Here's why physical maps and guidebooks are still important in this internet age

When you come back from a trip, do you get rid of your maps and guidebooks, or do you keep them as mementos and souvenirs?

I recently threw this question out on social media, and wasn't at all surprised at the result. Like me, most of you are absolute hoarders when it comes to travel paraphernalia (there is one monster among you, but I won't name names).

But why do we keep them? A map of the souks of Marrakech is not going to be any use in the Kent countryside, and a plan of the Barcelona Metro offers no solution to the trials and tribulations of the London Underground. They sit there, gathering dust on our already overstuffed bookshelves in space-deprived flats, surviving the many clear outs, while their lesser bedfellows are reduced to the charity shop pile.

In my opinion, a map book is the best storyteller a traveller can have, equal in importance to the photos when looking back on the trip. Here's something I wrote about the map I took to Venice.

A ode to my map of Venice

I bought you from WHSmith in Victoria station, about a week before we were due to fly. I barely looked at you at all to be honest, until we got on the plane, but I checked my bag time and time again to make sure you were there, the knowledge you held almost as important to the success of the trip as my passport.

At this time, you were a perfect stranger to me. The city you laid out before me was the great unknown, backstreets of nerves, canals of excitement, bridges of possibilities. You were sights yet to be seen, meals yet to be eaten, bars yet to be discovered. Streets that we would wander and strangers who would become friends.

We unfolded you across both our laps as soon as we got on the plane. Living far apart, my friend and I hadn't had time to do any proper itinerary planning until we took off. Luckily, the elderly, well-spoken gentleman next to us didn't mind us unfurling your streets before him. In fact, your very existence struck up a conversation - he noticed us plotting the tourist hotspots, and gave us some other pointers he'd gleaned from his time living in Venice.

If you're into travel books and maps, check out Stanfords in Covent Garden

For our whole four days, you were with us, squeezed into my handbag between my camera and my water bottle. You quickly became stained with the debris of pitstops in cafes and bars, yet you remained resilient. A coffee cup ring now circles the entirety of Murano, like a bizarre, waterlocked crop circle. A pizza grease stain became another island in the Venetian lagoon. Your corners are dogeared, your face scarred with hastily scribbled circles where we earmarked a shop or restaurant to return to later. That cute courtyard where we ate pizza on the last night was a particular gem.

You're in the photos of our trips too - sticking out of bags and pockets, sometimes held in our hands as we snapped away, thirdwheeling your way through the weekend. I say thirdwheeling, but you were actually more like our steering wheel, guiding us across those bridges and round the canals.

In some places, your starched creases have ripped completely, their structural integrity weakened by a sudden rain shower on a cobbled back street. It came so unexpectedly, we had nowhere to shelter except underneath you.

That was more than two years ago, and you now sit on my bookshelf, nestled between Paris and Prague. It's not geographically accurate, but together, your rips, doodles and stains tell the stories of my travels. How could I get rid of that? 

---

That's the story of just one of my maps. Each of the others tells a story too. Our Marrakech map turned out to be mostly useless, the winding, overwhelming souks too complex for even the most skilled of cartographers to render on paper. The Paris map was hurriedly bought at Gare du Nord as we arrived on the Eurostar; the friend we were staying with - who knew the city intricately - was feeling unwell and left us to explore the unfamiliar city on our own instead. My map of Barcelona is the only one I've had cause to use more than once - I've been there three times to date. Perhaps it'll get another airing one day.

"Years ago, when I was backpacking across Western Europe, I was just outside of Barcelona, hiking in the foothills of Mount Tibidabo (if you know, you know...)

To me, the idea of lending the map to someone else is unthinkable. It'd be like lending them a notebook that's already full of my thoughts and scribblings. I'm more than happy to pass on recommendations of restaurants to visit, back streets to wander down and markets to haggle in. I'll even tell you the exact route we took through those back streets, as best as my memory will allow. It's not the experiences I'm precious over, it's the physical map itself. It's too personal.

