10/25: Barcelona's Ramblas Ramble & Gothic Quarter Walking Tour

This unusual structure greeted us day and night as we neared the metro station close to the apartment we'd rented for six nights. I would have liked to have known what it 'represented' or meant to the artist.

Months and months ago, we had reserved spots on a free walking tour of Barcelona's Gothic Quarter for later that morning so decided to see a few things first after taking the metro to La Boqueria Market in the Ramblas area. Since as far back as 1200, Barcelonans have bought their animal parts here! It was originally located outside the walled city's entrance as it was more expensive to trade within the walls. It was covered with a colorful arcade in the 1850.

It was immediately apparent how very different it was from all the other markets we’d made a point of seeing while traveling through most of the Central Asian countries. Fresh juices, cut up fruit in to-go cups, massive strawberries, and salted cod were just some of the glorious sights and smells that greeted us.

Never had we seen cornets of cheese and ham before that looked as pretty as a picture.

A lot of the fish sold in the market was sold whole, not filleted, as local shoppers prefer to look their dinner in the eye, according to travel writer Rick Steves, to be sure it's fresh!

Some stalls specialized in salted cod, something I remember from my history books from decades ago as the codfish, preserved in salt and dried, provided desperately needed protein on long sea voyages. Before this could be eaten, the salt cod would have to be re-hydrated.

We caught our first sight of  legs of jamon or ham at the La Boqueria Market and soon realized they would be typical of markets and shops all over Spain. The many varieties of jamon serrano were distinguished from the type of pig it came from and especially what the pig ate. Even by the slice these were very expensive but I read that gourmets pay 300€ or more for the entire leg! 

Back on the street, we walked down a block known as the Rambla of Flowers which looked pretty quiet at this time of the year but there were several stalls selling packets of vegetable seeds seldom seen in the US. We knew we couldn't bring any through US Customs, though, without declaring them.

As you can imagine from its name, the imposing 17th century Betlem Church was dedicated to Bethlehem. For centuries, people have come at Christmastime to see its nativity scenes.

The church entrance had unusual corkscrew columns.

The church interior was rather stark due to its having been burned during the country's Civil War back in the 1930s.

The venerable Royal Academy of Science and Arts building was now a performing arts theater. On the facade the clock marked the official Barcelona time.

Just off the Ramblas was a restored Roman Necropolis as Emperor Augustus spent a lot of time in modern-day Spain conquering new land. What we looked at was a 2,000 year-old tomb-lined road, Via Augusta, that led into the Roman port of Barcino. It was amazing to think the highway to France still followed the route laid out by this Roman thoroughfare!

Walking on the Ramblas' wavy looking sidewalk made us feel so dizzy and disoriented! Steves wrote that the pavement decoration represented the stream that once flowed there. Rambla means 'stream' in Arabic and this used to be a drainage ditch along the medieval wall of the Gothic Quarter. As Steves wrote, "Today Barcelona's 'stream' has become the river of humanity" because of the crowds of people, mostly tourists, wandering up and down the busy promenade!

It was nice to escape the Ramblas if only for only a moment or two to view the decorative tile over a fountain that is still used by locals. The scene showed the original city wall with the gate that once stood in that location.

The Liceu Opera House hosts world-class opera, dance, and theater.

In the center of the Ramblas was the red, white, yellow and blue mosaic by Spanish abstract artist Joan Miro. The mosaic's black arrow represented an anchor, a reminder of the city's link to the ocean and a welcome to visitors arriving by sea. The mosaic was so big and there were so many people walking on it - what a nerve! - this was the best photo I could get of it!

Very close by was Placa Reial or Royal Square in the Gothic Quarter and the start of our 'free' walking tour.

Throughout our stay in Barcelona, we kept seeing these colored oval and round blobs on the pavement and sidewalks. We knew they had to be more than just fun places for children to hop on. We later discovered they were a reminder about the prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and they represented the last thoughts of patients with Alzheimer's. We also saw in other Spanish cities presentations by young people about the disease. 

Dotted with palm trees and surrounded by an arcade ringed by yellow buildings with white Neoclassical trim, the square had a colonial ambiance. It was dedicated to the explorers who would make their way to America. 

The celebrated Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi’s first public works were the two helmeted lampposts in the square. That was the last time Gaudi did any work for the City Council as they disagreed about the fee. There will be lots more on Gaudi in future posts.

