If all the Earth's land ice melted, sea levels would rise over 200 feet. So what would that mean for Europe's coastlines?

Produced by Alex Kuzoian. Narrated by Sara Silverstein.

Follow BI Video:On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

Lionel Messi has dominated this season in the Champions League, scoring 10 goals with four assists to help Barcelona reach the final against Juventus.

At 27, Messi has had his best Champions League campaign since he scored 14 goals in 2011-12. While he's obviously a deadly finisher, Messi's ball control and touch may be his greatest skills.

In the semifinal against Bayern Munich, Messi scored a classic goal after dropping a defender with some slick footwork:

In a great profile on Messi, SI's Liviu Bird describes how Messi has become the world's best dribbler without using the flashy moves of other star players:

He rarely comes to a dead stop to dance on the ball. Instead of rabonas and elásticos, Messi relies on continual movement, body feints, agile touches and a quick change of pace to leave defenders in the dust.

Messi's deft footwork and omniscience on the field — he seems to know what defenders will do before even they do — often evades description as he evades opponents. He makes professionals look amateur, both those who are compared to him and those trying in vain to mark him.

Messi has his own gravitational pull, causing rational defenses to panic and individuals to stumble over themselves — a sensation Jérôme Boateng knows all too well — in an attempt to stifle him. As soon as they lunge, thinking the ball is within tackling distance, he taps it from left foot to right foot, and he’s gone.

As The Telegraph notes, Messi doesn't get caught up in flurries of step-overs or tricks — his attacking runs are direct. Perhaps it's this downhill style of attack that makes him so tough to defend. Defenses have to adjust to his speed, and if they miss the ball, they end up looking foolish.

In 2007, Messi produced perhaps the highlight goal of his career, sprinting through six Getafe defenders from beyond midfield:

His "gravitational pull" also allows him to set up teammates after he's sucked in defenses and blown by them:

As Juventus goalie Gianliugi Buffon recently said of Messi's otherworldly play: "Messi is an extra-terrestrial who plays with us humans. So we hope that on June 6 he returns to earth and becomes a human too."

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's how soccer superstars Ronaldo and Messi match up

Leo Messi and his father will stand trial over accusations that they defrauded authorities of more than $4.5 million between 2007 and 2009, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reports.

A Barcelona judge rejected Messi's appeal, deciding that he had benefited from a scheme allegedly set up by his father to defraud Spanish tax authorities of 4.1 million euros ($4.6 million).

Whether or not Messi knew he was breaking tax laws, the judge ruled, did not matter.

The question of whether Messi knowingly participated in the alleged fraud, or if it was all his father's idea, will be addressed during his trial.

Messi and his father, Jorge Horacio Messi, are accused of circumventing tax obligations in Spain by using companies in Belize and Uruguay to sell the rights to Messi's image. Messi's father allegedly set up the scheme when his son was still a minor.

Father and son have both denied the allegations, and Messi's lawyers have argued that he "has never spent one minute of his life reading, studying, or analyzing" the contracts involved in the alleged scheme.

Prosecutors retorted that Messi had signed the contracts when he turned 18 and was listed as a sole administrator of one of the fraudulent companies in question.

A judge first ruled against Messi and his father in October, stating that "in this type of crime, it is not necessary for someone to have complete knowledge of all the accounting and business operations nor the exact quantity, rather it is sufficient to be aware of the designs to commit fraud and consent to them."

The Messis' appeal of this ruling was finally rejected Wednesday. Father and son will appear in court sometime this summer.

SEE ALSO: LIONEL MESSI: How the most expensive athlete in the world spends his millions

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's how Cristiano Ronaldo spends his money

Got the travel bug? Travel + Leisure rated the 10 best cities in the world.

Produced by Emma Fierberg. Original Reporting by Sarah Schmalbruch.

Follow BI Video: On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

Urbanization will force cities around the world to cope with growing populations, traffic congestion, and pollution in the coming years. Faced with these mounting pressures, city governments are turning to IoT technologies to deliver services more efficiently and improve their citizens’ quality of life. 

Many cities are already connecting their infrastructure to IoT devices like sensors and smart meters. But few cities are as far along in that effort as Barcelona. 

In a new report, BI Intelligence examines how other municipalities can learn from Barcelona’s development into a smart city, how cities’ investments in IoT technologies will grow over time, and how those investments will impact urban economies worldwide.

