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City Info > Restaurants & Bars

Kiosko Universal in the Mercat de la Boqueria

The Boqueria Market, also known as Sant Josep, just off the Ramblas, has many interesting things to show to the visitors and buyers. From the spectacular and colorful variety of fruit and vegetable stalls at the entrance from the Ramblas or the amazing round center with the fresh fish and seafood over the icy countertops to preserve them at low temperature or the stalls of meats from different animals: bull, ox, cow, horse, lamb, veal and hunting animals or birds and eggs; the amazing and varied collection of mushrooms when the season comes, the stalls with pork products, pates and cheeses or...

Art and Culture > Barcelona Highlights

Plaça Catalunya Barcelona Square

Plaça Catalunya once stood outside the city walls, and was a yard outside the city located just in front of one of the main gates, from roads started to the surrounding populations. This made it the ideal place to for an open market and became an important point in the life of the city. When the walls were demolished the new city urban plan (L’Eixample) designed by Ildefonso Cerdà. Cerdà  did not include any special place where the Plaça Catalunya is now located, since, according to the project, the Barcelona Gothic neighborhood and the other old...

City Info > Tours

The Ramblas and the Gothic Quarter

A walking tour guide through the Ramblas and part of the Gothic Neighborhood to end up at the Cathedral. There are different ways to discover Barcelona, and the many interesting places in the city. It is possible to do it by your own or it can be interesting also to be accompanied by a guide that will give you tips about the places you are going through. One of the classic walks around the Gothic Quarter that takes around 2 hours and a half starts at Plaça Catalunya and walking down the Ramblas on direction to the Port first you will find newspaper stands and probably several human...

Art and Culture > Barcelona Museums

Roman Barcelona – Barcino

Plaça del Rei - Gothic Quarter - Ciutat Vella The foundation of the city of Barcelona is not clear as there are two different myths; one credited to Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca around 230 BC, and the other to one of the nine ships of the fleet of Hercules when he joined Jason and the Argonauts in the search of the Golden Fleece, travelling across the Mediterranean, 400 years before the building of Rome. It is known that between years 15 and 13 BC, in the era of Emperor Augustus, that the Romans founded the Mons Taber, a temple 12 meters high on a little hill near...

Art and Culture > Outdoor Sculptures

Eduardo Chillida - TOPOS V

Topos V was placed on the location chosen by the sculptor himself, on the only open corner of this medieval square (Plaça del Rei, where the story says that the kings of Spain Isabel de Castilla and Fernando de Aragon received Christopher Columbus when he came back after discovering America), acting like another medieval building closing this open corner. The architectural character of the sculpture with the semicircular arches like windows, gets even clearer with the name given that comes from the Greek word topos, meaning space or place. These seven tons of cast iron was unveiled...

Art and Culture > Outdoor Sculptures

Adria Ferran i Celdoni Guixa - Font de Neptu

This sculpture of Neptune seated on a rock was made by sculptor Adrià Ferran and inaugurated in 1826 on the area of the old port of Barcelona at the Pla de Palau, to oversee all those who arrive or depart from the port. Some years later the sphinxes located at the statue’s feet where added by sculptor Celdoni Guixà to the monument. Changes on the functioning of the port in 1919 obliged to dismantle the monument and was moved to a new emplacement in one of the parks at the Montjüic hillside that was being converted to gardens at the time. But in 1975 because of the construction...

Art and Culture > Outdoor Sculptures

Leandre Cristofol - Monument

This big public sculpture, titled Monument, more than 8 meters tall, is a large-scale version from the original in wood, 80 centimeters high, executed in 1935 by the Catalan surrealist sculptor born in Lleida on 1908 Leandre Cristòfol. It is his first work to appear in Barcelona and was chosen by him when the City Hall offered a place on the new public square, George Orwell square, that had been created after cleaning up from old buildings the space in between the streets of Escudellers, Arenes and Arai. It was unveiled in September of 1991, eight years before the death...

