Such a beautiful horizon

There is a fine line between good-natured, sporting patriotism and aggressive, mean-spirited nationalism and at the Andorra-England match in Barcelona on Saturday (my first England away fixture) that line was crossed a bit too often for my liking. It would be ludicrious to tar all England fans with the same brush, but there were enough boozy hard-man types in that crowd who seemed to be itching for a ruck to make me feel very intimidated at times.

The crapness of the match didn't help matters either. The "plucky" Andorrans played an unbelievably cynical brand of anti-football and too many of the English players either weren't good enough or totally uninterested (I'm honestly not trying to be controversial when I implore Frank Lampard never to play for England again.) Plus, the standard of Olympic stadia has clearly increased dramatically since the early 90s. It was amusing to witness the outrage of some fans who were not only forking out 10 whole Euros for a large beer, but also appeared unaware that the beverage was completely lacking in alcohol.

As if to prove that there is some unseen hand manipulating the universe whose goal is purely self-amusement, the large hall just below the stadium was playing host to a Coldplay concert that very same evening. The contrast between the long, impeccably-behaved queue of bedwetters outside the hall and the red-shirted, red-faced hordes outside the stadium was stark to say the least. When my friend Dave asked who I identified with the most, I had to say the Coldplay fans. This made me feel very dirty.

Fortunately we got to spend a couple of days exploring the city, which was a mostly delightful experience. I tend to have the somewhat fanciful notion of wanting to find the soul of a new place when visiting it, or at least something which encapsulates what it's like to be there. I certainly didn't come close to locating that, perhaps because Barcelona is too large and varied to be summed up in one idea or phrase. I'd certainly suggest that the city owes a great debt to Gaudi, whose lovely and somewhat bonkers creations such as the Sagrada Familia church (pictured above) and the Parc Gruel garden complex are prime tourist traps. Gaudi apparently had a lifelong fascination with the natural world and incorporated a lot of ideas from the way plants grow into his distinctive designs - such as curved columns, lattices and hyperbolic parabolics. I've no idea what the latter are, but they sure look good.

We covered a fair chunk of the city: Montjuc, with its eerily empty Olympic park and the old castle which provides amazing views of the city and harbour; the newly-gentrified waterside area with its shiny shops and bars; the walk down the huge boulevard from the Arc de Triomf (not as impressive as the Paris version, and not built to celebrate any particular victory - oh well) through the Parc Ciutadella; and the pedestrianised, somewhat claustrophobic streets of the old city. The poor old main cathedral is utterly overshadowed by Gaudi's Sagrada Famila though, bless it.

Not forgetting La Rambla of course, which is highly recommended if you're a fan of mile-long streets full of sex establishments, tacky gift shops, hordes of tourists and those baffling statue-type street entertainers, i.e. if you're an idiot. (Why were some of those statues so much more popular than others? Were they really so different?) Oh, and the tour round the Nou Camp, which even the bunch of sombrero-clad, airhorn-toting England fans couldn't totally spoil. Well done for trying though, guys.

I could happily go to Barca again for a week and check out the beaches, the funfair and old castle high up on Tibidabo (I think), the zoo and ooh, all sorts of other places. Freddie and Montserrat - you were right. Thanks for the tip.