Don't be left in the dark:Stay ahead of the curve and access our full report to get everything you need to know about smart city trends. All in an easy to understand format with helpful graphs. Get the report now >>

Here are some of the key findings from the report:

• IoT deployments will create $421 billion in economic value for cities worldwide in 2019. That economic value will be derived from revenues from IoT device installations and sales and savings from efficiency gains in city services.
• Globally, cities’ investments in IoT technologies will increase by $97 billion between 2015-2019. This will make up the bulk of government investment in IoT technologies, dwarfing the amount of money spent on other government IoT use cases like military drones and robots. 
• The number of IoT devices installed in cities will will increase by more than 5 billion in the next four years, creating a massive opportunity for IoT hardware manufacturers and software vendors.
• IoT technologies will deliver a broad range of benefits for cities including reducing traffic congestion and air pollution, improving public safety, and providing new ways for governments to interact with their citizens.

This is just a small piece of our comprehensive 22-page report. Become an expert on the topic by accessing the full report now »

In this report we will also:

• Define the difference between connected vs smart cities.
• Identify key challenges for municipalities in developing smart cities and illustrate how some cities are already solving those obstacles.
• Provide key takeaways from Barcelona’s IoT strategy, which has earned it recognition as the world’s smartest city. 
• Illustrate how the benefits of connecting legacy infrastructure can be magnified through data aggregation and analysis.

Don't wait to become a subject matter expert, get the full report now »

Join the conversation about this story »

Barcelona was honored as the world's smartest city this year, beating out London, Singapore, and New York in connected infrastructure, citizen engagement, technological capability, and use of open data sources.

Barcelona's pilot program, which launched in 2011, has since developed into 22 different programs encompassing more than 200 projects and implementations under the umbrella of the city’s Municipal Institute of Information Technology, the department that handles the city's IT environment. Many cities are already connecting their infrastructure to IoT devices like sensors and smart meters. But few cities are as far along in that effort as Barcelona. 

In a new report, BI Intelligence examines how other municipalities can learn from Barcelona’s development into a smart city, how cities’ investments in IoT technologies will grow over time, and how those investments will impact urban economies worldwide.

Don't be left in the dark:Stay ahead of the curve and access our full report to get everything you need to know about smart city trends. All in an easy to understand format with helpful graphs. Get the report now >>

Here are some of the key findings from the report:

• IoT deployments will create $421 billion in economic value for cities worldwide in 2019. That economic value will be derived from revenues from IoT device installations and sales and savings from efficiency gains in city services.
• Globally, cities’ investments in IoT technologies will increase by $97 billion between 2015-2019. This will make up the bulk of government investment in IoT technologies, dwarfing the amount of money spent on other government IoT use cases like military drones and robots. 
• The number of IoT devices installed in cities will will increase by more than 5 billion in the next four years, creating a massive opportunity for IoT hardware manufacturers and software vendors.
• IoT technologies will deliver a broad range of benefits for cities including reducing traffic congestion and air pollution, improving public safety, and providing new ways for governments to interact with their citizens.

This is just a small piece of our comprehensive 22-page report. Become an expert on the topic by accessing the full report now »

In this report we will also:

• Define the difference between connected vs smart cities.
• Identify key challenges for municipalities in developing smart cities and illustrate how some cities are already solving those obstacles.
• Provide key takeaways from Barcelona’s IoT strategy, which has earned it recognition as the world’s smartest city. 
• Illustrate how the benefits of connecting legacy infrastructure can be magnified through data aggregation and analysis.

Don't wait to become a subject matter expert, get the full report now »

Join the conversation about this story »

Barcelona was honored as the world's smartest city this year, beating out London, Singapore, and New York in connected infrastructure, citizen engagement, technological capability, and use of open data sources.

Barcelona's pilot program, which launched in 2011, has since developed into 22 different programs encompassing more than 200 projects and implementations under the umbrella of the city’s Municipal Institute of Information Technology, the department that handles the city's IT environment. Many cities are already connecting their infrastructure to IoT devices like sensors and smart meters. But few cities are as far along in that effort as Barcelona. 

