For visitors to Europe, the flight home is covered by the delay rules more often than the flight out

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  Europe's air passenger rights rules on delayed and cancelled flights have a quirk that surprises many travellers from outside Europe. What matters is not your nationality, where you bought the ticket or even which airline you flew, but the direction of travel. A flight leaving an airport in the European Union is covered whatever airline operates it. A flight arriving in the European Union from outside is covered only if a European airline operates it. The same holiday can therefore produce a claim on the way home and nothing on the way out, simply because of whose aircraft you were on. The quickest way to see where a disrupted flight stands is a free calculator for EU flight delay compensation . It asks five things: whether the flight left an EU airport or arrived on an EU airline, the distance band, what happened, how late you reached your final destination and the reason the airline gave. It then shows the flight compensation you may be entitled to per passenger, and links ...
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Barcelona crowned its basilica and doubled its bed tax in the same year

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Antoni Gaudí did not leave one building to visit but a scattering of them across the city, and their carved facades, tiled roofs and dragon-scale walls can be admired from the street for nothing. What you pay for, and must book, are the interiors, the rooftops and the monumental core of the park. This is the centenary year of Gaudí's death, the year the basilica was finally crowned, and every site connected to him is seeing record demand, so the free half of the city has never been better value and the ticketed half has never been harder to get into.

Barcelona makes an easy base, with a large airport and fast trains from Madrid, though travellers from outside the European Union are now registered at the border with a photograph and fingerprints in place of a passport stamp, which slows a first arrival. One local trap on the way in: the ordinary multi-journey travel card is not valid on the metro line serving the airport, which needs its own ticket, so buy the right one rather than assuming the card in your pocket covers it. After that the metro links every Gaudí site cheaply. It is worth stopping to compare flights and hotels for Barcelona and settling your nights only once you can pin the timed tickets to them, because the slots move faster than the rooms.

Where you sleep decides how much metro you ride. Around the Passeig de Gràcia in the Eixample, design hotels sit between Casa Batlló and Casa Milà themselves. Closer to the basilica, apartment hotels in the Sagrada Família quarter put the towers at the end of your street. In the Gothic Quarter, boutique hotels cluster near the Barcelona Cathedral and the lanes off La Rambla. Up in Gràcia, small guesthouses give easy morning access to Park Güell before the crowds build. Budget for the bed tax, which doubled this spring: a regional levy scaled to the type of accommodation, plus a city surcharge on top that the council is allowed to raise again next year, charged per person per night and settled at the property rather than shown in the price you compared online.

The basilica deserves getting right before you book. The Sagrada Família was crowned this year, the last arm of the cross going up on the central tower of Jesus Christ in February and the tower blessed in June on the anniversary of Gaudí's death, making it the tallest church in the world. That tower is not open to visitors, and work continues inside the building for years yet, so the idea that it is finished is only half true. What you can climb are the two older facade towers, far lower, on a separate ticket on top of basilica entry, with a narrow steep spiral staircase on the way down that does not suit claustrophobia. The third facade remains the great unbuilt piece. A guided or timed-entry tour earns its price here and at Park Güell, where the monumental core is capped, and a booked airport transfer beats the taxi queue at either end. You can check transfer and guided tour options and fit them around your basilica slot rather than the reverse.

The collection rewards a little mapping. Casa Batlló and Casa Milà line the Passeig de Gràcia in the Eixample, Park Güell crowns a hill to the north, and Palau Güell and Casa Vicens sit quieter and less crowded, so seeing them as a route rather than a checklist saves backtracking. Season shifts the queue more than it shifts the weather. Spring and autumn are the kindest months, the summer heat brings the heaviest crowds and the longest waits, and winter is quiet and mild by European standards with the shortest lines of the year. Personally, I would book the Sagrada Família first and build the day outward from that time, keeping the free evening facades for last, because a building that only reached its intended silhouette this year is one of the rare monuments you can watch change from one visit to the next.

Q: How much is the tourist tax in Barcelona?

A: It doubled this spring. A regional levy scaled to the type of accommodation is charged per person per night, with a city surcharge on top that the council may raise again next year. It is paid at the property rather than through the booking site.

Q: Can you go up the new tower at the Sagrada Família?

A: No. The central tower of Jesus Christ was crowned and blessed this year, making it the tallest church in the world, but it is not open to visitors and work continues inside the building. The two older facade towers can be climbed on a separate ticket.

Q: Does an ordinary travel card cover the metro from the airport?

A: No. The metro line serving the airport needs its own ticket, and the usual multi-journey card is not valid on it, so buy the correct one at the station rather than assuming.

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Location: Βαρκελώνη, Ισπανία

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