we arrived back from barcelona on the 6/11/01, just drop a note to let other travellers to this city to be aware of. We've taken caution on bag snatching and as such my wife carried her shoulder bag underneath her coat. Inspite of this, walking back from MACBA, in front of a small clothing shop-door opened, I was pushed aside from my wife by a young arabic looking youth, when I turned round and looked there were two other, like a flash my wife was pushed onto the ground and inspite of us shout for help, her bag was snatched, leaving us the teared strips of the bag. No one from shop bothered to offer help nor any other pedestrians. The police treated our horrifying experience as a matter of fact ie giving us an incident form to complete. <BR>up to the above incident we did felt safe in Barcelona. <BR>

Paul <BR> <BR>I'm so sorry to hear of your ordeal. I hope it didn't spoil your holiday. Such situations, and the apathy of others, are all too common. Thanks for the warning. <BR> <BR>Best <BR> <BR>Kate

Hi Paul - sorry to hear about your incident in Barcelona. We also had these problems in Barcelona, but if it makes you feel any better it happened again in Madrid.

Sorry to hear about it, hope your wife was badly hurt as I was in Madrid.

I smell a troll on this one....

Don't think this is a troll..been done myself in Spain but not with violence. There is a problem with mugging there and quite a bit of it is carried out by young North Africans... that is not racist.. it is just a fact.

Similar thing happened to me in Brussels. And before we start hearing about paul and his wife being "stupid, drunk or ignorant" from another poster, the young men who attacked me also attacked people who were wearing neck pouches/money belts and those victims were beaten pretty badly for being more "difficult" to rob. <BR>