article_snippet.sent: Just knowing that for half the year you can take a dip in the Med after work, or sip rosé on the terrace of a seafront restaurant as the sun sets must be like living in a perpetual Mr Benn adventure, where you enter the fancy dress shop, trade your suit for a sundress, and walk through the magic door to a beach party.
article_snippet.sent: There's enough art and culture to keep you busy for a decade of weekend breaks, plus cracking food, colourful markets and plenty of places to party all night long.
article_snippet.sent: I first brushed shoulders with it on a hen weekend a year later, when there was still a sombrero-full of pesetas to the pound.
article_snippet.sent: I persuaded the girls to pack away the L-plates and head there for cocktails (the L-plates probably doubled the budget of the whole weekend) before the girls rushed back to the nightclubs of Las Ramblas.
article_snippet.sent: Now, finally, I was here, unencumbered by work, football fans or hen weekends, with no more baggage than a weekend case.
article_snippet.sent: Things were just livening up in Frank's bar (named after the creator of the fish sculpture) where the signature cocktails were delicious and the staff were so friendly that it would have been churlish not to have another one.
article_snippet.sent: It's like nothing else.
article_snippet.sent: is large amount of eating and drinking to had among all that marching and culture.
article_snippet.sent: In fact, our seemed to dine in an obscenely large number of places given that our were only in the city for a weekend.
article_snippet.sent: My out and out favourite was Mont Bar.
article_snippet.sent: It's not much to look at from the outside, but the atmosphere is laidback and bohemian, the chef works creative magic with whatever has arrived from the market that day, and the results are truly amazing.
article_snippet.sent: There are not so many 'must sees' that you need to have a precise agenda.
article_snippet.sent: Anyway, I'd rather miss out on another art exhibition and linger over lunch, all the time hoping that, unlike in Mr Benn, the shopkeeper doesn't suddenly appear and invite me to go home.