Tucked away in a quietly fashionable part of Barcelona, there is a part of the Catalan capital that will remain forever Lancashire: unknown to many, the city’s Poblenou districthas worn the title of the “Catalan Manchester” since the 19th Century thanks to its history of textile manufacture and industry.
Having lived for three happy, if rainy, years in Manchester and two years in a slightly sunnier Barcelona I was charmed to discover the historical link between the two cities, not the least because I had already decided that Barcelona and Manchester had a lot in common.
Of course, both cities’ textile industries have now largely departed and there’s not a great deal of likeness to be found in weather, geography or architecture. But there remains much to bind the two cities in Trans-European fraternity.
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