Throughout your time away, whether that's a two-day city break, or a two month trek through the Himalayas, your map or guidebook is with you. For me, that's far more powerful and emotive than any magnet or shot glass you can buy in a gift shop. And when you look back at that map, it won't just be meaningless lines and colours and squiggles. You'll remember the things the map doesn't show you; how steep that hill was, the way scooters weave among pedestrians, that time you were overtaken by a camel.

You don't get that from Google Maps.

Callejon de Hamel: Havana's street art hotspot

Looking down Callejon de Hamel, from west to east. So far, almost a normal Havana street.

Our time in Havana was pretty limited - two days - which wasn't enough time to squeeze in everything we wanted to do in the city centre, let alone head out to Fusterlandia, an arty neighbourhood in the suburbs. We still managed to get our dose of street art though, at Callejon de Hamel, a short back street that's been decked out with... well, everything the locals can get their hands on.

When bathtubs become art

It's not that Callejon de Hamel isn't well-known - it appears in most decent guidebooks - but it's a bit out of town, meaning that fewer tourists get to it. I guess the London equivalent would be God's Own Junkyard - plenty of people know about it, but just being there feels a bit... edgy.  We took a taxi from Parque Central (right near El Capitolio) and it only cost us 10 CUCs.

Our taxi driver drops us at the western end of the street, and for a while we have the place to ourselves. Like any other Havana back street, the paint on the walls is peeling, the road is riddled with potholes, and dusts blows all over the place.

A grandmother and grandaughter sit together on a bench, eyeing us up. On second glance, the bench is actually half of a bathtub. More bathtubs are embedded in the painted, pebbledash walls, poems written on their bases. Two young boys kick a football about, and off in the distance, a dog gives a hearty bark.

Think Gaudi meets Dali in a salvage yard, and you're in the right mindset. We venture further into what must once have been a bleak alleyway, now resembling an eclectic junkyard. A decorative metal cross towers 20ft above, its style reminiscent of the rooftop decorations of Casa Batllo, the metal much more sinister than Barcelona's playful stone. Naturally, the Cuban flag flutters nearby.

Halfway down the alleyway, a large porch covers the road, sheltering a group of men tinkering under the bonnet of a classic car. The scene is so stereotypically Cuban, it's hard to believe the whole thing isn't just one elaborate prank. But it drives home the realisation that despite its spot on the tourist map, this is a street where people live.  Metal fences and gates in the high, colourful walls separate camera-wielding tourists from people's yard and living rooms. One nondescript gate swings open to reveal a bar, dark as a cave and populated entirely by locals.

A bicycle - or at least something that is the sum of the parts of a bicycle, but couldn't exactly be described as a whole one - is suspended above the street, roughly halfway down. To the left, bottles of Beefeater gin have been cemented into the walls, and to the right, someone's used a toilet as a flowerpot. It's all done without explanation and without ceremony. It's just the way things are around here.

 There's something very Cuban about using everyday objects - bicycles, bottles, baths (and, yes, bogs) - in this way. The people here are used to recycling, not for environmental reasons, but because so many everyday objects are so hard to get hold of, that they've developed a unique ingenuity in repurposing objects in a way most people wouldn't even think of. And yet, like the rest of Havana, the street is unexpectedly green, plants squeezed in everywhere there's space.

As we near the end of the road, it becomes clear we've used the back entrance. Hoards of tourists, many with guides, are pouring in from the eastern end of the street. Vintage cars, now used to ferry tourists, cluster here. It turns out to be the more formal entrance, a stone arch reading 'Callejon de Hamel' bridging it. Just one look isn't enough, so we wander back down the street for a second - and later, a third - look. It really is a case of not being able to take everything in, and I certainly won't regale you with tales of everything I saw. Have a scroll through these photos instead.

From Callejon de Hamel, it's a 20 minute walk to the famous Hotel Nacional on the Malecon, where a cold drink and fantastic building await (plus, you'll be able to get a taxi back to wherever you're headed next, in our case, back to our hotel for a well earned rest).

Bathtubs have been reused for all sorts of things

Gin, glorious gin

They'll repurpose anything and everything

The main entrance to Callejon de Hamel, at the eastern end of the street.

