12 Best Places to Shop in Spain

This is the bookstore to seek out if you're interested in the Pyrenees or in exploring any part of the Catalonian hinterlands. Maps, charts, and books detailing everything from Pyrenean ponds and lakes to Romanesque chapels are available in this diminutive giant of a resource. The space doubles as a restaurant, serving wine, cheese, and a few traditional Catalan dishes. It's been family owned and operated since 1916. 

Hands-down, Barcelona's best bookstore for years, La Central has creaky, literary wooden floors and piles of recent publications with many interesting titles in English.

You'll find an impressive collection of English-language books here, including translated Spanish classics. Note to analog travelers: this is your spot to score excellent printed maps.

On Barcelona's most important shopping street, Casa del Llibre is a major book feast with a wide variety of English titles.

This bookstore is one of the city's best. There's a decent selection of English-language books as well as CDs, games, and stationery.

For musical recordings and the latest book publications, this is one of Barcelona's most dependable and happening addresses. Regular concerts, presentations of new recordings, and art exhibits take place in FNAC, both here at the branch in the Triangle Shopping Center on Plaça Catalunya and one on Diagonal in the L'Illa shopping center. Much more than a bookstore, it's an important cultural resource.

A block off San Bernardo, this is a charming café and bookstore with a good selection of used books in English. They sell bagels, too—a rarity in Madrid.

Buy (mostly Spanish) used books by the pound at this stall occupying a former casquería (offal shop).

This bookstore in the former chapel of the Casa de la Misericòrdia sells books amid stunning architecture and holds regular cultural events. You can sift through books of various genres, from anthropology and architecture to photography and poetry, and the English-language section showcases both best-sellers and lesser-known works. Behind the bookstore is Bar Central's lush garden restaurant, which is still a bit of a local secret.

Girona's best bookstore has a large travel-guide section and a small selection of English fiction.

Barcelona's premier travel and adventure bookstore stocks many titles in English. Book presentations and events scheduled here feature a wide range of notable authors from Alpinists to Africanists.

Though it doesn't have a lot of English-language titles, this bookstore has a very pleasant café-restaurant upstairs; the space is often used for readings and other cultural events. Other branches of Laie are located around Barcelona, including major museums such as the Museu Picasso and Cosmocaixa.