7 Best Shopping in Barcelona, Spain

This is the bookstore to seek out if you're interested in the Pyrenees or in exploring any part of the Catalonian hinterlands. Maps, charts, and books detailing everything from Pyrenean ponds and lakes to Romanesque chapels are available in this diminutive giant of a resource. The space doubles as a restaurant, serving wine, cheese, and a few traditional Catalan dishes. It's been family owned and operated since 1916. 

Barcelona's premier travel and adventure bookstore stocks many titles in English. Book presentations and events scheduled here feature a wide range of notable authors from Alpinists to Africanists.

On Barcelona's most important shopping street, Casa del Llibre is a major book feast with a wide variety of English titles.

For musical recordings and the latest book publications, this is one of Barcelona's most dependable and happening addresses. Regular concerts, presentations of new recordings, and art exhibits take place in FNAC, both here at the branch in the Triangle Shopping Center on Plaça Catalunya and one on Diagonal in the L'Illa shopping center. Much more than a bookstore, it's an important cultural resource.

Hands-down, Barcelona's best bookstore for years, La Central has creaky, literary wooden floors and piles of recent publications with many interesting titles in English.

This bookstore in the former chapel of the Casa de la Misericòrdia sells books amid stunning architecture and holds regular cultural events. You can sift through books of various genres, from anthropology and architecture to photography and poetry, and the English-language section showcases both best-sellers and lesser-known works. Behind the bookstore is Bar Central's lush garden restaurant, which is still a bit of a local secret. 

Though it doesn't have a lot of English-language titles, this bookstore has a very pleasant café-restaurant upstairs; the space is often used for readings and other cultural events. Other branches of Laie are located around Barcelona, including major museums such as the Museu Picasso and Cosmocaixa.