Callejon de Hamel, Hamel e/ Aramburu y Hospital, Centro Habana. Entry is free.

Havana: expectations vs. reality

My desire to visit Havana came from the most unlikely of travel inspo sources; veteran news reader and TV presenter Sir Trevor McDonald. In around 2009, ITV released him from the shackles of his News at Ten desk to present a documentary series on the Secret Caribbean. One episode placed him in Havana, and teenage me was enchanted by what I saw. It was the first time anyone had explained to me the full raimfications of the US trade embargo, and why Cuba is stuck in its own little timewarp.

Given that I've wanted to go to Havana since foreverrrr then, it's no surprise that I had a few preconceptions and expectations about the Cuban capital. Here's what I anticipated - and how Havana lived up to expectations.


1. Vintage cars everywhere. Along with cigars and rum, retro wheels are part of the holy trinity of Havana. Trevor McD roamed the streets in a vintage red Chevrolet, and a 1950s American car is the cliched Havana photo.

Take note: from now on, my preferred travel method is a pink 1956 Ford Victoria

The truth: In reality, it's somewhere in the middle. Central Havana is chock-full of shiny, colourful Chevvies and Cadillacs, Fords and all manner of other makes that true petrolheads would be able to identify, but I just think are pretty. Cubans are very clever to use their vehicles to cash in on the tourist trade, using them as tour vehicles and taxis, and they often gather in huge numbers at various places around the city; sometimes you turn a corner and it's like walking into the drive-in movie theatre in Grease. 

 That said, there are plenty of modern cars patrolling Havana's streets too, and the further from the city centre you get, the higher the ratio of modern cars to vintage offerings. They all pootle around alongside each other with horses and carts and Coco Taxis thrown into the mix, in some sort of inter-era vehicular harmony.

The reality: vintage cars mix with modern cars and New York-style yellow taxis

2. No big brands: Given Cuba's socialist roots, and limited trade with countries such as America, I expected - and indeed, had been warned - that it's rare to find international brands there, be it food and drink, or clothing and goods.

The truth: The first thing we saw while waiting in the lengthy Passport Control queues at Havana Airport were adverts for Pringles - there goes that theory, then. Admittedly, there is far less advertising in Cuba than anywhere else I've been, the usual billboards replaced with street art and murals praising socialism, Che Guevara and other aspects of Cuban life. The majority of the adverts you do see tend to be for Cuban brands - Havana Club rum is everywhere.

You're more likely to see murals than billboards on Havana's streets

As for getting hold of international brands, it is possible. Coca Cola, for example, is available at many of the major international hotels. If you just ask for Cola, by default, you'll be served Cuba's own brand, Ciego Montero. State 'international Coca Cola' if you want the branded stuff, and expect to pay extra for it - it's imported from Mexico.

Not what I expected to see in Plaza Vieja

What surprised me most was the presence of high-end international fashion stores in the tourist areas. Lacoste and Pepe Jeans make an appearance in Plaza Vieja, one of Havana's main squares, and the likes of Mango can be found in the shopping arcade attached to the Gran Hotel Manzana. These are predominantly for tourists - the majority of Cubans simply can't afford to shop in them.

3. Beautiful colonial buildings: Those cliched classic car photos often have a backdrop of
shabby chic pastel facades - stereotypical Havana architecture.

The truth: Beautiful some of them may be, but others have been allowed to fall so far into disrepair, it's sad to see. Several houses have exposed pipes and wires and this is where you want to watch yourself - don't go leaning back to take a photo, only to electrocute yourself on a wire sticking out of a house. Yeah, I did. Bloomin' hurt too. The streets too are in a terrible state of disrepair, with uneven, cracked and bumpy pavements, and huge potholes in the roads.