In a new report, BI Intelligence examines how other municipalities can learn from Barcelona’s development into a smart city, how cities’ investments in IoT technologies will grow over time, and how those investments will impact urban economies worldwide.

Access The Reports By Signing Up For A Risk-Free Trial Membership Today >>

Here are some of the key findings from the report:

• IoT deployments will create $421 billion in economic value for cities worldwide in 2019.That economic value will be derived from revenues from IoT device installations and sales and savings from efficiency gains in city services.
• Globally, cities’ investments in IoT technologies will increase by $97 billion between 2015-2019. This will make up the bulk of government investment in IoT technologies, dwarfing the amount of money spent on other government IoT use cases like military drones and robots. 
• The number of IoT devices installed in cities will will increase by more than 5 billion in the next four years, creating a massive opportunity for IoT hardware manufacturers and software vendors.
• IoT technologies will deliver a broad range of benefits for cities including reducing traffic congestion and air pollution, improving public safety, and providing new ways for governments to interact with their citizens.

In this report we will also:

• Define the difference between connected vs smart cities.
• Identify key challenges for municipalities in developing smart cities and illustrate how some cities are already solving those obstacles.
• Provide key takeaways from Barcelona’s IoT strategy, which has earned it recognition as the world’s smartest city. 
• Illustrate how the benefits of connecting legacy infrastructure can be magnified through data aggregation and analysis.

To access the full report from BI Intelligence, sign up for a 14-day trial here. Members also gain access to new in-depth reports and hundreds of charts on the digital industry.

Join the conversation about this story »

Like most Londoners, Sam Cookney was fed up with apartment prices in the capital. So the 32-year-old social-media manager began to look beyond the North Sea for an affordable apartment.

Cookney now gets on a plane in Spain and is seated at his desk in London by 9:30 a.m. He has tweeted and blogged his big move, which has gone viral as he begins his new commute.

Done the sums. Would actually be cheaper for me to rent 2 bed flat in Barcelona+commute to London, than get 1 bed here. Genuinely. Blog it?

— Sam Cookney (@Sam_Cookney) October 24, 2013

In an October 2013 blog post, Cookney posted proof of his number crunching and evidence that a 713-mile commute was, in fact, worth it. 

He based his calculations around commuting four days each week, four weeks per month, though BuzzFeed reported that he actually made the commute significantly less often than that, often working remotely.

The flight from Barcelona's El Prat Airport to London Stansted, just north of metropolitan London, costs about $37 each way, and takes little less than two hours. Factoring in the train from his flat in the Les Courts district of Barcelona to the airport, and a bus transfer to London's Liverpool Street Station, the trip takes about 5 1/2 hours. 

"It's 6€ to and from Barcelona's el Prat airport (and I can walk to the airport train in five minutes from that flat), and then £14 return to Liverpool Street with Terravision (so 23€ in total on transfers each day)," he writes.

"I can then walk to my desk by 9:30 a.m., with time for a Pret coffee and bacon and cheese croissant en route."

He told BuzzFeed, however, that the flight prices were the most unpredictable part of his plan and that they could climb above $150.

According to FlightAware, Ryanair Flight 9811 was on time during a recent trip and has averaged early landings for a week.

For anyone not convinced, Cookney has kept us updated on his first few days of international commuting, posting pictures of boarding passes and even a selfie on the plane home.

Crazy day. Here's a return flight to Barcelona selfie. (PS I'm still single...) pic.twitter.com/Yk82yTJ2MR

— Sam Cookney (@Sam_Cookney) August 5, 2015

Business Insider has reached out to Cookney and will update this story as we learn more about how the international trekking is affecting his lifestyle.

Do you have a marathon commute? Let us know about it the comments below, or shoot us an email.

SEE ALSO: Your commute could double if Congress doesn't act fast

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This drummer created a whole song using only the sound of coins

Barcelona’s new activist mayor, Ada Colau, is long accustomed to making powerful enemies. Before being elected to City Hall, in May’s local elections, she was best known for founding and running the Platform for Mortgage Victims (PAH), an advocacy group that gives legal advice to Spanish homeowners facing foreclosure. It has led the public battle against a legal superstructure that is perniciously rigged in favor of the banks. And thus it has drawn the ire of the Spanish government.

