only Italians, I find, are worse). Cities/towns/architecture: Spain is a clear winner in this category. Spain has some of the nicest cities and architecture in all of Europe. In particular, there's lots of old architecture(of course) but even the modern architecture seems to be playful and pleasant and manages to avoid the depressing grey Brutalism that's so common in most of the rest of Europe. A solid example of this is the Metropol Parasol in Seville. Also, Spain has avoided the urban sprawl which plagues much of northern Europe, which means everywhere is quite walkable, and it's quite easy to get out of urban areas. Some cities in Spain unfortunately are suffering from overtourism (eg Barcelona). Natural beauty: Some parts are very nice (and many parts of the Camino Santiago are very nice), but Spain doesn't quite manage the natural beauty you can see in the Alps, Scandinavia or Ireland/Scotland, as most of the country is fairly flat and dry. However, it is more varied then most of the rest of Europe. Weather: It goes without saying, excellent. Economy: not great. Especially in the big cities, it feels like the math doesn't work for regular working people. You have rents of 900 euro+ when typical salaries aren't much more then 1500. A lot of young people feel quite hopeless. Likewise, many rural areas are depopulating and dying. They deserve better. Overall: Probably one of Europe's top tourism destinations (for me, it's competing with Italy for the number 1 spot), and the fundamentals are great, but the economic problems mean I'm in no rush to move there.
Wow! great analysis. And in the economic matters…well i hope gets better specially for young people like
I lived in Madrid for a year and have visited other cities and islands. There’s some things I adore about Spain and others I can’t stand. I found the culture very different from my own (British), both for better and for worse. Overall though the country has a place in my heart, and I’d consider going back. I still practice the language, I love it.
Might you give us some examples of those good and not so good things?
Might you give us some examples of those good and not so good things?
Been to Catalonia during Covid, my friends recently came back from Madrid, one of my best mates at work is from Alicante. What can I say, I love Spain. Great food, great alcohol, great landscapes, super friendly people, not too expensive, just superb. And I think this goes both ways, because I've met a lot of Spaniards in Poland and they seem to enjoy it as well.
I’ve fallen in love with Spain ever since visiting Seville about 2 years ago. I’ve seen been back to Seville this year and now I want to keep going back to Spain and see more! It’s just so nice I used to go to France a lot with my family but I always thought i would prefer Spain and I guess I was right I’m from the uk btw : ) But I don’t want to visit the places full of drunk twats from here haha
I stayed in Benidorm. Great town with lots places to visit and many friendly people
benidorm might be the worst place in all of the country just saying. But im glad you enjoyed it :)
In my opinion, Spain is authentic almost everywhere. Towns as small as Alcañiz have among the highest population densities in Europe. \[[Source](https://qgiscloud.com/Tobi273/EUGrid/?l=raster_overlay%2CEinwohner&bl=AerialWithLabels&t=EUGrid&e=-23327%2C5015260%2C-7071%2C5022816)\] 5 of the innermost square kilometres in Milan aren't as densely populated as the center of Alcañiz. \[[Source](https://qgiscloud.com/Tobi273/EUGrid/?l=raster_overlay%2CEinwohner&bl=AerialWithLabels&t=EUGrid&e=1018943%2C5692990%2C1027071%2C5696768)\] In Spain, people are actually living in the core of a city, which gives those neighborhoods an authentic vibe. Although a lot of tourists visit Mercat de la Boqueria in Barcelona, there's still plenty of residents living closeby. The square kilometre of the Mercat de la Boqueria would be the most densely populated area in Germany.
I'm British. When I went to Fuengirola it was horrendous and I hated it. I go regularly to Barcelona and might move there at some point, I love it. Like all places it has good and bad parts.
Absolutely wonderful, I’ve always felt so happy whenever I was in Spain! One of the culturally richest countries I’ve seen. As far as I can remember I’ve visited Palma, Valencia, Barcelona and Malaga and it was when I worked for a cruise line so all my visits were short and sweet. Hope to be able to return for a proper vacay with my family (recommendations welcome).
My recommendation is to go to the north atlantic coast (galicia and asturias) and castilla-leon!
Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria... places were tourism has not (yet?) changed people and environmemt. Hidden gems.
and i hope it necee does…how is aragon?
If you like mountain tiurism, the north is great. Several towns are beautiful too (Teruel, Alquézar, mountain small cities). We have a lot of visitors from NED, GER, and FRA for campings.
I was asking if aragon is massified by tourists like madrid or the east coast
No way. Only skiing citues in ski season.
that’s nice, i hope it keeps like that hahaha
Thank you!!
I have this dream of buying an old arid farm and regenerate the country side over the last years of my life. Seems like a worthwhile thing to do all things considered.
You guys get all the good weather and you took it from the rest of Europe. Be honest!
Love spain, my good friend is spanish. Love te people and their attitude
I visited Tenerife in 2022 and was in Malaga&Granada last month. As a Slovenian, I felt great in Spain. People are nice and kind. The pace of life is slow, and the climate is good. 🌴☀️🏖️I would definitely live in a coastal town or on an island in Spain. Also, I love your white villages, like Mijas Pueblo and Frigiliana.
School trip to Barcelona. Two days were lost to rain that actually flooded the metro. For the rest we just saw the usual things. Also saw a terrible match against Osasuna.
Looks like Toussaint
its Tossa de Mar! in girona
What a coincidence, this city was my random Windows 10 screen saver this morning. Looks amazing.
I've toured the east and south coast on a motorhome. So I spent a total of four months during winter 2022 at Barcelona, Almeria, Malaga, Benalmadena, Fuengirola, Torremolinos, Sevilla, Granada, Ronda, Nerja, Marbella, Sierra Nevada (snowboarding) etc. etc. Great hiking places, beautiful cities and great food. It gets a bit too hectic and crowded for my Finnish mind :)
Been over 10 times all over Spain! (My family used to own a house in Barcelona and just bought a new one in Torrevieja) Amazing country and I'm so excited to visit again in 10 days! 🇮🇸❤️🇪🇸
Hey amico, I obviously visited Madrid, Ibiza, Mallorca and Barcelona, but I like to visit little cities so, for example, these are some places where I stayed overnight, in different times Badajoz, Pamplona, Ciudad Rodrigo, Jaca, Toledo, Zaragoza. I visited your country in a VERY LONG road trip, going to Portugal and back (staying in Ciudad Rodrigo before going to Coimbra and re-entering after leaving Lisbon via Badajoz, LOL).
Been all over Spain working as a roadie for various bands. Some of the best memories-San Sebastian and driving in tour bus across the north-central part of Spain and the absolute beauty of the small villages along the way.
As a Spaniard myself I understand that most of the comments are from people visiting touristic places, that's fine but allow me to suggest to you that the "top left corner", Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria and Northern Castille-León will surprise you. Milder weather, greener landscapes and, of course, nice people and superb food.
And no so much tourists
From 6th to 9th grade I had to choose between studying Spanish, French or German. (It was called modern languages). I chose Spanish cause it was the biggest. To this day I can still say "El lobo puede ir rapido".
As a swede, the tap water is bloody disgusting! 🤮 tap water should not taste like chlorine 😭 But overall, i like the architecture, the heat (until it’s too hot), and well I would say the food but I’m a picky eater so I mainly ate pizza last time 😅
next time you come you should try the water of madrid, the best in the country 🫡
Great food, some places are seriously dirty, generally very nice people, very poor second language skills (I’m a native English/ fluent French speaker) and even in the touristy parts of the Pyrenees people speak neither.
Poor, hot, dry. People who are way too loud and don't give space to others.
As a foreigner living in Spain, this isn't inaccurate.
where you from