The Gallecs Rural Area, in the municipality of Mollet del Vallès, is a break in the middle of a completely urban area; an oasis of peace for the modern and active Vallès region. Here, the preservation of nature and traditional agriculture are combined with leisure activities and environmental education.

Following in the footsteps of Bishop Oliba a thousand years after his appointment as Bishop of Vic has encouraged us to explore other Romanesque gems in the area surrounding Barcelona, because there’s always some secret left to discover. If we had a protractor, the city of Vic would be at the centre of its base, just a few kilometres from places where Romanesque heritage blends into beautiful nature.

The Cardener Ecorail is a seven-kilometre route along old railways that have been adapted to modern times without losing their essence. Throughout the week, these tracks are used to transport the salt extracted from the mines in Súria and, on Sundays, they take families keen to discover the Bages Plain aboard a highly original means of locomotion: the Ciclorail.

Shopping in the regions around Barcelona is a great pleasure that you should treat yourself to once in a while. Inland or by the sea, there are many towns and cities with centuries-old shops, where elegance reigns supreme, food shops run by master craftsmen who are true gourmets, pharmacies decorated with Art Nouveau furniture, and fashion and accessories shops, where the creations of local designers sit alongside the most exclusive international brands. Here are five essential shopping destinations.

At the beginning of the last century, Art Nouveau was all the rage in Paris: wavy facades, floral motifs on signs, wrought-iron staircases ... This new aesthetic depicted modern city life and had a huge impact in Catalonia. However, when the winds of Art Nouveau blew across the Pyrenees, Catalan architects reinterpreted it in their own way. This is what we know as Catalan Modernisme.

The history books chart the profound transformation that Catalonia – and, in particular, the regions of Barcelona – underwent at the turn of the 20^th century, when all areas of life were turned upside down: art, literature, architecture, public space, the economy... In fact, there’s no better way to gain an understanding of the era than by visiting its architectural gems. Catalan modernism represents a time when a series of families set out to be modern and flaunt it.