Life & Style

The Catalan sports club has signed an agreement with the Catalan Tourism Agency to collaborate in the promotion of Catalonia as a global tourist reference point. The deal, which runs through till June 2013, means that FC Barcelona will help promote the Catalan tourist industry via its official communication channels

The 18th Manga Fair of Barcelona is running from the 1st to the 4th of November, in the Montjuic venue of Fira de Barcelona. The fair has moved location, increasing the space from 11,000 square metres to 17,000. This year’s ‘Saló del Manga’ pays tribute to Dragon Ball, written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. During the opening of fair, many people were dressed up as Goku, Son Gohan, Piccolo, Master Roshi, Bulma, Pilaf or Red Ribbon Army members. The fair is the annual get-together of the Catalan manga and anime fans. This year, the meeting also focused on Japanese cuisine, with cooking workshops and an exhibition showing its relationship with manga cartoons.

The new official account completes this summer’s launch of www.fcbarab.com, the newest addition to Barça's online platform that can be enjoyed in seven languages. FC Barcelona launches @fcbarcelona_ara, its official Twitter account in Arabic, reinforcing its leadership worldwide on social networks. The new account joins the sports club’s accounts in Catalan, Spanish, English and French.

Juli Soler has been diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease, according to family sources and elBulliFoundation. Soler has been the director of El Bulli since 1981 and was the person who hired a young Ferran Adrià in 1984. Since then, Soler has been Adrià’s partner and co-owner of the restaurant that has transformed the world’s cuisine. El Bulli closed in summer 2011 to be transformed into elBulliFoundation by 2014. The Catalan restaurant was considered for many years to be the best restaurant in the world. It was the culinary temple and lab from where Ferran Adrià in the kitchen and Juli Soler in the dining room and offices launched molecular cuisine.

Located in the centre of Catalonia, the area of Penedès is known for its high quality wine and cava. Due to the long tradition in this region of the production of these drinks and the growing presence of wine tourism, it was decided to strengthen the offers of this sector. On this occasion, after two and a half years of building work, the old Vinseum - Wine Culture Museum of Catalonia - has been reopened with new exhibits in a new location: the Royal Palace of Vilafranca del Penedès. However, this is not just a museum of the production of wine; it is based on wine as a cultural, social, historical and scientific phenomenon.

FC Barcelona and the European Commission join forces to help millions of Europeans to give up smoking. The campaign aims at helping 28 million people giving up tobacco. “With this joint action, we aim to help football fans all over Europe to retake control over their health and their lives, encouraging them to be as passionate and committed to their own health as they are to good football” explained FC Barcelona’s President, Sandro Rosell.

150 million bottles of Catalan Cava were exported last year. It is a historic record for Cava producers with Germany and the United Kingdom being the main importers. The Catalan sparkling wine has the perception of being inexpensive in these countries, which has worked to the Cava producers’ advantage at a time of economic crisis as demand for alternatives increases. Wine connoisseurs put high quality Cava on the same level as Champagne, yet many consumers still associate the Catalan drink with a cheap product. High quality Cava is starting to be discovered and has strong potential to grow in these markets.

The creators of Garnatxa Beer, a unique beer made using of Grenache grapes in the Priorat wine region, are seeking to expand their range of products. They are experimenting with other grape varieties to develop new flavours of beer. The Priorat Beer Company’s aims to link its products with artistic and musical activities and maintain connected with their clients who want an “artisan beer”.

The increase of tourism from Russia contrasts with last minute bookings and the drop of the average spending. Hotels on the Central Catalan coast had a 95% occupation rate in August, the same as those on the Costa Daurada. Hotels on the Costa Brava had a 90% occupation rate. The increase of foreign tourism compensated for the drop of local visitors. Camping sites and rural cottages had a bad season, since they are more dependant on local tourism.

Catalonia’s Forest Technology Centre has cited that the lack of rain, high temperatures and the wind have slowed down the growth of mushrooms in the Pyrenees. The centre’s mathematical models expect the yields to be lower than in previous years and long term forecasts predict a lack of rain in autumn, which will also cause the yield of mushrooms to be less than average.

The Penedès wine appellation is expecting “excellent” wines from this year’s harvest. Catalonia’s most important viticultural area has already started harvesting its chardonnay grapes and is expecting to harvest the other varieties in the next few days. The weather this year has been favourable for the appellation, with a “very healthy” crop that despite a reduction in volume, will be sufficient to fulfil the 22 million bottles normally produced by the wineries.

Alella wineries, in Greater Barcelona, have started this summer’s harvest, with predictions that this year’s vintage may be better than 2005 thanks to the absence of plant disease and favourable weather conditions throughout the year. For now, the only concern for winemakers is this August’s amount of heat, which could cause a drop in acidity.

The Catalan coastal town of Sant Carles de la Ràpita has signed a collaboration agreement with the tour operator Coral Travel. The Russian company is already working in the Alfacs bay, a quiet area perfect for water sports. With this new agreement, the number of Russian tourists is expected to increase by 50% and twenty companies will benefit. The tourists can enjoy a wide range of activities such as boat rentals, fishing or sampling the various traditional dishes of the Ebro Delta, for example seafood paella. Moreover, all of these activities can be combined with cultural activities around the Ebro area, in southern Catalonia.

Barcelona’s neighbourhood of Gràcia has started its annual street festival on Wednesday, a week long festival famous for its street decorations and community spirit. Every year residents form committees to chose a theme and decorate their streets in competition with each other with ornaments made by the residents themselves. The festival is popular with tourists and Barcelonans alike and starts on the 15th August every year.

The search engine giant adds thirteen languages to its speech recognition system, also including Basque and Galician. From this Friday, it will be possible to use the service on phones with the Android operating system to search in Catalan. With this addition, Google’s speech recognition software now supports 42 languages.