Less shabby chic, more plain shabby

Plus two things I didn't expect:

The fumes: Ok, so it's obvious when you think about it, but before I went, I hadn't; with hundreds of cars dating back to the 1950s roaming the streets, Havana's not the most environmentally-friendly city in the world. The petrol fumes are overpowering and unavoidable. When combined with the heat and humidity, the whole atmosphere feels claustrophobic to the point of being toxic. After three days in Havana, I was starting to worry that my lungs had received permanent damage, and at the end of each day, I was desperate to get into the hotel shower and scrub the layer of grime off of me.

It's so green: Yep, completely goes against what I just said. I don't mean 'green' in the environmental sense though, I mean literally green, with plants and trees and bushes. This may be due to the time of year we visited (February) - in hotter months it may be more barren - but I was pleasantly surprised that those dusty, arid streets you see in photographs are interspersed with green parks and squares. The highlight was the Parque Almendares, which we drove through on our tour in a classic American car, and which an air of Jurassic Park to it.

Have you been to Havana? Did it live up to your expectations? Let me know in the comments.

See also:Venice: expectations vs. reality

The whole picture: a look back at my 2017

As I come to write that old blogger cliche end of year post, I had a look at what I'd posted as my goals for the start of the year - and it turns out I didn't write any. For someone as list-loving and goal-oriented as me, this seems surprising, but hey ho.

So much has changed this year, it's hard to think back to what I was thinking and how I was feeling on 1 January, and guess what my goals might have been. I certainly wouldn't have visualised that I would have moved twice, and be back living in Tonbridge now. By this time last year, I hadn't even thought about moving out of where I was living then, in Peckham. The first move was to Nunhead, to a flat that I thought might be a bit more permanent, but for several reasons, it wasn't to be. That triggered my decision to move back to Kent. And six months later, here I am still.

There were two main lows of 2017 for me. The first was having my phone snatched right out of my hand by thieves on bikes on a busy street in Peckham. It's now nine months since that happened and I've been though a whole spectrum of emotions about it; shock, sadness at losing photos, gratitude that they didn't pull a knife on me. I've mainly let it go now and written it off as one of those things, but on the odd occasion that it does cross my mind, I mainly feel anger; anger at the fact that they felt they had the right to help themselves to something I'd worked hard too pay for - but when that happens, I visualise myself kicking them right off their bikes and into the road. Petty, but it helps.

The second low was a long, drawn-out battle with a dodgy landlord to get a deposit back. It's a long story involving sleepless nights, hundreds of pounds that was rightfully mine, and the threat of a legal battle, but I won in the end - not before it had cast an omipresent shadow over almost three months of my year though.

Reading back what I've written here so far, I realise it sounds like I've had a pretty rubbish 2017, but that's not the case. So often, what we see on blogs and social media is the polished, unblemished half of the story. I just think it's important to be honest and tell the whole truth, warts, muggings and all.

So moving around has been a big part of my year, but what else has happened? There's not been one big thing - no new job, or buying a flat, or Lottery win, or taking six months off to go travelling. My Prince Charming has yet to make his appearance (if you're reading this, I'd be grateful if you could make yourself known sooner rather than later), but that's all OK.

The joy in this year has been about the little things: posing for photos with an inflatable flamingo called Merlin on a bridge in Amsterdam; going off-grid in the Lake District for three days with friends I've known for more than half my life; spotting dolphins in the wild.  But if you're looking for one big achievement of the year, it's this: I've got a far better idea of what I want out of life than I did this time last year. I know where I want to live, what sort of job makes me happy (pretty much what I'm doing now, which is handy), who my real friends are, and what I'm doing with this blog. I know that the London life isn't for me, but I'd miss London too much if I didn't work there. I know that I'm not one for big nights out, but meals with close friends in a favourite restaurant is one of the best ways to spend an evening.

So 2017 may not have been a year in which I ticked many boxes - at least not the conventional ones - but I end the year in a better place than I started it, which has given me a good, solid base to begin one heck of a 2018.

See also: My 2017 in 13 Instagram posts

The whole picture: December 2017

Miss my November round-up? Catch up here.

Enjoying the work Christmas party. Photo by Matt Brown.

What I've done in December

December was a month of two halves: the first half was busy busy with Christmas drinks, parties, work events and the like. Then, the week before Christmas I turned the page of my diary to a very welcome fortnight of near nothingness.

