Barcelona Online | Barcelona newspapers, classified ads...

Main dailies • Freebies • Sports papers • Others

Main dailies: El Periódico and La Vanguardia

La Vanguardia Digital
Barcelona's leading daily, La Vanguardia seems sadly to be dragging itself downhill, at least as far as its print version is concerned, with tabloid headlines occupying half of its front page. It has jumped on the bandwaggon of what is "popular", and no longer seems able to distinguish fact from opinion.

La Vanguardia Digital, however, is a commendable online edition, with excellent culture, science and sports sections, besides local and international news.

•We liked: The "Vivir" section on life in Barcelona
•Not so hot: Oh come on, this is so sloooowww (sometimes)!
•Languages: Spanish

El Periódico
El Periódico is Barcelona's second main daily and has the peculiarity that it appears simultaneously in two print editions, one in Spanish, one in Catalan.

Beyond its news (and, like La Vanguardia, El Periódico has surely lost a lot of its credibility in its policy of screaming headlines and so on), the site is particularly interesting in its interactive sections, with jokes, and paint-your-own graffiti (look for "Pintadas"), as well as 360º postcards of Barcelona.

•We liked: The "BCN a pie" section. You've done everything? This will take you places you probably haven't been
•Not so hot: Can we believe what we read in the paper any longer?
•Languages: Spanish, Catalan

Free papers: 20 Minutos and Metro

Handed out free in Barcelona every weekday morning are two newspapers that have rapidly become hugely successful - 20 Minutos and Metro.

Both share content with their editions for other cities in Spain, and the content specific for Barcelona tends to be in Catalan rather than Spanish, though not exclusively so.

As sources of information for what's on and what's happening in Barcelona, both are reasonably good - in both their print and online editions.

For anyone in Barcelona to learn Spanish, both are definitely worth spending "20 minutos" on for some extra reading practice.

•We liked: The Desternillador section in 20 Minutos for its awful jokes
•Languages: Spanish, Catalan

Barcelona sports papers: El Mundo Deportivo and Sport

El Mundo Deportivo
El Mundo Deportivo is Barcelona's most popular sports paper, and is to be found virtually in its entirety online. It is rabidly pro-Barça, rabidly anti-Real Madrid, but otherwise has decent coverage of (first) Spanish and European football and (then) a decent range of other sports, notably basketball, cycling and Formula 1, probably the most popular sports in Spain.

You want an objective view of what is happening at Barça, you probably have to read the Madrid papers (Marca, As..), too, and then make up your own mind.

•We liked: The opinion polls and being able to comment on the (ahem) big issues of the moment (curious to note how many of the participants write entirely in angry capital letters)
•Not so hot: Surely it should not be any part of the function of a newspaper worthy of the name to generate hatred?
•Languages: Spanish

Sport
Sport is Barcelona's other sports paper. Like El Mundo Deportivo it is fanatically pro-Barça, to the extent that what it reports on Spanish football lacks, shall we say, a certain amount of credibility.

Beyond its (extensive) coverage of Spanish football, again like El Mundo Deportivo it also covers basketball, cycling and Formula 1, handball and roller-hockey (yes, that's right) in depth.

•We liked: Dare we say it? The section on Espanyol, Barcelona's "other" football club
•Not so hot: Can we have an independent, objective opinion on that...? (No.)
•Languages: Spanish

Others

"Barcelona's magazine in English"
Metropolitan
When you first pick up and flick through a copy of Metropolitan, which is available in its entirety - including its archives - on its website, you might be forgiven for thinking it is intended to cater for the ex-pat community.

In fact, however, closer inspection reveals that it is not. It carries a lot of articles on local culture, has a good section on places outside Barcelona, and is of particular interest to anyone thinking of coming to live in the city. A site well worth browsing.

•We liked: Particularly, the "Back articles" and "Moving to BCN" sections
•Not so hot: The "services directory" we found a bit limited
•Languages: English

Barcelona's (the world's!) first directory
VilaWeb
Describing itself as "Barcelona's independent online paper", VilaWeb began as a directory of sites relating to Catalonia and, apart from being the first in Catalan, also claims – having begun in 1995 – to have been one of the world's first directories. Not bad for news, chiefly recommended for its links.

•We liked: (when we could find them) the many, many links
•Not so hot: Come on boys, your 1995 design needs sprucing up a bit now!
•Languages: English (some sections), Catalan

Classified ads
Catalunya Classified
Catalunya Classified ("connecting English speakers throughout Catalunya") is the online version of the pullout that appears in Metropolitan magazine. You can place (free, if it's non commercial) and browse ads (accommodation, personals, employment, property etc) by three different zones - Barcelona, the Costa Brava and the Costa Dorada (which is south of Barcelona).

Frustrating to navigate and search and not very extensive in some sections (forget it if you're lonely on the Costa Brava and looking for personals), it's not yet Barcelona's answer to Craigslist.org.

•Languages: English and
•We liked: "Stone house, tastefully restored, 300m2 with nice landscape"
•Not so hot: €450,000

Craigslist Barcelona
Barcelona is one of the 40-odd European cities with a Craigslist community. It carries quite a lot of ads for rooms and other accommodation on offer, including housing swaps, but is not good for jobs.

•Languages: English
•We liked: Prepared to pay €9999 for a U2 ticket - hey: now that's a fan!
•Not so hot: A fair number of the ads are in fact not for Barcelona at all

More classified ads
Alternative Barcelona classified ads sites include those to be found on our Barcelona accommodation page (and not only, for accommodation).

back to top