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Sometimes you stumble upon a place that looks like it’s been designed by Instagram themselves. Somewhere that’s just a bit too cool for its own good. Plaça dels Àngels is one of those places. Students sip vermuts here to the soundtrack of skateboards clanging and the hollering that greets every perfected trick. Welcome to the epicentre of alternative Barcelona. Welcome to El Raval.

Decades ago bicycles lost their place as a primary mode of urban transport in many cities from Los Angeles to Beijing, with a few exceptions such as Copenhagen and Amsterdam. Now, with the boom in bike-sharing, the bicycle is coming back to take its well-deserved role in cities. Unless we screw it up.

The beaches in Barcelona are a big draw. There aren’t many cities in Europe that have such a nice climate and a beach within walking distance of the city centre. It’s one of the reasons so many tourists flock to the city in the spring and summer.

If you’ve never been on a cycling holiday, the idea of riding long distances every day for a week (or more) can be a bit daunting. Add training six days a week before you go, the money you’d need to spend on a decent touring bike, not to mention the rest of the kit. No one would blame you for thinking ‘maybe next year…’

I don’t know about you, but I’ll definitely have a hard time splitting my time between the congress and visiting the city. It would be a shame to stay in the beautiful Catalan capital without some city exploration, wouldn’t it? Well, here are 5 useful mobile apps for the tech-savvy explorer in us all, Mobile World Congress 2017 edition:

Some Barcelona barrios are more famous than others. Most people know about the narrow, medieval streets of Barrio Gótico and El Born snaking up from the sea. Tourists throng the Manhattan-like grids of Eixample, marvelling at its quirky, modernist buildings. Some visitors love La Barceloneta because of the beach and the bars that face out to the sea. But to find the real Barcelona, you have to go further. To the barrios many locals call home. And what better way to get there than by bike?