Julio Redacción

This year is flavourful with Madrid Fusión in January, Alimentaria in April and Fòrum Gastronòmic of Barcelona in October. These events will settle the basis of the gastronomic tendencies in one of its capitals: Barcelona. Gastronomy has been one of the sectors with greater growth in Spain thanks to a unique formula; that is the constant renewal following just the latest tendencies. Just like fashion or business, cuisine is in constant evolution in a way that what you like the most today might stop looking appetising to you the day after.

Globalisation makes culture to spread out very quick around the entire world. Nowadays any ingredient you think of can be found. Then we learn how to add it into our cuisine. We are interested in the origin of each ingredient and even concerned about the environment while we consume it.

We are taking gastronomy much further by evaluating how good it is for our health, identifying much precisely food intolerances and understanding gastronomy as cultural expression. All of this, plus the willingness of innovation, makes gastronomy go forward. Let’s take a closer look to the most important gastronomic events of the year: Madrid Fusión, Alimentaria 2016, and Fòrum Gastronòmic de Barcelona.

The night of December 3rd will welcome fashion all along Passeig de Gràcia with a new edition of Barcelona Shopping Night, as well as a Christmas celebration that will be full of light.

Once again, Passeig de Gràcia and its nearby streets transform themselves in order to host a huge commercial, gastronomy and cultural party.

Barcelona Shopping Night celebrates its sixth edition on December 3rd, right on one of the most emblematic boulevards of the city. This celebration will be extended throughout the heart of Eixample Neighbourhood, a few days after Christmas lights turn on.

Following the topic of the British drama writer William Shakespeare, more than 160 stores will participate in 2015 Shopping Night.

The night will open the new season for Christmas shopping.

Autumn is probably the best time of the year to enjoy colours and feelings of nature. And if you are looking for a place to do that, forests in Catalonia really stand out, especially for their beautiful beachwoods.

Regardless of the high temperatures in summer and part of autumn, this is the best time of the year to enjoy the splendid forests in Catalonia. Apart from giving you the option of hanging around Barcelona’s parks, October and November feature a change of colours in beachwoods and a shower of leaves that cover the ground, a worthy landscape to see.

Between September and October, wooded areas show an array of autumn colours, a phenomenon that usually lasts a couple of days and that is worth experiencing in some parts of the territory.

Chromatic varieties depend on the altitude and latitude. This is the ideal time to unveil five of the best Catalan beachwoods, located in different corners of the territory.

Plans to hang around forests in Catalonia!

The city features some of the most visited spots worldwide. But apart from that, it also gives importance to business tourism, which goes for high quality in every trip. More details of this will be available in 2015 IBTM.

The tourist attractiveness of Barcelona is the reason why the city is the host of the greatest annual business tourism fair worldwide. It is an event with more than a decade of history that has helped enhancing the Spanish market, which now shows record figures for its high number of visitors.

As from its first edition in 2004, IBTM has experienced the competition between areas like Costa Brava in Girona and Barcelona. Moreover, new trends on responsible tourism are gaining space in the market.

Travel agencies, tour operators, hotel chains, congress centres, service companies and event managers will come together once more to define a strategy as regards business tourism.

At the same time of IBTM, Smart City Expo World Congress is also celebrated. They are two events on urban trends.

There is no other place for them to take place: the city of Barcelona.

Bon Pastor and Baró de Viver Neighbourhoods are part of the working city of Barcelona, which is now facing new challenges while conserving old buildings featuring the old architectural nature of the area.

The history of Sant Andreu District has started with a rural origin, passed through an industrial revolution and reached a commercial tradition.

Far from the centre of Barcelona, the historic area of Sant Andreu with its working class neighbourhoods offers a distant image from the modernist style of the city itself. This area features landscapes with Roman and Medieval remains, as well as cheap properties that are part of the architectural urban heritage.

With 1000 years of history and a century of working class dwellings, the centre of Sant Andreu defines its past and future. It is an area that will change with the arrival of high speed means of transports and will make the new Avenida Meridiana more habitable.

Today we are getting to know this working city of popular architecture, which hides a history full of light and shadows.

Neighbourhoods that define themselves!

The World Press Photo is back to Barcelona with the most awaited photojournalism exhibition of the year, showing situations without any type of censorship. A whole year in pictures in CCCB!

The 11th edition of the photography contest World Press Photo is back after one year in cultural centre Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona (CCCB) from November 12th to December 13th. The exhibition, organized by foundation Photographic Social Vision, gathers 134 photographs and 7 multimedia projects, some of which will be awarded this prestigious international photojournalism prize.

The exhibition is completed by a whole range of parallel activities: talks, workshops and guided visits, apart from interviews to the authors and jurors.

This time, the World Press Photo 2015 has awarded 45 prizes to 41 authors from 17 different nationalities. This is the annual summary of art without going out from Raval Neighbourhood.

This year’s winning image is a photo by Dane Mads Nissen, portraying the homosexual couple Jon and Alex, sharing an intimate moment in their small apartment. This perfectly reflects the heading of the exhibition: ‘Seeing is Understanding’.

This is an exhibition that looks for making everybody aware of a lively, stunning and real world!

With 2015 Smart City Expo, Barcelona celebrates the most important event ever on smart cities. This idea revolves around a model of urban management that couldn’t be understood on its own. That is why the concepts of mobility (BCNRail 2015) and innovation (4YFN 2016) come to play.

The concept of smart city results from the need to manage cities and their inhabitants in a different way. Every year, a referent congress on this matter is celebrated in the city of Barcelona: Smart City Expo World Congress.

The city has been considered the first smart city in the country thanks to the celebration of that event and its excellent urban practices. Some other European capitals are on the same path, although Barcelona has also been considered the iCapital (European Capital of Innovation).

The international summit on smart cities, or Smart City Expo, and the International railway industry show, or BCNRail, are both celebrated in Fira de Barcelona between November 17th and 19th, 2015. These events will make Barcelona be seen as a referent for urban developments and strategic mobility, also strengthening its label as Mobile World Capital.

Let’s see some of the news of this double event!