1On my third visit to Barcelona, I could barely recognise the quiet neighbourhood where I had once stayed.
2The small family bakery had become a souvenir shop, and the old grocer now sold bottled sangria to tourists.
3My former landlady told me that more than half of her building was now rented out to visitors.
4Rents had risen so sharply that her own children could no longer afford to live there.
5In the evenings, endless crowds filled the narrow streets, taking photographs of other people's daily lives.
6I felt strangely guilty, as though my own happy visits had somehow contributed to the problem.
7The city still shimmered with its old beauty, yet something essential had quietly disappeared from its streets.
8Tourism had certainly brought money, but it had also pushed ordinary local life out of the centre.
9Now the city charges visitors an extra tax and limits the number of tourist flats.
10Whether these new measures can truly restore what was lost remains a very open question.