The busy-ness involved going to two different lantern festivals; Glow Wild at Wakehurst Place was a late birthday present for my mum, a gentle wander through the botanical gardens, complete with floating laterns and a fire river. A little further afield, a weekend away at Longleat combined two of my favourite things: lions and lanterns:

A post shared by Laura Reynolds (@scribbling_lau) on Dec 13, 2017 at 12:09am PST

Elsewhere it was Christmas parties and drinks with friends and former colleagues, a quiet weekend away with family and a bit of Christmas shopping.

I have a bit of a tradition for that weird period between Christmas and New Year, where I have a good old clean out, tidy up, polish and clear out of my room .We're talking two our three solid days of scrubbing skirting boards and dusting shelves trying clothes on and donating old ones to charity, and generally getting rid of all the old junk accumulated throughout the year. I like to see in the new year with a clean, uncluttered room and a clean, uncluttered mind.

What I've eaten in December

What haven't I eaten (she wrote, stuffing her face with the Christmas cheese)?  The month kicked off with a trip to Bodeans, a smokehouse restaurant that I've wanted to try for ages, predominantly in my continued quest for London's best buffalo chicken. Don't get too excited lads, this definitely wasn't it - the dried, unbattered bit of meat that was served up barely deserves to be called buffalo chicken. As you were.

The most exciting thing I've eaten this month is the ostrich I had at my work Christmas meal at Shaka Zulu in Camden. The restaurant itself is... bizarre. Think African tribal meets Las Vegas tat, and you're about there. The ostrich was beautifully cooked in a peppercorn crust, but I was so distracted by what was going on around me (Dancers! Fire eaters!) that I didn't even think about taking a photo (#terribleblogger).

What's coming up?

Sunset over Tonbridge on one of the last days of 2017. Insert your own cliche about watching the sun set on another year.

New year, new start. I'm not one for new year's resolutions - the way I see it, if you want to make a change, why wait until 1 January to get on with it? I do, however, have a few things I'd like to do in 2018, and I'll be sharing them on a blog post over the next few days, so watch this space.

Follow me on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date with next month's antics as they happen.

In praise of adventures

Five years ago today, I did something really brave, if I may say so myself. I got on a plane and flew to South Africa, where I spent two weeks on my own.

I say that like it was a spontaneous thing. It really wasn't. It took months of planning. Months of saving. Months of dithering. Months of anxious phone calls to the guys at Real Gap who dealt patiently with each and every one of my amateur, ridiculous questions.

 But, at the end of it all, it was the first time I'd flown on my own. It was the first time I'd been anywhere as culturally different as South Africa. Heck, it was the first time I'd even been to Africa - or to anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere for that matter. And I survived. Not only that, I thrived.

I made new friends, both human and not-so-human. I learnt how to haggle. I got an insight into modern African culture. I learnt more about how other people live.

I was 21 years old when I did that. I'd graduated from uni four months previously. I'd been hopping around various short-term jobs and internships, looking for a break into journalism (little did I know that I had another 14 months of that ahead of me before landing a permanent job). Now, at the age of 26, I can't imagine doing something like that. I'd love to, but I've always got an excuse ready; I can't get the time off work. That's too much money to spend on two weeks. That 21 year old seems like a different person

But if 21 year old me can do it, 26 year old me definitely can. 26 year old me definitely should. Why am I writing this here? I'm making a public promise to myself - that way I can't renege on it - to be more spontaneous. To do more things. To not let the what-ifs hold me back.

Here's to more adventures.

Travel tales: dolphins in the Black Sea

Riding the trusty fishing boat over the blue waters, jellyfish floating past below like ghosts of the sea, the whole set-up felt more like Greek Island hopping than catching a local boat down the coast of Bulgaria. Our destination? The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Nessebar, 15km or so down the coast from our hotel in Elenite.

The captain's mate did little to quell our island-hopping fantasies, bearing more than a passing resemblance to Captain Birdseye; the slight paunch, the jaunty red neckerchief, the weather-beaten, silver-sprinkled face. All that was missing from the seafaring cliche was the sailor's hat (and perhaps a smarter pair of trousers).

