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Barcelona overview highlights the best sites, attractions and locations to vist.
This world renowned cathedral has been under construction for more than 128 years.
Barcelona’s unique shopping district offers everything from trinkets and souvenirs to animals and street performers
The farmer’s market features fresh fruit, meats and other authentic Catalonian foods.
The colorful park is another example of how Gaudí left his distinctive style on the city.
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Artists like Gaudí, Picasso and Miró have all left their own distinctive marks on the city’s identity and culture.
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La Rambla The spine of the tourists’ Barcelona is its main drag, the Ramblas. More colorful than the Champs-Élysées, this grand boulevard takes you on a one-mile downhill stroll — from ritzy at the top to rough-and-tumble at the port below. You’ll raft the river of Barcelonan life past elegant cafés, street mimes, pickpockets, a chirpy bird market, chic shops, and a chance to pay more for a shoeshine than you paid for the shoes. The Ramblas (Rambla means stream in Arabic) exerts a powerful pull, causing many visitors to spend a major part of their time here doing laps. Here are the highlights. Barcelona’s vast central square, Placa de Catalunya, caps the Ramblas. Cluttered with skateboarders and statues of Catalan heros, it divides old and new Barcelona. Kick off a
Ramblas ramble from here. Got some change? As you wander downhill, drop coins into the cans of the human statues (which often jumpstarts them into entertaining motion). But beware: wherever people stop to gawk, pickpockets are at work. You’ll know when you’ve entered a stretch called the “Rambla of the Little Birds.” Traditionally, kids bring their parents here to buy pets, especially on Sundays. Living quarters in Barcelona are tight. Local apartment dwellers find birds, turtles, and fish easier to handle than dogs and cats. Halfway down the Ramblas at #91, a century-old iron gateway to La Boquería — Barcelona’s lively produce market — invites explorers with an appetite for edible adventure. The Boquería is a commotion of chicken legs, bags
You’ll raft the river of Barcelonan life past elegant cafés, street mimes, pickpockets, a chirpy bird market, chic shops, and a chance to pay more for a shoeshine than you paid for the shoes.
Starting at La Plaça de Cataluña and stretching all the way until the ocean, La Rambla provides tourists with a sampling of the many shops, restaurants and forms of entertainment that Barcelona has to offer.
of live snails, stiff fish, sugary cafés, and sleeping dogs. One shop sells 25 kinds of olives, the next sells full legs of ham (the best go for around €120 each). And be warned: the huevos del toro are bull testicles — surprisingly inexpensive... and oh so good. For a quick bite, visit the Pinotxo Bar, where flamboyant Juan and his family are busy feeding shoppers. (Getting Juan to crack a huge smile and a thumbs-up for your camera makes a great shot...and he loves it.) The stools nearby are a great perch for enjoying both your coffee and the people-watching (Mon-Sat 8:00-20:00, closed Sun). Or, for something more exotic, Taverna Basca Irati serves 40 kinds of hot and cold Basque pintxos for €1.80 each. These are open-faced sandwiches —
Street performers are staples on La Rambla with their over the top costumes and even stranger acts.
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like sushi on bread. Muscle in through the hungry local crowd. Get an empty plate from the waiter, and then help yourself. Every few minutes, a waiter prances proudly by with a platter of new, still-warm munchies. Grab one as they pass by...it’s addictive. You pay on the honor system: you’re charged by the number of toothpicks left on your plate when you’re done. Wash it down with a €2-3 glasses of Rioja (full-bodied red wine), Txakolí (sprightly Basque white wine), or sidra (apple wine) poured from on high to add oxygen and bring out the flavor (daily 11:00–24:00, a block off the Ramblas, behind arcade at Carrer Cardenal Casanyes 15, Metro: Liceu, tel. 933-023-084).
You can find just about any kind of trinket or souvenir imaginable, not to mention the wide variety of animals such as chickens, roosters and turtles.
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Fish? Check. Poultry? Check. Bread, delicious dulces, fresh picked fruit and just about any other kind of food you can imagine is here at La Boqueria.
La Boqueria The Boqueria Market, as it is known today, has been through many phases of life. On the following words I’ll try to give a faithful description of that rich history as we understand it. Where this market comes from is uncertain, what we are sure of is that it was born as a travelling market, placed in the Ramblas of Barcelona. La Rambla acquired growing importance as a pedestrian lane, and the market was set in the best place to attract the large numbers of passers-by and local inhabitants. Its location was threatened many times. In Catalunya, towns and cities have been founded around markets and the same rings true for La Boqueria. It originated as an open-air market, in front of one of the gates of the old city wall (Pla de la Boqueria) where fruit and vegetable traders from local towns and farms nearby would sell their products. The spaces inside the city at that time were too small to establish a big market of the current Boqueria kind and it was necessary to set them outside the walls. As the market’s popularity grew, farmers from neighbouring towns, such as Les Corts and Sarriá were stopped from trading here.
As the competition within the market grew increasingly fierce, there would be arguments and fights between the old greengrocers and the new ones. For convenience sake the mar-
La Boqueria is the best place to go for fresh fruit, vegetables and other authentic Catalunian foods.
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kets from the two near squares were merged into one: La Rambla de Sant Josep. Fish shops, butchers, and bird shops were built surrounding the new space, forming streets by the side of the convent and the Virreina. In 1826 The Marquee of Campo Sagrado, general captain of Catalunya, began to regulate, for the first time, the successful market of La Boqueria. The new open-air market, in Rambla de Sant José was inaugurated on October 18th, 1827. In 1835 the destruction of the convent of Sant Josep took place. It was replaced by a square, which would have been the grandest square in Barcelona of its time. Surrounded by porches, with gardens and fountains, it was named Plaça del Treball. Architecturally, the high columns were monumental, with a strong allegorical sense to the work. When this regeneration was almost complete, and at the time when works were expected to begin, it was believed necessary to temporarily install the market in the old convent of Sant Josep and so be able to remove it from the middle of la Rambla. This explains why the houses that surround and frame the market of the Boqueria form porches, unlike those in the present market.
In 1836 when the convent of the Carmelitas disappeared with its church of Saint Josep, the city hall planned the construction of the market. The project was in the hands of the architect Mas Vilá. On St. Joseph’s day in 1840 the first stone of the market of la Boqueria was placed. In 1848 an enclosure for the fishmonger’s shop behind the palace of the Virreina was constructed. The pavilion that would later become the office of the Direction and Veterinary Services was also built. In 1861 some of the fruit and vegetable traders were allowed to settle provisionally at Plaza Sant Agustí and it was from this point that la Rambla was to be kept exclusively for flower stands. Many salesmen gave out a flower for the purchase of some of their products. The sale of flowers increased. In 1863 the retail places of fruits and vegetables settled underneath the porches. In 1869 the convent of Jerusalem, located behind the market, was demolished to allow for an extension to be built. In the Christmas of 1871, the gas lighting was introduced to the market. In 1911 the fishmonger’s shop was built.
For convenience sake the markets from the two near squares were merged into one: La Rambla de Sant Josep. Fish shops, butchers, and bird shops were built surrounding the new space, forming streets by the side of the convent and the Virreina.
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number of towers. Twelve for the 12 apostles, four for the four evangelists, one for Mary and one for Jesus.
height in meters of the central spire, one meter less than the height of MontjuĂŻc. GaudĂ believed that his work should not surpass that of God. price in euros for admission into La Sagrada Familia. The project is funded completely by donations.