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Last posts

Love Barcelona!

Mónica Boixeda Barcelonian, Only-Be

All my friends coming to visit me in Barcelona always say: “One of the best times to visit Barcelona is between April and June.” When you leave your apartments in Barcelona, the nice temperature of 16 ° C at 9 am, brighten up the faces of everybody you see walking on the street. The sun is just perfect and is a great time to sit in any of the terraces that hug the streets of Barcelona for breakfast. A “mini” is what often accompanies the traditional coffee with milk, a small piece of bread filling of any Iberian ham. They do not usually exceed 4 €. After that you can go walking anywhere in the city. The streets smell of the flowers hanging from every balcony, the sun illuminates every corner and street of the city, and a slight breeze reminds you that the sea is very close, and you will find it at a stone’s throw. In Barcelona you have art, culture, design, fashion, trends, exhibitions, literature, architecture, music, party, cuisine and especially the locals. Warm people that even though can’t really speak English, will always recommend you their favorite restaurant or indicate you how to get anywhere using the subway. Barcelona is a very special city that has something that makes you fall in love with it. Alemateo87 There are so many friends who want to visit Barcelona with the excuse to see me, that I can’t host them all in my apartment. The best option is to rent any one of the apartments in Barcelona... read more

Discover the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul

Mónica Boixeda Istanbulite, Only-Be

Çiçek Pasaj? (literally Flower Passage in Turkish), originally called the Cité de Péra, is a famous historic passage (galleria or arcade) on ?stiklal Avenue in the Beyo?lu district of Istanbul, which is most famous for its bars, restaurants, and night clubs. In short, you can call it the heart of Istanbul that attracts the people. According to a recent poll, the Flower Passage is the first thing that comes to one’s mind when they think of Beyo?lu. Initially florists inhabited Çiçek Pasaj?, but gradually the florists and other residents of the flats moved out and only the name of the passage survived. What you can find now in the “Flower Passage” are 9 restaurants and each evening the tables are filled with locals and foreigners who come to have an entertaining evening, eating, laughing and enjoying each other’s company with plates of meze (one of the typical plates), traditional kebaps, seafood, desserts, and glass after glass of Turkish rak? which is a famous traditional alcoholic beverage in Turkey. Of course, beer and wine are not missing. The standards of the restaurants are similar, my favorite one is Seviç. It is an old one where frequent visitors to this day have mostly been journalists, novelists and artists. Even if you don’t plan to have dinner there, almost every night it’s very authentic and enjoyable with musicians playing typical instruments and singing songs, with nice meze plates and Turkish Raki. In 1997, a famous journalist said the following about the Flower Passage: “The Flower Passage, the first stop during evenings in Beyoglu,…before you go home you can take a nap and... read more

Markets in Barcelona

Mónica Boixeda Barcelonian, Only-Be

As a city on the Mediterranean coast and because of the natural routes connecting it with the interior since Roman times, Barcelona has always been a great commercial city. The market has been an important factor in the city’s development to date and thus, becoming an important part of the Catalan economy as well. There is evidence that the first organized market here was held at a spot outside the city walls, where the Plaza de Angel currently stands, at the end of the 10th century. Then others began to appear for the exchange of goods, such as el Born or la Boqueria, going through a great evolution from the Middle Ages until the 19th century, reflecting the various changes in society. The markets we know today are essentially the result of thousands of years of history. And in both their appearance and rationality, they are a legacy left to us by the cast-iron architecture, a classification that arose during the 19th century when the modern city was being built. The buildings at the time had metal skeletons covered with glass that had monumental proportions large interiors. The first covered market was the Mercado de Santa Caterina from 1844. But the first purely modernist market to be conceived was Mercado del Born. It was followed by the Mercado de la Llibertat de Gracia (1875) and many more with the same characteristics, such as Sant Antoni (1882), and the ones located at la Barceloneta (1884), la Concepció and Hostafrancs (1888) as well as those at Clot, (1889), Gràcia, and la Abaceria (1892). Some of these were part of structured communities, making them vitally important for the sustainable growth... read more