I stayed a long weekend with my kids (13 and 18) and we had à wonderful time. Barcelona is such a great place with so much diversity, from great architecture and arts to cosmopolitan style city with great nightlife.

We stayed in the middle of the independence "crisis" and I was personaly impressed by the profound mutual respect from both sides. We've never felt at risk, did not encounter any violence and both sides demonstrated without any tension.
Although, there is a clear political crisis in Spain overall, Barcelona is a diverse and cosmopolitan city. Seemed to me that international media were putting lots of efforts to stress the issue and we've met lots of "bored" journalists ...
By the way, I wanted to stress that Roberto is a ***** host.