From May 27-29, we spent our annual lab retreat in Barcelona. Besides enjoying the sea, Barcelona’s beautiful architecture, delicious food and impressive Sagrada Familia, we also met with the labs of Miki Ebisuya, James Sharpe and Vikas Trivedia (EMBL) to discuss tissue formation and self-organisation as well as with the lab of Xavier Trepat (IBEC) to discuss tissue mechanics. We returned with our skin lightly tanned and our heads full of new ideas and impressions. Thank you very much to Miki, James, Vikas and Xavier for their hospitality!