Dear Subscribers,

What makes a city interesting, compelling, the type of place you want to explore and maybe sell your furniture and move to? It’s not an easy question. Great cities don’t happen by accident. Choices are made. Risks taken. In every city, heroes and villians emerge.

In a sense, Barcelona Anarchy is about answering those questions, at least for this specific place, which has been shaped by centuries of inspiration, scandal and questionable decisions.

In recent weeks, I’ve started to write more about the topics that I’ll be exploring in Barcelona Anarchy, while continuing to add news items and building out the tips section. In a couple of months, Barcelona Anarchy has zoomed past 100 subscribers, a nice start-up milestone. It’s been fun diving into the Substack community, which is engaged, interested and free of a lot of the hubris and bullshit found on other platforms.

As I continue to finish work on my Barcelona book, you’ll start seeing more about the themes, people and stories that have sucked me into Barcelona.

I’m selective in choosing topics for news articles. There are many great news feeds out there. But Barcelona news is often interesting to the rest of the world, in a what-the-hell? kind of way. In general, I’m focusing on news that impacts tourists and expats. The item on the Sagrada Familia LEGO set has been my most widely read story so far.

Meanwhile, I’ve started to hit critical mass in the travel tip section. I’ll soon put these behind the paywall (along with older articles). Adding tips will be an on-going process.

I promise not to bombard you with emails. Thank you for reading and your support!

Kevin

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As some of you know, I’m writing a book on Barcelona, and this Substack site will be my platform to share stories about the architecture, culture and daily life of a city that has captivated me for years.

The more I’ve learned about Barcelona, the more I became fascinated by the centuries of scandals, tragedies and passions that shaped the community and culture. There are crazy tales behind those old squares and modernist masterpieces.

In recent days, I’ve been primarily focused on building out the site’s Travel Tips section. During my time as a working journalist in the city, I accumulated a wealth of material and opinions. In addition to random notes, I’m focusing on many of the questions I hear over and over again. It’s been fun, and I hope to develop a useful package for travelers and expats. I’m trying to make good on the promise to offer a perspective you won’t get from the guidebooks.

As always, any opportunity you have to read, like and explore the site is much appreciated. Here are a couple of the recent articles.

In the weeks ahead, you’re going to start seeing more articles about architecture, art, design, history and the other elements of Barcelona that make it a great place to visit and live.

Thank you for your support.

Kevin

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