If you follow the fuzzy, cantaloupe glow of the street lights and the grumbling mopeds, they’ll eventually lead you to the beautiful squares of Gràcia.

Rovira i Trias, Sol and Virreina.

Martyred saints hang just above a doorway. Relics of another time before an organic food shop was a thing.

The smell of fruit drifts through the air. Figs, apricots, melons.

The aroma sticks to you like the heat until you stop, dazzled by the twinkling of the hanging lights outside the theatre on Carrer de Terol.

Bars on corners remind you of sticky, July nights and “una caña mas”. A little piece of neon inviting you inside.

Oh look, there’s the place where they serve the octopus that melts in your mouth! And the razor clams lined up on the bar.

There’s wine in barrels and little plates of croquetas. The waiter tells you there aren’t any tables. That’s fine. We’ll sit on the wall here.

Or even on the floor in Plaça del Sol. There’s no need for chairs there. Just cans of Estrella and political plans.

A fierce white light melts through the leaves on Plaça del Raspall. The dancing rays make intricate patterns on the opposite wall and illuminate a woman filling her water bottle by the fountain. Nearby an Argentinian bakery sells empanadas.

You turn a corner and a street looks like it cuts through the whole city. You can see all the way from Gràcia to the sea; from Gràcia to the hills.

Blinds and shutters in windows make faces out of buildings. They smile down at you from above graffiti that tells you that the people of Gràcia want to vote.

Now you’re on Carrer de Montmany, which turns into an ocean of hearts for a week in August. On other streets there are dragons, or exotic trees. On others, hundreds of butterflies float above your head.

Before the Festa Major de Gràcia, you peek through an open door at the abuelas making plans. Making shapes out of paper. Making everything.  

In early Spring before the heat arrives, the streets are filled with sweets instead. Thrown from carriages pulled by horses, they rain down on you from all sides and paint the floor. Kids dart around you to grab as many as they can.     

The relentless sun pulls at the crimson awning of a patisserie near Joanic. Turning it a salmon pink. Through its windows you see odd-shaped biscuits and traditional-looking breads covered in little jewels.

After walking a little further you glance at a crumbling yellow facade on Carrer de l’Encarnació which reveals a year; 1923.

But before you can ask what it means, you notice the sky on fire behind the clouds that are slowly moving in off the coast and changing the mood.

You shout a quick “adeu!” And then you’re eating oily anchovies and drinking a vermut or two.

A football whizzes past your table and a mother shouts at a boy with the name “Messi” on his back.

On Carrer Tordera, the bushy-topped trees bow in the breeze, as if in reverence to the man across the street, who narrowly avoids the splashing of water rushing down from the plants on a balcony above.

And then, suddenly, you’re on a balcony yourself. Looking out beyond the jagged rooftops. Across the many churches and monuments of Gràcia. Over the painted spires of the Sagrada Familia and out towards the glistening, sapphire sea.