As we got out into the deep, inkier waters of the Black Sea, the teeming resorts of Sunny Beach and Sveti Vlas mere toy towns on the distant cliffs, Captain Birdseye began gesturing pointedly at me - or more specifically, at the camera hung around my neck, there as always like an extra limb. A stream of excited Bulgarian tumbled out of his mouth as he pointed repeatedly between me and the front of the small boat, leaving me in little doubt that myself and my camera were being summoned.

Using the closest thing I had to sealegs, I wobbled my way to the front, clinging to the railing, unsure why I'd been singled out among the 10 or so passengers on board. I assumed Captain Birdseye was showing me that I could take better photos of Nessebar up ahead, so I stayed put for a couple of minutes, snapping away - mainly in a bid to placate him than out of any real urge to take photos of the vast and misty sea, before heading back to my seat after a polite amount of time had passed.

But my bum had barely met the plastic before he was in front of me again, gesturing; diving, swimming - the man was a charades hero - before we made out the word 'dolphin' in his broken stream of Bulgarian-English. He was trying to tell us that there were dolphins up ahead. By this time the whole boat, no doubt drawn in by the convoluted game of charades, was paying attention. Cue a stampede to the front of the boat to try to get a glimpse of the dolphins.

But there was nothing there. A small boat broke the flat horizon a couple of miles ahead, but other than that, there was nothing between us and the distant shore of Nessebar. We had misunderstood his gesturing.

Then I saw it. What it was exactly, I couldn't have told you, but a black shape briefly broke the surface next to the other boat - a fishing boat, as it transpired, whose very purpose lured the dolphins towards it.

As the inky gulf between us and them dissipated, more and more dolphins leapt out of the water, disappearing and porpoising over and over, as if performing for us. Our captain killed the boat's engine and we idled through their territory, carried only by the the wind and the tide as they played around us, surrounding the boat on all sides, swimming right alongside the boat for metres at a time.

Taking photos of them was tricky, never knowing where they were going to surface next, but we all snapped away hopefully. I managed to catch a few shots of black blobs that may or may not be fins and tails. But this one was about the experience - all the better for having been spontaneous - rather than the Instagram shot.

Once we'd made our way through the dolphins' territory and left them safely behind, our captain powered up the engine again, speeding us towards Nessebar. We kept our eyes peeled the rest of the way, but the Black Sea offered up little more than the occasional jellyfish. On our return from Nessebar a few hours later, we craned our necks left and right, hoping to catch another glimpse of a tale or a fin, but the fishing boat was long gone, taking the dolphins with it.

One of my favourite things about travelling is the spontaneous events like this, things that all the maps and guidebooks in the world couldn't help you find. See also:

• Travel tales: celebrations in Barcelona
• Travel tales: the Sunday surfers of Armacao de Pera

Scribbling Lau is now on Facebook. You can also find me on Twitter and Instagram.

Travel tales: being in the right place at the right time

The recent atrocity in Barcelona reminded me of this piece I wrote several months back, which never got published. I've decided to share it now to show Barcelona - and Las Ramblas specifically - in its best light, both for those who know and love the city, and for those who've never been. Unfortunately, all photos of this particular experience were on the phone I had stolen a few months ago, so you'll have to make do of these snaps, which show the beauty of Barcelona as a whole.

One of my favourite things about travel is the serendipity of it – the being in the right place at the right time to experience a local festival or occasion. In May 2015, I experienced just that.

It was a Monday night, our last night of a long weekend in Barcelona, and to celebrate, we were heading to Arenas for dinner. Arenas, which I had discovered on my trip to Barca the previous year, is a shopping centre next to the Placa d'Espanya roundabout where several of the city's artery roads meet. The building itself is a former bull fighting ring, restored and renovated in around 2008. Its rotund shape, uniform arch windows and intricate brickwork entrance mark it out as something special against the neighbouring mundane office buildings.

