Barcelona is indeed a nice city. It was refurbished quite a bit for the Olympic games held there a few years back. The church of Gaudi is unbelievable! We had a day long excursion in the city while on a Mediterranean cruise. Next Medi cruise we will fly to Barcelona and begin cruise there instead of our last cruise which sailed from England. I noticed Barcelona has a very good cruise terminal.
Barcelona is full of very nice apartment buildings. Each one has a different facade and interesting architecture. This was 4.5 years ago when Euro was at high point and Spain was doing well.
They've really loosened the requirements for citizenship by buying property at the present time. I forget the minimum investment but it wasn't too much.