OFFICIAL FREE BCN GUIDE! FREE ISSUE_MAR 2013_N. 8 FREE BcnGuide IN ENGLISH 20 urban oases: relax and unwind without breaking the bank DOWNLOAD FREE TIME OUT BARCELONA APP! THE BEST OF BARCELONA ON YOUR Contents IPHONE! March 2013 ;22 Royal Shipyards A ship with a new life. MARIA DIAS 08 Feature 22 Around town Spas! Oases of pleasure The Royal Shipyards reopen hidden in the city. after their refurbishment. 14 Food & drink 24 Arts Gastrobars: bars with The Picasso Museum. gourmet menus. 26 Nightlife 20 Shopping Jazz club new programme. Henna Morena: slow beauty. 29 Listings TIME OUT BARCELONA TIME OUT BCN GUIDE Advertising Executives Nuria Via Laietana, 20 [email protected] Gómez ([email protected]), 932955400 www.barcelonaturisme.com Mercè Llubera www.timeout.cat Editor Andreu Gomila ([email protected]) Design Irisnegro Edited by 80 + 4 Publicacions Publisher Eduard Voltas Producer Jan Fleischer & Turisme de Barcelona Finance Manager Judit Sans Designer Eduard Forroll Printed by Bigsa Indústria Gràfica Editor-in-chief Andreu Gomila Writers Josep Lambies, DL B.21656-2012 Art director Diego Ricard Martín, Marta Salicrú, ISSN 2014-7546 Piccininno Eugènia Sendra Supported by Features and web editor Translations Maria José Gómez Nick Chapman March 2013 Time Out BCN Guide 3 Monthly planner Get out your diaries! We present just a handful of the cultural highlights of the month ahead. Saturday 03 Friday 08 Sunday 10 SANT MEDIR GUITAR FESTIVAL: STREET CALÇOTADA The city’s sweetest ESTHER CONDAL AND HUMAN festival. Gràcia, + FANNY FOZ TOWERS Sarrià-St.Gervasi Let yourself be Strap on your bib and La Bordeta carried away by the and head for prepare for a sugar voice of Esther Poblesec. high. See p. 38 Condal. See p. 41 See p. 42 Friday 15 Sunday 17 ELS AMICS DE ZURICH BCN LES ARTS MARATHON 2013 Catalan folk-pop The city’s full group promote their marathon challenge new CD ‘Espècies fills the streets of per catalogar’. Barcelona. See p. 44 See p. 45 IBAI ACEVEDO Thursday 21 Saturday 23 Wednesday 00 LUDOVICO TOT FESTIVAL EINAUDI A festival of The italian pianist puppets and object and composer theatre at the presents a new Poble Espanyol. project. Family fun. See p. 46 See p. 47 Sunday 24 Wednesday 27 PALM MADAME SUNDAY BUTTERFLY One of the most Puccini’s best- important dates in known opera Catalonia’s returns to the Liceu religious calendar. opera house. See p. 48 See p.49 4 Time Out BCN Guide March 2013 The Hot Seat Joan de Muga ORIOL MALET World-famous Polígrafa say they’ve published enough art plates to paper every wall in town. By Ada Castells Polígrafa is 100 this year. In the How has the economic crisis current climate, that’s good going. affected you? The business was started by my We survive thanks to the grandfather, a linotype machine international market. Once the operator, with two of his friends, as Spanish market and sales to a commercial print house. My father museums and institutions were joined the business when he was very important, but that has 15. In the 1960s he met Joan Prats, practically dried up, and private a friend of the painter Joan Miró, collectors are also less active. and encouraged him to become an And how is it affecting artists? editor. Polígrafa became the We work with several artists on a publishers of Miró, Max Ernst, long-term basis, and we also try to Antoni Tàpies and Henry Moore. make new contacts internationally. Where is the company today? We work with Spanish artists like We’re no longer a printing house, Perejaume, Evru, Antoni Muntadas but we have a printing studio that and Eulàlia Valldosera. Then there’s attracts artists from all over the our historical work with names like world. One of our best clients is Ràfols Casamada, Hernández New York’s MOMA, and they Pijoan, Guinovart and Joan Brossa. consider us to be one of the best graphic arts publishers in the world – number one as regards 100 new production – and this The number of years that guarantees us a place at the most Polígrafa’s presses have exclusive art shows, such as Art been rolling. Basel Miami or Basel Hong Kong. 6 Time Out BCN Guide March 2013 Barcelona is full of tiny oases of calm where you can seek refuge from city stress. Leave your worries behind and give yourself over to pleasure. By Cristina García YHI SPA HOTEL ME more of play space than a therapy The Hotel Me, part of the Sol Melià centre; from 10am to 11.30am you can chain, incorporates a spa with a hydro even take your kids. The facilities zone (hydro massage pools, include a hydro massage pool, hydrotherapy showers, dry sauna and Turkish bath, sauna, boulder