Now Colau, once the scourge of government ministers and police forces up and down the land, is the big boss of Barcelona’s city administration and its police forces. And she has her sights set on a very different target: her home city’s multibillion-euro tourist industry, in particular the unlicensed apartments advertised on websites like Airbnb and Booking.com

The Price of Success

One of Colau’s first actions in office was to introduce a one-year ban on new tourist accommodation. The move affects hotels, hostels, B&Bs, rental homes, and all other businesses that offer beds for visitors to the city. The moratorium had been widely anticipated, as Colau had already made statements in the past about the need to ration the huge influx of tourists to the Catalan capital.

Few, if any, European cities have witnessed such a massive tourist boom as Barcelona. In 1990 the city, with a permanent population of just over 1.5 million residents, attracted 1.7 million tourists. By 2014 that number had mushroomed to close to 7.5 million – almost a five-fold increase.

This boom in tourism has brought with it a huge amount of money. According to Mastercard’s Global Destination Cities Index, Barcelona rakes in over $12 billion a year from tourism and is the third-ranked European city in terms of tourist expenditure, just behind the two global powerhouses of London and Paris. However, this money has come at a price, as the documentary film Bye Bye Barcelonadocuments.

As many local Barcelona residents are all too fond of complaining, Barcelona is fast becoming a theme-parked city that is reaching the very limits of its physical capacity. Rents in many neighborhoods are surging as real estate owners and developers focus their attentions almost exclusively on meeting the much more profitable needs of short-term visitors.

Another downside of Barcelona’s tourist boom has been the widespread closure of traditional, often family-run shops as decades of rent controls came to an abrupt end last year. As a consequence, the city is fast losing its distinctive character – the same character that attracted tourists in the first place – in the face of homogenization that accompanies the arrival of multinational chain stores.

Not even the economic crisis was able to slow down the growth of tourist accommodations: from 23,719 hotel beds in 1991 to 37,224 in 2003 and 69,128 in 2013. There is also an undetermined number of unlicensed apartments that are being rented out to tourists through specialized P2P websites. And it is these apartments that are now drawing the unwelcome attention of city authorities.

The Big Shakedown

In a press conference last week Barcelona’s deputy Mayor Geraldo Pisarello Pin launched a new pilot scheme. People caught running unlicensed apartments through websites will be offered the chance to have 80% of their fine canceled if they allow the city council to use the apartment as social accommodation for three years.

In other words, the city council gets to pocket a much-reduced rent for three years while providing accommodation to local residents who are currently priced out of the renting market. When the three years are up the landlord will be presented with a choice: either pay off the fine through his or her own funds and reclaim possession of the apartment or continue offering the property as social accommodation until the council receives the equivalent of full payment of the fine.

Through this new shakedown scheme Colau intends to kill three birds with one stone: first, to dampen the demand for tourism in Barcelona by cutting off one of its main attractions, cheap, unlicensed apartments; and second, to expand the city’s stock of social housing, thus keeping her core constituency happy; and third, to score a few brownie points among the owners of Barcelona’s hotels, hostels and B&Bs, some of whom feel threatened by the exponential rise of house-sharing schemes.

For Colau, it’s a potential win-win-win. For the owners of unlicensed apartments, it could well be an offer they can’t refuse, especially for fines for operating an unlicensed apartment running as high as €90,000. The average fine clocks in at around €15,000. Also, as El Economista reports, the council will demand that the primary intermediaries – platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com – hand over all the data they possess on the listed tourist apartments that do not have a council registration number.

Failure to do so will result in a fine for each unlicensed apartment offered through their websites. If the company refuses to cooperate, the City Council may even initiate proceedings to prevent online access to the site from the entire Catalan territory (ha!).

Such threats are reminiscent of New York’s recent hissy fit over the site. Airbnb eventually compromised with authorities there and handed over data on all their hosts. However, by withholding key personal data, the house-sharing platform deprived New York authorities of the opportunity to individually prosecute unlicensed landlords.

Other global cities, such as London and Amsterdam, have been much more accommodating with Airbnb, with their councils rewriting legislation to allow local residents to rent out their first home without fear of sanction.

Top Airbnb destination Paris even hosted this year’s edition of the San Francisco-based company’s annual host get-together, at which the city’s first deputy mayor Bruno Julliard expressed the Parisian authorities’ desire to continue to work closely with the P2P house-sharing site. How long this close collaboration lasts is a matter of debate, especially in light of a Reuters report about the threat Airbnb poses to Paris’ luxury hotels.

