Shopping in Barcelona
Barcelona the city of tourist attraction in Spain has many reasons for the travelers to simply thrive in large numbers. As a tourist spot it offers all the possible needs and requirements for fun, entertainment, colorful world, culture, heritage, romantic streets of medieval times making him/her an addict to the city. City is an outstanding attractive place for ‘Shopping' for the people visiting Spain . The Cosmopolitan city offers innovative and shopping designs of clothes, furniture, art, leather products and a lot giving an incredible experience for the visitor. Barcelona can be topped in the list of the cities of styles in Europe, though not equivalent to the cities Paris or Milan .
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 of choices and options in one 5 kms stretch. The city is altogether famous for having a 5 kilo meter line stretch of shops from Ramblas to the Placa de Catalunya through Passeig de Gracia and up the Avenue Diagonal. Much of the line here has been pedestrian allowing the customers to wander around do their choices without any botherance of the traffic. Along this line one can find big international; brand names like the Versace, Cartier, Gorgio Armani, Bally and Burberry and the list grows.
There are lot many Spanish designer shops providing gold, clothes, accessories and apparels of the European Styles. Many visitors from the Non European Countries do not know that the Spainsh govt 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 cheque 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 such are in the El Corte Ingles and Fnac providing every 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 centre located in beautiful area built over the Mediterranean and called Rambla del Mar.
Stores in the city open at 10 in the morning to 2 in the after noon and again from 4 to 8 in the evening. Commercial and the department stores run all through the day without any break. Also some stores are closed on Saturday after noon and some run all through the week full seven days.