I was never one for working from home, far too many distractions — I need places with noise and colour, people moving around me and sounds drifting by, and I need good coffee and sweet snacks to feed the beast. Over the years I’ve found many places which can satisfy these needs, and these are my favourites.

ICA Bar, The Mall, London — I’ve spent the past 15 years visiting the ICA, for DJ nights and talks, performances and late night drinks with friends. Best of all I’ve spent many hours sitting by the window, watching the comings and goings and letting my mind wander happily to interesting places. See some art, have a coffee, chat to friends, enjoy.

Lillipep (formerly Rodko), El Born, Barcelona — A wonderful discovery on my trip to Barcelona in February, Lillipep is just a perfect coffee shop. Books everywhere, local art on the walls, great music and a wonderful modern medieval chic feel to it — I spent a lot of time here in July, thinking, drawing, planning and enjoying their excellent coffee.

Chai Wallah’s, Big Chill, Eastnor Castle — My first port of call the morning after the night before at the Big Chill for the last few years. Chai Wallah’s is an Eastnor institution. Foregoing my usual coffee for a cup of chai, delivered in a hand-thrown ceramic tea bowl, became one of the highpoints of my days at the festival. I spent hours here, reading and relaxing.

Tate Modern Member’s Bar, Southbank, London — One of my regular London haunts, not for the faint-hearted at the weekend where it gets absolutely mobbed and can be unbearable. During the week it transforms into an oasis of calm. Get a seat overlooking the Thames and St. Paul’s and get writing. The coffee’s good too.

Palais de Tokyo, Trocadéro, Paris — I love this place, I always make my way to it whenever I’m in Paris. Sitting next to the cool-but-straight Musée d’Art Moderne, the Palais is the absolute opposite — the plaster’s been stripped from the walls and the art mingles with graffiti and skateboarders. Grab a coffee and enjoy the mayhem.

Munson’s, South Ealing, London — My little bubble of sanity just down the road. A little coffee shop and deli, these guys know how to make a fine latte and the food is very good too. I’ve sat in here many a time setting the creative world to rights with my friends — half an hour in here and everything comes together again, beautifully.

Santa Caterina Market, El Born, Barcelona — The mayhem of this food market is utterly addictive, the smells, the sounds, the colours, the movement — you sit with your coffee and it all happens around you. I’ve often started my day here — the coffee is delicious and you feel like a proper native as people come and go on their way to work.

Riverside Studios, Hammersmith, London — I rediscovered the studios this year after a long absence and they have become the place I go with my sketchbook and laptop. It’s an active and working studio with the buzz of recording sessions going on around you, an exhibition space next to the café and an excellent riverside terrace for summer brainstorming sessions.

La Renaissance, The Rocks, Sydney — Three years living in Sydney meant that I needed a few places to seek inspiration. This little patisserie had the most beautiful garden set back from the street in the middle of a dense collection of buildings. I spent many afternoons sunning myself amongst the trees with a sketchbook, tucking into one of their gorgeous crème brûlées.

Classic Image Café Gallery, Chiswick, London — This unassuming little coffee shop has become part of my life in the last few years. I’ve become entirely addicted to the latkes and smoked salmon and they do the best coffee in Chiswick. Inspiration flows freely for me here — I can often be found tapping away on my laptop or working through the pages of my sketchbook.

I’ve had it in my head to give you my top ten reasons why I love Barcelona:

The coffee — I don’t know what it is about the beans they use here, but the coffee is absolutely world-class. I have mainly decaf coffee and unlike the UK, where they have to ask the other barristas where that old pack of decaf is and blow the dust off it as they retrieve it from the back of the drawer, the cafés in Barcelona actually have proper ground decaf coffee, some of them even give you a choice of bean! It tastes amazing and you have to remind yourself you’re drinking decaf.

The cafés and bars — this city has the coolest bars and cafés in the whole world, without a doubt, and they barely have to even try. The best of the bars have a casual chic and style which are beautifully understated. Round every corner is another gem, maybe a row of tea lights lead you to a cellar bar, or perhaps you glance through a tiny mediaeval window and find another dimly lit bar with couples whispering gently in the corners.