pool, steam room), a relaxation area, gym Indo-Roman baths and an ice cave. and treatment booth. The good news Cardenal Reig, 11 is that the spa is open to the public, Y 93 260 99 00 and offers very competitive prices. www.hotelsenatorbarcelona.com You can use the water circuit, €15 (90 mins on the water circuit) relaxation area and gym for only €10. Pere IV, 272-286 MAJESTIC SPA Y 93 221 10 00 You have two options: take the plunge http://es.melia.com/hoteles/ and try one of the Majestic’s tempting espana/barcelona/me-barcelona treatments and rituals (priced from €10 (water circuit) €50), or use the hydrotherapy zone. The second option gives you and up to MELIÀ BARCELONA three others exclusive use of a room Bi-thermal showers, sauna, Turkish with a sauna, steam bath, ice fountain bath, heat couches and a pool with a and sensations shower. whirlpool: the works. Non-residents Passeig de Gràcia, 68 can take advantage of a €30 pass that Y 93 488 17 17 covers two full-day sessions, www.hotelmajestic.es including access to the water circuit €15 (30 mins on the water circuit) and a massage. Avinguda Sarrià, 50 NATURAL SPA HOTEL Y 93 410 60 60 FIRA CONGRESS www.melia-barcelona.com One of the luxury hotels that serve €12 (water circuit) users of the new trade fair complex on Montjuïc. Entrance to the hydro centre ACQUAPLAYA HOTEL SENATOR is free when you take a treatment. The Hotel Senator has a small urban José Agustín Goytisolo, 9-11 beach in its basement, which it sees as (L’Hospitalet de Llobregat) 8 Time Out BCN Guide March 2013 MANDARIN ORIENTAL SPA March 2013 Time Out BCN Guide 9 Avinguda Joan XXIII, s/n Y 93 508 10 96 [email protected] www.aquadiagonal.com €26 (water circuit) METROPOLITAN SAGRADA FAMÍLIA Run by the Metropolitan chain, this is a luxurious, spacious, modern complex, whose enormous pool area is one of its main attractions. There’s a hydro massage pool in the changing rooms, a Turkish bath and a sauna, and in the public area, a pool with ‘thermoludic’ eff ects, a sauna with TV, a hamam, bi-thermal and steam MELIÀ BARCELONA showers and an ice fountain – all this plus two swimming pools. Provença, 408 Y 93 507 33 25 Y93 267 18 00 www.clubmetropolitan.net http://www.fi racongress.com/ €30 (water circuit) / €64 (monthly €16 (water circuit) membership) AIRE DE BARCELONA THE ROYAL CLUB FITNESS BANYS ÀRABS It’s all here: sauna, caldarium, cold and Aire de Barcelona revives the heated swimming pools, mild steam tradition of the Arab baths, sauna, pressure showers, and more. themselves successors to the great The décor harks back to the Roman Roman public baths. In the midst of origins of the public baths. Entrance the remains of medieval Barcelona in to the spa can be complemented with the Born, these carefully restored and massages and their gym – or if you modernised Arab baths off er the prefer, you can lounge in the pool with classic bathing combination of the Mediterranean as a backdrop. Templarium (warm), Caldarium (hot) Diagonal, 661-671 and Frigidarium (cold). The basic Y 93 364 41 41 package includes a hamam steam http://www.hrjuancarlos.com bath, and can be extended with a €32.10 (water circuit) massage or exfoliation on hot marble. Passeig Picasso, 22 SKIPPER’S Y 902 55 57 89 The hydro massage pool at Skipper’s www.airedebarcelona.com has views of Montjuïc. The pool area €29 (water circuit + aromatherapy) isn’t huge (hydro massage, steam bath, ice basin and contrast showers, AQUA DIAGONAL with essential oils and aromatherapy), WELLNESS CENTRE but there is a small outdoor hydro This is spa shares a premises with the massage pool next to the main pool. If Hotel Princess Sofi a, and they like to you opt for a treatment, entrance to keep things exclusive, although non- this area is free; or it’s €35 to use the residents can purchase a one-day indoor space and €50 for the outdoors. pass. The spa zone lacks for nothing: Avinguda del Litoral, 10 Scottish showers (alternating hot and Y 93 221 65 65 cold), hydro massage baths, and the www.hotelabskipper.com garden pool with a retractable roof. €25 (water circuit) 10 Time Out BCN Guide March 2013 AIRE DE BARCELONA BANYS ÀRABS FLOTARIUM O2 CENTRO WELLNESS Imagine a giant capsule, containing First-class facilities: from the pool, 600 litres of water (with 300kg of with its gigantic window looking onto healing salts dissolved in it), into the city, to the saunas, steam baths which you can seal yourself off from and ice fountains, all intimate and the outside world, without light, tastefully decorated spaces. On a sound or any another external stimuli.