Miguel, our tour guide, suggested that, while on the tour, we look up, look down but be aware of pickpockets who were very good but not dangerous. He joked if we got robbed, we should think of it as we’d be getting the full Barcelona experience! I tried to think of that several days later when I did get pickpocketed while on an escalator leaving the metro station. More on that unnerving experience later, too.

A sign on the sidewalk in front of the shop indicated the store had passed from father to son through many generations. It represented one of the many guilds in the sign.

One of the most famous delicacies in Barcelona, Miguel said, was nougat, known locally as torrons, as he took us into a shop selling them. The shop owner kindly gave us all samples which luckily worked out well for him as several people bought boxes of nougat to take home as gifts.

One of the other guild shops was a hat shop but Miguel said the shop wasn’t very successful as no one likes hats much anymore in Spain.

Miguel said we’d be climbing Barcelona’s highest mountain next as the Romans built their cities atop hills for protection. Little did we realize we would only be climbing twenty meters!

Miguel explained as we entered the  Jewish Quarter that after the Jews were expelled in 1492 by Spain, the Spanish Inquisition was created to see who was not Christian. If someone refused to eat pork, it may have been the person’s last meal because it meant he or she wasn’t Christian. In Catalan, the language of the Catalunya people, a Jewish quarter is referred to by the name 'El Call' which literally means 'narrow passage' for the tight lanes where medieval Jews were forced to live under the close eye of the nearby Cathedral. At the peak of Barcelona's El Call, about 4,000 Jews were crammed into a just a few lanes of the neighborhood.

Miguel mentioned that many Jews survived during the Black Death because they were far more isolated than Christians and they were much cleaner than others because of their culture and religion. The obviously unpaved streets were full of rats and fleas which caused the rapid spread of disease. As only one-story buildings were allowed, Jews built bridges across the streets to get away from the rats. 

This was the entrance to likely Barcelona's main synagogue during the Middle Ages. The structure dated from the 3rd century but was destroyed during a brutal pogrom in 1391. When the city's remaining Jews were expelled in 1492, artifacts from their culture were forgotten for centuries. A historian used old tax collection records to track down the synagogue in the 1980s! Another clue was that it faced east toward Jerusalem unlike the surrounding structures.

Miguel pointed out the signs that marked one-way streets because it was too narrow for two carriages or two horses to pass by. 

Miguel pointed out the bomb damage to the exterior of Sant Felip de Neri Church that occurred when Mussolini bombed the square of the same name in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War when it was full of schoolchildren attending the elementary school in the square. Depending on what you read, the shrapnel that damaged the church was meant for the nearby Catalan government building because Barcelona was a stronghold of democratic, anti-Franco forces. German and Italian fascist friends of Franco helped bomb Barcelona from the air. As was the fascist tactic then and all too commonplace in terrorist bombings nowadays, a second bombing followed the first as survivors looked for lost loved ones in the rubble. In the second bombing, 42 people died, including 32 children from the school.

The school in the square where children were now free to speak Catalan but only a couple of generations ago, that would have been illegal and they would be speaking Spanish.

Placa Sant Felip Neri:

I think the following information provided by the government about the horrific actions that took place in the square is well worth reading to give you the full story of one event that transpired during the Spanish Civil War. Just click on any of the images to make it bigger so you can read it more easily. 

Just a few feet from the square was a small shrine to St. Eulalia who was only 13 in the early 300s during the reign of Diocletian. She was a Christian who, after refusing to renounce her Christian faith, was given 13 different methods of torture, one for each year of her life. Three miracles have been attributed to her: snow covered her only when it fell; the Romans converted the city to Christianity years later because of her. I didn’t catch the last miracle Miguel attributed to her. She has since become one of the two patron saints of Barcelona.

Something pretty after all that tragedy:

The stately Placa de Sant Jaume or St. James Square was named after the Church of St. James or Jaume in Catalan that once was here. The square was once a Roman forum and was the intersection of ancient Barcino's thoroughfares. For more than six centuries, the Presidential House for Catalunya below has housed the autonomous government of Catalunya and always flies the Catalan flag next to the obligatory Spanish one. 

Miguel talked about the recent struggle for Catalunya’s independence from the rest of Spain. He mentioned that in the recent ballot measure, 75% of the people voted for separation but, because there was such low turnout, a second referendum was held on October 1st. There was more effort to get out the vote and it resulted in 93% of the people voting and 103% said yes to separate! Obviously, Miguel noted, the election was not well regulated, one of the biggest understatements ever! 

