Barcelona's historic shops.

Barcelona's trade works like an archive of the city. Behind a wooden shopfront in the Gothic Quarter there is a chandler's that has been making candles since the eighteenth century; in the Eixample, modernista pharmacies whose stained glass has never been touched; in Gràcia and Sant Andreu, bakeries and haberdashers handed from parents to children without ever leaving the neighbourhood. The city council listed their heritage features in 2016, and they are now one of Barcelona's least obvious kinds of heritage.

Buying something here is not an errand: it means walking into premises that explain a trade. Go with time to spare, ask questions, let yourself be advised — and remember these are small businesses with small-business hours. Spending an afternoon on them, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, is as good a plan as any, and unlike most it does not depend on a date.