A Heavy Toll

The threat to Airbnb’s Barcelona market, however, is much more immediate. With over 16,000 registered dwellings Barcelona is far and away the most popular Spanish destination for the platform’s users and is tied with Los Angeles as the fifth most popular global destination with guests.

In an attempt to pre-empt the council’s actions, last year Airbnb conducted and published research on its operations in Barcelona. According to the study, tourists that visit using Airbnb tend to stay in the less visited areas of the city; a fact Airbnb has suggested is dispersing tourists’ euros around the city in a more equitable manner. Airbnb also estimates that there has been a total of €175 million of activity in the Catalan capital, a fact that might be caused by Airbnb guests staying 2.4 times longer and spending 2.3 times more money than typical tourists.

However, given the scale and intensity of local opposition to continued growth of tourism in Barcelona, neither this data nor the pleas of unlicensed landlords, many of whom use the money to help pay their bills and stay in their homes, are likely to elicit much sympathy.

SEE ALSO: These emerging markets are in the best position to withstand a Fed rate hike

Join the conversation about this story »

Barcelona was honored as the world's smartest city this year, beating out London, Singapore, and New York in connected infrastructure, citizen engagement, technological capability, and use of open data sources.

Barcelona's pilot program, which launched in 2011, has since developed into 22 different programs encompassing more than 200 projects and implementations under the umbrella of the city’s Municipal Institute of Information Technology, the department that handles the city's IT environment. Many cities are already connecting their infrastructure to IoT devices like sensors and smart meters. But few cities are as far along in that effort as Barcelona. 

In a new report, BI Intelligence examines how other municipalities can learn from Barcelona’s development into a smart city, how cities’ investments in IoT technologies will grow over time, and how those investments will impact urban economies worldwide.

Access The Reports By Signing Up For A Full-Access Trial Today >>

Here are some of the key findings from the report:

• IoT deployments will create $421 billion in economic value for cities worldwide in 2019.That economic value will be derived from revenues from IoT device installations and sales and savings from efficiency gains in city services.
• Globally, cities’ investments in IoT technologies will increase by $97 billion between 2015-2019. This will make up the bulk of government investment in IoT technologies, dwarfing the amount of money spent on other government IoT use cases like military drones and robots. 
• The number of IoT devices installed in cities will will increase by more than 5 billion in the next four years, creating a massive opportunity for IoT hardware manufacturers and software vendors.
• IoT technologies will deliver a broad range of benefits for cities including reducing traffic congestion and air pollution, improving public safety, and providing new ways for governments to interact with their citizens.

In this report we will also:

• Define the difference between connected vs smart cities.
• Identify key challenges for municipalities in developing smart cities and illustrate how some cities are already solving those obstacles.
• Provide key takeaways from Barcelona’s IoT strategy, which has earned it recognition as the world’s smartest city. 
• Illustrate how the benefits of connecting legacy infrastructure can be magnified through data aggregation and analysis.

To access the full report from BI Intelligence, sign up for a full-access 14-day trial here. Full-access members also gain access to new in-depth reports and hundreds of charts on the digital industry.

Join the conversation about this story »

"La Sagrada Família," a dramatic, imposing cathedral designed by Spanish architect Antoni Guadí, is easily Spain's most recognizable landmark, and it isn't even finished yet. Construction began on the church 133 years ago, in 1882, and it continues to this day.

Work crews recently began the final phase of construction, meaning the church will soon be complete after more than a century of work. It's expected to be done in 2026.

Tourists have come from across the world to see the progress of construction on the cathedral, which has soaring ceilings, intricate facades, and bright stained-glass windows. More than three million people visit the temple each year, according to National Geographic.

The tallest tower will eventually be 564 feet high, making it the tallest religious structure in Europe.

SEE ALSO: 16 otherworldly images of a Parisian community you probably didn't know existed

The Neo-Gothic design was initially being planned by the architect Francisco de Paula del Villar y Lozano, the first architect to work on ideas for the church.

Famous Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí took over the design of the Sagrada Família in 1883 and continued until he died in an accident in 1926. He is considered the main architect of the church.

