A different way to see the city: thematic walks off the usual trail, real neighbourhood food and vermut, and a local who helps you spot — and skip — the tourist traps. Live in person, or self-guided on your phone.
Most visitors see the same ten postcard sights and eat in the same tourist traps. We show you the other Barcelona — the one the city keeps for itself.
Above all, our walks are storytelling. We don’t recite dates at monuments — we tell the story of a few streets through the people who lived it, and we ask you to step into their shoes: the anarchist with a pistol in his pocket, the neighbour queuing for bread, the militiaman on the barricade. It turns out to be a completely different way to see a city — and to visit one.
Each route goes deep on a single story — starting with the Spanish Civil War in Sant Antoni — led in person by a local political scientist, not a flag-waving rotation: off the usual trail, in small groups, with time to actually talk. And we take the food seriously too — proper vermut, market tapas and neighbourhood bodegas, far from the paella-photo traps. When you can’t join in person, the same city travels with you in our self-guided phone guides.
Not a tour of sights, but a story you step into — on the streets where it happened.
Our first thematic deep-dive. One two-and-a-half-hour route across Sant Antoni and the old Paral·lel, in the order the city lived it — a collectivised brewery, a rationed market, the cabarets that fell silent, a shelter dug by hand — ending where every good Barcelona afternoon ends. Told entirely from the street; we step inside only at the market, when it’s open.
Can’t make a live walk? Our self-guided guides put the same off-the-trail Barcelona in your pocket — history routes, a Sant Antoni food & vermut crawl, and the local spots that keep you well clear of the tourist traps. Walk them at your own pace, whenever you’re in the city.
Revolutionary Barcelona — anarchists & the war (8 stops) and a Sant Antoni food & vermut crawl (6 stops), with El Born 1714 and the Barri Gòtic on the way — all included.
Maps and directions to every stop, the story behind each one, and hand-picked bars and bodegas — so you skip the tourist traps and order like a Barcelonan. Nothing to install.
No group, no schedule, no guide to keep up with. One payment, every route, walk them as often as you like.
Booking and secure payment are handled by Airbnb Experiences. Pick a date there and you're set — I'll meet you at Fàbrica Moritz.
Booking & secure payment via Airbnb Experiences
Booking for a private group or a school, or after the €8 self-guided guides? Send us a message and we'll set it up.
Email usHi, I’m Toni. I was born and raised here and studied Political Science at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University (UPF). For years I’ve read this city the way I was trained to read politics — as a story of power, of people, and of the streets where it all played out.
I started GS History Tours because the Barcelona most visitors see isn’t the one locals live in. My wife’s family is from Sant Antoni — it’s the neighbourhood I know best, and one of the places where the twentieth century happened all at once. I don’t recite dates at monuments; I tell the story and ask you to step into it, in small groups, with time to actually talk.
And a good walk, like a good afternoon in Barcelona, ends with a vermut in hand and the conversation still going. (Yes, we’ll probably end up talking about Barça too.)
— Toni, political scientist & your guide
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Toni
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1714, the Barri Gòtic and more — get an email when a new walk or guide drops.