Born — the tiny streets have captivated me on both my visits, and this time I am staying right in the centre of the maelstrom of tiny mediaeval streets, bars and shops. Every day I still get a little lost getting back to my apartment, it still surprises me that I don’t yet run on automatic pilot. With the hot weather the tiny streets are doubly helpful, protecting you from the intense sunlight. You stumble out of a bar and suddenly you’re right in front of the Picasso Museum, next morning you take a walk over to the Santa Caterina Market to have a coffee and watch the fish deliveries.

The cat woman — I love the cat woman. She sits every evening on the c/ d’Argenteria with her cat and watches the world go by. The cat is the star of this particular little show, its wonderful little bow-tie makes me laugh every time I see it.

The galleries — Richard Meier’s MACBA stands out as the epitomy of Barcelona creative chic. It’s grand frontage gives way to a wonderful use of space inside, with gentle walkways taking you right to the top of the building. It’s an oasis of calm, and one of the first places I headed to on this visit.

Raval — it has many of the same tiny streets as Born but the atmosphere is entirely different. Edgier, noisier, darker and a whole lot more culturally interesting. Home of MACBA, FAD, CCCB and a bunch of other galleries and creative enterprises, I spent a lot of time hanging out here. My favourite boccadillo stand is here, and I seem to always gravitate back here eventually. I spent an amazing afternoon sitting on the cool shaded marble wall of MACBA reading Hunter S. Thompson and watching the skateboarders while the sun shone bright and a breeze gently cooled my skin. Lovely.

The summer evenings — have that lovely cool but still warm feel, as the sun sets and the locals get ready to party again after a hot day of doing, well, whatever the locals do here. The sky is still clear and the gentle breeze keeps you fresh and alert. You take a walk down to the harbour to look at the boats and the people, then back into the old city for some tapas and a cerveza or two sitting watching the world go by. Heavenly.

Street art — as you’ll remember from my previous visit I am a little taken by the quality of the street art here. I could spend weeks photographing the work on the walls and doors. Colourful and truly creative, it visually adds to the atmosphere of the city, it would be far duller without it.

Moritz beer — a local deli put me on to these, one of the local Catalan brews. Delicious and with a wonderful after-taste, I’ve had a few good nights on these. I wish I could take a crate home.

The lifestyle — does anyone here actually work? The locals seem to have got the whole work to life balance near perfect. They don’t seem to subscribe to the 9 to 5 ethic, or the 5 day week ethic, or for that matter any of the traditional western work ethics. Things get done here, food is made and sold, coffees are brewed and drunk, people work but they also play hard. This city doesn’t come alive until way into the evening. When many in London are heading for bed the Barcelona crowd are heading for the bar.

Right, change of plan — I figured I’d make my way over to see a little Gaudi and then up to Montjuic to the Fundacion Miro and the Mies van der Rohe and then head back to the town and finish up my day with coffees and bocadillos. A fine plan I thought. So a long walk, a lot longer than I could work out from the map, up to the Plaça d’Espanya and I was already tired. I wandered up into the hills and headed to the Fundacion Miro to find it closed — this was really disappointing, it was only 2 o’clock in the afternoon and it had just closed, I couldn’t believe it.

I didn’t have the energy to walk over to the Mies van der Rohe so I headed back to the familiar territory of the Raval and Born and got back to the serious business of taking pictures, drinking coffee and generally hanging out in downtown Barca. These paint splats are everywhere — I love the CMYK sentiments, a man (or woman) after my own heart!

I love the stencil art in this town — there’s just so much of it, I could have taken five times as many pictures. Like Paris there are many collage pieces as well, but I find the work here a little more original in approach if not quite so sophisticated.

The piece below is by far my favourite of the trip — it has a wonderful Donnie Darko feel to it, its presence is amazing. This head was all there was but I feel there’s a whole piece in there given the right canvas. Spooky.

So my last day in Barcelona was a funny one, by turns frustrating and rewarding. I finished up with some tapas and beers in the Born and relaxed before getting back on the train for Paris. Nothing could quite match the lovely heat and sunlight of Saturday, wandering around the city in my t-shirt, sampling the food and hitting the galleries. I’ve managed to see only a fraction of the things I wanted to but that just leaves more for next time.

Like Paris this is a city I will continue to visit over the years. What a wonderful place.

The night before became a slow bar crawl around first the Raval, then over to the Born to finish off. I was pretty tired so climbed into bed reasonably early, about midnight, for a lovely long sleep. I could certainly get used to very drinkable glasses of red wine for 2€ a time.

