Shopping in Barcelona
Barcelona as a tourist spot that offers all the possible needs and requirements for fun, entertainment, culture, heritage, and romantic streets of medieval times. Barcelona is an outstanding attractive place for shopping for the people visiting Spain. The Cosmopolitan city offers innovative designs of clothes, furniture, art, leather products, giving an incredible experience for the visitor.
Mainstream shops for shopping are found in the shopping axis. Barcelona will be loved by the people who love to shop. Barcelona offers around 35,000 shops for the visitors giving them plentiful options in one 5 km stretch. The city is altogether famous for having a 5 kilometer street of shops from La Rambla to the Placa de Catalunya, through Passeig de Gracia and up the Avenue Diagonal. Much of the streets here is pedestrian friendly, allowing the customers to wander around without being bothered by traffic. Along this street, one can find big international brand names like the Versace, Cartier, Gorgio Armani, Bally and Burberry etc.
There are many Spanish designer shops providing gold, clothes, accessories and apparels of the European Styles. Many visitors from Non-European countries do not know that Spain offers Tax Free Shopping. This saves 16% of the price of the items shopped and the bill exceeding 90.15 euros. The offer is applicable for the items that are carried away to their respective countries and not applicable on the food items, hotel and restaurant bills. The 16 % the outside non European visitor gets is the money saved from the VAT or the IVA in Spain. You can get back the discount at the airport by giving the tax refund check and the cash will be paid in your respective country’s currency.
There is a bus service along the 5 km stretch, called the Tombus, running all through the day. This is the best option for shopping where you need not run and get tired of shopping. The city has very big departmental stores, two of them are in the El Corte Ingles and Fnac providing all possible things under the same roof. There is one more Catalan village La Roca, having around 50 shops outside the city Barcelona that offers one or other discount all through year on international branded products. Not to miss is the Maremagnum, a big shopping center located in beautiful area built by the Mediterranean and it’s called Rambla del Mar.
Stores in the city open at 10 am to 2 pm, and again from 4 pm to 8 pm. Commercial and the department stores run all day without any break. Also some stores are closed on Saturday after noon and some run all through the week full seven days.