Barcelona has a night-time problem, and it is not the one the newspapers write about. The problem is that the visible nightlife, the part designed to be found in ten seconds on a phone, is not the good part.

Move away from the centre. Poble-sec and Sant Antoni are where people actually eat before going out, and they are close enough to walk back from. Gracia feels like a separate town with its own squares and its own pace, and nobody there is trying to sell you a bar crawl.

The queer scene is not one place. Eixample has the well-known bars and they are fine. But there are smaller rooms, one-night parties and collective-run spaces that never appear on a listings site because they do not need to. They are found through people.

Time it like a local. Dinner at nine is early. A club at midnight is empty. The night has a rhythm, and arriving at the wrong hour is the fastest way to conclude that a city is boring when in fact you were simply three hours out of step.

The rest is easier with someone who lives there. Not to be entertained, just to be pointed in the right direction before you spend a night in the wrong one.