Many challenges have come up in the progress of construction. Gaudí's designs were incredibly complex and expensive, and the Spanish Civil War completely halted progress in the late 1930s. This is how the church appeared in 2004.

After 133 years of construction, the finish line is in sight for the Sagrada Família in Barcelona.

The massive cathedral, one of Barcelona's top tourist attractions, has finally entered the final stage of construction. It’s slated for completion in 2026 — 100 years after its architect, Antoni Gaudí, died in a tram accident.

While 10 years seems like a long time, 30% of the building still needs to be constructed. Six more towers will be added, including a 564-foot central tower that will make the Sagrada Familia the tallest religious building in Europe.

Story by Tony Manfred and editing by Ben Nigh

INSIDER IS ON FACEBOOK: Follow us here!

SEE ALSO: A guy in a wingsuit flew around Panama City's 900-foot skyscrapers

Join the conversation about this story »

Got the travel bug? Travel + Leisure rated the 10 best cities in the world.

Produced by Emma Fierberg. Original Reporting by Sarah Schmalbruch.

Follow BI Video: On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

Murtaza Ahmadi, a five-year-old Afghan boy, is about to get the thrill of a lifetime. 

Ahmadi's family was too poor to get him a real Messi jersey, so his brother made one out of a blue and white grocery bag. Now — after a wide-ranging internet campaign — the Afghan Football Federation is setting up a meeting between the superstar athlete and the young superfan.

Story by Tony Manfred and editing by Chelsea Pineda

Join the conversation about this story »

The massive cathedral, one of Barcelona's top tourist attractions, has finally entered the final stage of construction. It’s slated for completion in 2026 — 100 years after its architect, Antoni Gaudí, died in a tram accident.

Story by Tony Manfred and editing by Ben Nigh

Follow INSIDER Travel  on Facebook
Follow INSIDER on YouTube

Join the conversation about this story »

In what Barca TV is calling an "impossible" trick shot, Lionel Messi netted a goal from behind the actual goal in a recent training session. It may not be literally impossible, but the angle is ridiculous.

Story by Tony Manfred and editing by Kristen Griffin

Join the conversation about this story »

With its sun-soaked beaches, Mediterranean hospitality, and unparalleled architecture, it’s easy to fall for Barcelona. The city appeals to all the senses: There are wines to be swirled and tapas to be gobbled, passageways to be explored, and paintings to be pondered. The ancient and avant garde intermingle in the Catalan capital, where you can find Roman ruins, Moderniste apartments, and high-fashion boutiques all on the same block.

With centuries of history to explore over miles of winding streets, sightseeing in Barcelona might seem a little intimidating. But all you have to do is tackle this list of 25 essential experiences to enjoy everything the city has to offer.

SEE ALSO: The 5 favorite hotels of wealthy people around the world

DON'T FORGET: Follow Business Insider's lifestyle page on Facebook!

La Boqueria

A gastronomic mecca that attracts more than 45,000 visitors a day, La Boqueria may be the most famous food market in the world, and for good reason. Its endless stalls entice shoppers with abundant displays of the region’s finest cheeses, charcuterie, seafood, and produce. Some vendors have adapted over time to tourists’ demands, but for a taste of how things were at La Boqueria way back when, sidle up to the bar at Pinotxo, where quick-witted 75-year-old Joan Bayén (“Juanito” for the locals) has been churning out hearty country fare like cigrons amb botifarra negre (stewed chickpeas with black pudding) and calamarcets amb mongetes (tender baby squid and white beans) for a half a century.

Plan Your Trip: Visit Fodor's Barcelona Guide

Santa María del Mar

To gain some perspective on the antiquity of Santa María del Mar—and the resilience of Barcelona’s architectonic tradition— consider that each boulder used in the church’s construction was hauled one at a time from surrounding mountainsides and shoreline by ordinary civilians. When the project was finally complete in 1383, 54 years after the first stone was laid, the citizens marveled at what they’d created: a soaring Gothic temple accented with vivid stained-glass panels, illuminated by natural light, and buttressed by sparse, improbably slender columns. Much of the original structure remains today, despite damages to the interior from an 11-day fire that broke out during the Spanish Civil War in 1936.