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day — the temperature hit 20° and the local population were out in force. After a visit to the Picasso Museum in the morning, I decided to find one of the beaches to the north of the city and enjoy the weather in style — the beaches aren’t the nicest in the world but after a long and grey London winter I was in heaven. I kicked of my shoes, threw off my shirt and went for a paddle in the Med. Lovely! The sea was as calm as a millpond, and all I could hear was the gentle lapping of the water on the shore.

Heading back to the city I passed this Juan Muñoz sculpture, caged and set in the middle of a large open area near the beach — it was nice to see his work out of the gallery. I wandered back and checked into the hotel, before heading out again for some lunch and a wander over to Raval to check out another exhibit. Over by the MACBA I couldn’t resist joining the locals for some late afternoon sun, sitting against the wall with a café con leche and a book.

From MACBA it was a wander through the back streets of Raval to the base of Montjuic — I couldn’t find the railway so I walked up the hill to get what is apparently the best view of the city. Unfortunately as I reached the top a huge bank of fog rolled in from the sea and, although I could still see a lot, obscured the view of the harbour. It was still a great view, but I realised I preferred the hustle and bustle of the narrow city streets and headed back to the madness.

I must have walked 10 miles today! My legs finally started to ache and I headed back to the hotel and then out into the city for some food and drink. I watched the France v England rugby in an Irish pub in Raval where I met an interesting man call José, a Dutch guy who’d moved here a year ago and wanted to know the rules of rugby. Friendly but a little strange, I stole one of his really strong cigarettes and talked about Barca locals. From there I headed back to Born to a cute little bar where an Italian barman made me some wicked mohitos and we chatted about which city made the best cocktails.

I hardly remember going to bed, I passed out happy and exhausted in my giant king size bed.

Finding a hotel in the Born area was easy — the location is ideal and my room is lovely, although I only have it for one night. I found another hotel nearby, albeit almost double the price — Barcelona is booked up fairly solidly for Saturday night and so I decided to treat myself to a nice hotel. I can relax and enjoy my evening now.

I fell in love with Barcelona the moment I stepped out of the station, what a beautiful city. Once I’d dumped my stuff in the room and freshened up I hit the streets in search of a decent coffee — not hard here — I headed to the Santa Caterina food market and found a lovely little café to recharge and conceive my plan for the day. I figured to explore the streets, hit a few coffee shops and catch some exhibitions — nothing too ambitious, I was still tired from the journey.

The day was lovely — I happily wandered the streets in just my t-shirt as the sun was bright and warm. The coffees were great, although getting decaf has been a problem as not many seem to understand descafeinado and I’ve been having full-caff instead. Sasha’s pick of the cafés, Rodko, turned out to be an absolute gem, just around the corner from both hotels and an oasis of calm (and they do decaf). I’ll be returning there a couple more times before I leave I’m sure.

The CCCB and MACBA exhibition centres provided some visual distractions for the afternoon, although apart from the photography of Lothar Baumgarten at the MACBA there was little to inspire, fun all the same.

An attempted coffee at the lovely Bar Ra had to be postponed as it was absolutely mobbed — this sun trap is very popular but I’ll try for brunch tomorrow.

As for this evening — I fancy a wander down to the port to watch the sun go down, but first I have to find myself some tapas. I’m absolutely starving.

I’m sitting on the Elipsos now, the train hotel from Paris to Barcelona, the scenic overnight way. I do have the feeling I’ve stepped into a cheesy 70s movie, I just need some Wilder-esque big hair and women with huge shoulder pads. I’ve met my companion until Orléans, another Englishman, and he’s gone to try the restaurant. I’m not sure I fancy eating yet — I may switch directly to alcohol and make my way to the bar. The facilities are basic but nice and comfy — I have to keep reminding myself I’m actually on a train. The beds look good and I think the gentle rocking of the train should help me nod off. I’ve certainly had no problem sleeping on trains before, albeit not horizontally. If I can’t sleep I’ll see how much of Hunter S. Thomson’s book, The Rum Diary, I can get through in one night!

I can’t wait to arrive in Barcelona tomorrow morning — it’s an early hour to arrive, but if I find a hotel quickly then I can be exploring the old town by lunchtime. There are so many things on my list, and I’m eager to get photographing the street art there as I did in Paris last year. I’ve only been to Barcelona once, when I was about 14, for one day — this is a chance to experience the city anew and bring home an entirely fresh perspective. It’s going to be a good weekend, I can feel it.