The Catalan government chose to act on the referendum to separate but the Spanish government said no as the entire Spanish people had to be asked whether Catalan people could separate.  Therefore, it had no legal effect. The Catalan government, he said, was arrested except for those who were able to leave the country quickly. It was very clear from all the signs we had seen just on our first day in the city what a hot button issue this is for the people of Barcelona and the rest of Catalunya. Again, more on the topic later.

On the opposite side of the square was the City Hall of Barcelona.

Miguel said for Catalonians, their flag means they are already independent from Spain.

Just off the square was the hike up the mountain ... huff, huff ... all twenty meters of the highest mountain in Barcelona I mentioned earlier!

At the summit of Mt. Taber, the ancient Romans founded the town of Barcino around 15 BC. They built a fort on the hill to protect the harbor. All that remains are three columns of the imposing Temple of Augustus now located in a private apartment building. Imagine living next to a piece of 1st century BC history like that! On the other hand, imagine the hordes of tourists who can enter your almost private domain free of charge for seven hours every day of the week to also witness that piece of history!

Miguel asked if we could feel less oxygen and were a little bit cooler at the higher altitude!

Miguel indicated the city's cathedral was named after St. Eulalia whom he'd told us about before, but the travel notes I have don't bear that out. He explained for it to be a cathedral, there must be the remains of two saints there, a fact I was unaware of. He said the design was Neo-Gothic or false Gothic to connect Catalan political buildings to the religious institutions. The original façade was behind the newer part, visible in the second photo below. Again, more on the cathedral in another post as we stopped by a couple of times.

One of the most unusual sights but also among the loveliest in Barcelona was the Carrer del Bisbe Bridge that connected the Catalan president's residence to the Catalan government building. Though the bridge was reminiscent of Venice's Bridge of Sighs, it was only constructed in the 1920s by a Catalan architect who was a follower of Gaudi.

Andrew: This was for you!

I certainly agreed with Miguel that the Association of Architects had no doubt picked the ugliest building on the square in front of the cathedral! 

Roman walls adjacent to the cathedral separated the old part of the city from the new part of the city. 

Onto the El Born neighborhood next, the more modern part of Barcelona:

Miguel said the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar or Cathedral of the Sea is considered the second-best sight in Barcelona by locals, presumably he meant after La Sagrada Familia but he didn’t specify. He said it took 54 years to build the Basilica compared to 200 years to build the Cathedral and 140 years and still counting to build the La Sagrada and it's still not finished!

The church was built entirely with local funds and labor in the heart of the wealthy El Born quarter. It featured a purely Catalan Gothic interior, according to Miguel. He suggested we visit the church another time which we assured him we would after thanking him for a very educational and engrossing tour.

Outside the church was a poignant memorial dedicated to those "who died defending the rights and constitutions of Catalonia in the siege of Barcelona (1713-1714)" when the Spanish monarchy besieged and conquered Barcelona, killing Catalan insurgents. That kicked off more than two centuries of cultural suppression.

Since the Santa Caterina Market was so close by, we stopped at what was described as an eye-catching market hall built on the ruins of an old Dominican monastery and then renovated in 2006 with a "wildly, colorful, swooping Gaudi-inspired roof and shell built around its original white walls." That sounded way too fascinating to pass up.

Yes indeed, the roof looked intriguing but once we were inside the market, it held little appeal compared especially to the very vibrant La Boqueria Market where we'd started our day. 

Another for my bathroom collection and in Braille, too!

We toured next the beautiful Palace of Catalan Music but that deserves its own post so that will be my next one. After all that exploring and being inundated with so much information, we needed a place to unwind and the Parc de la Ciutadella by the Arch of Triumph was the perfect spot. The Arch was built for the 1888 Barcelona World Fair.

We plopped ourselves down on a bench in the sun and happily watched the world go by as we read and relaxed.

As we walked back to the metro station, we saw many emigrants selling pretty throws cum blankets.

It had been a long but fun first day exploring Barcelona thanks to the walking tour and Rick Steves' own travel hints. We were happy we had plenty of time to discover far more of the city in the next several days.

Next post: The Palace of Catalan Music as promised!

Posted on November 24th, 2018, from Ronda in Spain's southern hill country.