Art and Culture > Barcelona Highlights

Las Ramblas

Gothic Neighbourhood Of all the streets of Barcelona, with no doubt, the most popular one is the Ramblas (Les Rambles in Catalan or Las Ramblas in Spanish). Going down from Plaça Catalunya (nerve centre of the city) to Columbus Monument at the Port Vell (Old Port) and with the addition in the 90s of the wooden walkway into the Harbour to connect with the Maremagnum (a Mall with the Barcelona Aquarium and the Imax theatre closed by in the middle of the old port) or up from the Port Vell to Plaça Catalunya this long stroll with different names (Rambla de Canaletes, Rambla dels...

Art and Culture > Barcelona Highlights

Plaza Sant Felip Neri

El Barri Gotic - Gothic Neighbourhood One of the coolest squares in the Old town (Gothic Neighbourhood) of Barcelona, and maybe the quiet’s place in town, is the Plaza (Plaça) Sant Felip Neri. This hidden square that you can only access through two narrow, winding and sometimes not very clean streets is build over what was an old medieval cemetery (Montjuïc del Bisbe cemetery). On one of the sides The Baroque Church that gives the name to the square was build in between 1748 and 1752 and on the others different medieval houses moved there at the beginning of last century due...

Art and Culture > Barcelona Highlights

Plaza Real in Barcelona

El Barri Gotic - Gothic Neighbourhood Located just a small arcaded passageway away from the Ramblas there is the Plaça Reial (Plaza Real). Designed by the architect Francesc Daniel Molina and build in 1848 over what had been and old religious convent from the Capuchinos (Caputxins). This beautiful place has a square plant, and is quite ample and delimited by the walls of one single building (it is like an interior patio). The facades of this building are made up of numerous balconies, and have like tile roof terraces. It is an important and lively meeting place especially at night,...

Art and Culture > Barcelona Highlights

Verger Antic Palau Reial Major

El Barri Gotic - Gothic Neighbourhood The way to the Frederic Mares Museum from the small square (Plaça Sant Iu Nº 5-6) on the street Comtes de Barcelona, at the side of the Cathedral, gives free entrance to a courtyard that was in medieval times the old orchard of the Main Royal Palace (Palau Reial Major), house of the Counts of Barcelona and from where the monarchs of the Catalan-Aragonese crown ruled the kingdom during the medieval period. The place with orange trees, plants, some benches and a fountain on the centre surrounded by the medieval buildings from the Palau Reial...

Art and Culture > Barcelona Highlights

Umbracle

Parc de la Ciutadella - Gothic Neighbourhood The Parc de la Ciutadella was build over the old Citadel or Fortress that the Spanish King Felipe V had built in 1714 to intimidate Catalans against repeating early 18th century rebellion against the Spanish central government. In the middle of the 19th Century the political situation had changed and the Park started to be developed. Josep Fontseré was the Architect in charge of the project but everything changed when the City Hall decided to organize the Universal Exhibition for 1888. The Umbracle (shade house) was build in 1883 and during...

Art and Culture > Art Exhibitions

Unseen pieces by Antoni Gaudi

Museu Diocesà de Barcelona - April to December 2007 The most internationally known architect from Barcelona, Antoni Gaudí still has aspects to be discovered. Around seventy works by Gaudí, based on texts from the architect himself, are in "Parla Gaudí", an exhibition at the Diocesà Museum of Barcelona. One of the most interesting aspects of the exhibition is the unseen pieces, such as the Gaudí's working table, colour tests in glass, and the only original window of the Sagrada Família. The exhibition also has works by his students Jujol...

Art and Culture > Barcelona Highlights

DHUB Montcada

The Montcada Street in the Borne Area is full with all kind of palaces and small palaces, homes of wealthy nobles and merchants from the medieval period. Many of these Palaces are used now as Museums, Art Galleries or Bars. The Picasso Museum now occupies five of these palaces. The stories of many of these building starts on the XIII century and continues, with many additions and transformations in the following centuries till nowadays. One of these Palaces, the Palau del Marquès de Llió, has now been tranformed again and is now used temporarily as part of the Disseny...