The shopping centre’s decent – ideal in fact, if you’re seeking air conditioning or a free public toilet – but nothing special. What is worth a trip is the viewing gallery on the roof. Pay a Euro to the nice man sitting next to the lift by the Metro station and he’ll let you ride in his lift all the way up to the eighth floor, where a 360 degree of Barcelona awaits, courtesy of the open air viewing gallery. The centre of the roof is taken up by a plethora of bars and restaurants, each facing a different direction.

The view from the top, looking south (ish)

I genuinely believe it’s one of the best kept secrets in Barcelona – sure, locals know about it, but it just doesn’t seem to register on the tourist radar. It's rarely mentioned in tourist guides and listicles. Well, you’re hearing it now; skip the cable car and head here instead. It’s a lot cheaper and offers better views over Barcelona and up to Tibidabo beyond.

I digress. This night in May 2015 we did a lap of the viewing gallery before settling on a French brasserie for dinner. The meal passed pleasantly, without a hitch, and we managed to time our departure from the restaurant to coincide with sunset – cue another lap of the viewing gallery in different light. Standing in the southwest section of the roof, overlooking the roundabout – which is a lot sexier than it sounds, this being Barcelona not Croydon – a huge row erupted on the ground a few storeys below us.

Car and motorbike horns were tooting and bipping, even the buses were getting involved. There was no traffic jam though, and this was no angry tooting (I can’t imagine the serene Catalunans doing anything as aggressive as road rage, can you?), but rather rhythmic, celebratory tooting. My rusty Spanish and excellent earwigging allowed me to infer from the gentleman leaming over the railings next to me that it was something to do with football.

Parc de la Ciutadella, in another part of the city. 

We shrugged it off as football fan jubilance at Spain winning a match and thought no more of it as we hopped on the Metro back to the centre of town, emerging at Placa de Catalunya into what can only be described as a joyous cacophony. There were people pouring everywhere, leaving us in little doubt that something special was going on. The sea of football shirts confirmed to us that sport had something to do with it. But they weren’t Spanish national team shirts - they were Barcelona shirts.

By this time it was close to 11pm on a Monday night, and yet families kept emerging, parents with 2, 3, 4 kids in tow, all elated and all wanting to join in the celebration. It was a spectacular scene to witness anyway, but what made it all the more remarkable was the contrast to what we’re used to. In England, most parents would go out of their way to keep their children out of a crowd of football fans – even fans who were celebrating a win – for fear of the alcohol-induced violence that would undoubtedly rear its head.

Here, they were actively bringing their children into the crowd with them, putting them on their shoulders to give them a closer look, buying them flags to wave and party tooters to toot. The few police that we saw, too, were very different to what we’re used to in football crowds- not a riot shield in sight, and they were put to more use giving directions to lost tourists than they were dealing with any trouble.

For almost two hours we sat on a bench in Placa de Catalunya, Barcelona’s equivalent of Trafalgar Square, watching in awe as people poured onto Las Ramblas from all over the city. They were still arriving by the time we left – presumably word got out about the impromptu party. Every so often, the crowd would burst into a spontaneous song. People were hugging strangers. Firecrackers went off every few minutes (at this point it’s worth noting that this was before the terrorist attacks in Paris and Belgium, and that such noises may be received differently now, in light of these events).

The whole thing was quite overwhelming, and a little emotional – and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t give a hoot about football.

Our returning to the hotel was futile – we’d previously been quite smug about getting ourselves a jammy little deal in a guest house right in the centre or Barcelona just round the corner from Placa de Catalunya, but suddenly this wasn’t looking like such a bright idea.

But staying up all night did get me thinking – would it have been the same situation if we’d found ourselves in Madrid and Madrid had won this particular match? Was it just pride in Messi and co. or was it the Catalan pride shining through extra strong?

We were up early the next day to do our final bits of sightseeing before heading to the airport and were stunned at what we found. There was no hint of what had taken place just hours previously – no broken glass, no discarded beer cans, nothing. I’ve seen Camden looking worse on a regular Tuesday morning. Well played Barcelona. Well played.