What's considered rude that travelers do in Barcelona?
Eating while walking is tolerated but ordering coffee to go and rushing through it signals you've missed the point entirely — locals sit, always. More concretely offensive: speaking Spanish in Catalunya and then acting surprised or annoyed when staff respond in Catalan, or correcting someone with "but you speak Spanish too." The language politics are real; acknowledge them. Showing up to restaurants before 9 p.m. for dinner doesn't mark you as rude exactly, but eating at 7 p.m. means you'll be seated next to other tourists in a half-empty room running on a tourist menu. Wearing a swimsuit or going shirtless anywhere beyond Barceloneta and the immediate beachfront is technically illegal and genuinely irritating to residents, who have fought hard against the city being treated as a permanent resort. Tipping 20 percent American-style is unnecessary and slightly awkward; rounding up or leaving a euro or two is appropriate. And don't photograph people in markets like La Boqueria without asking.
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