Plan Your Trip: Visit Fodor's Barcelona Guide

La Sagrada Familia

Like many of Barcelona’s architectural feats, La Sagrada Família was, and continues to be, controversial. For years scholars have debated whether engineers strayed too far from architect Antoni Gaudí’s original vision (he died when just a quarter of the project had been realized). And while many citizens deem La Sagrada Família the greatest achievement of Catalan building, others view the structure as a glaring, expensive parody of it. Academic bickering aside, it’s hard not to get caught up in the magic of this place, which, pending completion in 2026 after 150 years of construction, will be the tallest religious building in Europe. Fusing Gothic and Art Nouveau styles in unprecedented ways, the basilica also draws on nature as a central inspiration. The hyperboloids, bright colors, and unconventional animal representations (e.g., chameleons, turtles, pelicans) epitomize Gaudí’s belief that nature and the divine were inextricably linked. Insider tip: Lines here are notoriously long, so it’s advisable to purchase tickets in advance.

Plan Your Trip: Visit Fodor's Barcelona Guide

When you're on holiday, it can be difficult to figure out exactly how much money to budget per day — especially if you're visiting a place you've never been to before.

The travel insurance company Staysure has come up with a handy guide that shows how much a daily budget of £100 can get you in 10 popular cities including Havana, Cape Town, and San Francisco.

To find the best value destinations, the infographic compares the price of six typical holiday items such as a night's stay in a three-star hotel, a three-course meal, a pint of beer, visits to cultural attractions, and transport for 20 miles.

Staysure's graphic also provides the total amount of these costs and then set this against a £100 budget to see how much money travellers would be able to save (or spend).

Of the 10 locations included, the Vietnamese city of Hanoi is the cheapest, with the cost of a day out totalling just £38.38 — less than half of the £100 budget. While a visit to the city's old quarter is free, the most affordable item you could buy there is a pint of beer priced at a mere £0.45.

The next cheapest place to travel is Havana, where you can expect to pay £56.68 per day, followed by Budapest, with a day out amounting to £57.66, making it the most affordable place to spend a day in Europe.

As for the most expensive place to travel, that would be San Francisco. The Californian city requires travellers to spend £157.13 — more than 50% over the £100 budget — for a day out, including £83 to stay in a three-star hotel.

Check out the full infographic to see what £100 will get you in 10 busy cities below:

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: This ice cream-filled pastry is the hottest dessert in Central Europe

Spanish and Italian football clubs are requesting format changes to the Champions League in order to financially compete with the English Premier League, according to the Financial Times.

The clubs want more games between the continent's "heavyweight" teams, which would increase matchday revenues and commercial prospects.

Currently, the Champions League follows a similar format to the World Cup, in which groups of four teams play each other, with only the top two of each group progressing.

Proposals for new format include an early knockout stage of 16 seeded teams playing against another 16 — which would result in 16 games for each team. The eventual winners would go on to play in two groups of eight.

A "wild card" setup has also been mooted, which would allow historically successful Champions League teams instant entry — a format that would have benefited Manchester United and AC Milan who failed to qualify for the competition this season.

However Alberto Colombo, the deputy general secretary of European Professional Football Leagues, said it would probably oppose any measures that grant entry to teams for any reason other than sporting merit, adding "It’s a matter of keeping the dream alive for any club that’s doing well on the pitch,” the Financial Times reports.

Champions League participation is a hugely lucrative source of income for clubs. Teams who qualify make at least €8.6 (£6.5 million; $9.6 million), while winning the tournament is worth €27 million (£21 million; $30 million) in prize money and potentially far more in commercial deals.

But the Premier League is by far the most valuable football division in the world, with a recent KPMG report suggesting that 5 of the top 10 most valuable clubs in the world are English.

It received a huge financial boost when Sky and BT began competing for broadcast rights, resulting in an eventual price tag of €2.4 billion (£1.8 billion; $2.7 billion) per season.

Spain, meanwhile, has two of the biggest teams in the world in Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, but the collective value of the teams in La Liga are said to be worth less than half of those in the Premiership. It can take solace in the fact that two of its teams — Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid — are playing in the Champions League final on Saturday.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Why this Instagram star withdrew $1.2 million in cash — then deposited it the next day

A stand at La Boqueria food market in Barcelona made items out of marzipan, including KFC-style chicken and McDonald's chips.

Produced by Claudia Romeo. Filmed by Joe Daunt.

Join the conversation about this story »