La Rambla, Plaza de Cataluña and the Barri Gotic

Barcelona - Saturday

Our stay in Barcelona was influenced by my sister, who is a regular visitor to the City. She had recommended a hotel – the Gran Hotel Medinaceli which is very central for La Rambla, the Barri Gotic, Barceloneta and the sea.

The hotel is something special, thanks Janet, it is located in a square named after the people whose home the hotel had been (The Ducs de Medinaceli). It is amazingly well placed on the Carrer de Josep Anselm Clave within a block of La Rambla and with the sea a block away in the other direction. With 44 rooms it has a personal feel to it. Drew is also pleased it has a bath, only the third bath of the holidays, the rest have been shower only, which is fine for me, but Drew likes a lounge in the bath.

A long day yesterday meant a slower start to Saturday we didn’t get up until 7.45 a.m. then showered and dressed. Given it was last Monday in Rome since we last washed our clothes that was the first task today. It always seems risky to get to a day when you have your last clean shirt, socks and pants on, but it has worked for this holiday. The LavaXpres on Carrer de Nou de Sant Francesc is 200 metres from the hotel and at 9 euros for wash, dry and detergent it is a similar cost to Florence (8.50) and cheaper than Rome (12). The hotel does offer breakfast but at 16 euros plus IVA (VAT) each we knew we could get something more cheaply on the streets. So while the washing was taking place I walked further up the street to a small shop called Nostrum that did Boccadillos, Coke Light and Coffee. I had bocadillo de salami and Drew had boccadillo de queso y tomoatoe.

An hour later at 9.30 we were back to the hotel to hang up the clothes and were back out on the streets before 10.00. We began by going up La Rambla. For those of you who know Barcelona La Rambla is actually a series of streets called Rambla de ‘something’. The first is the Rambla de Santa Monica, so we began there. At this time in the morning La Rambla is still quiet so we were able to stop and stare at the various statues decorations and monuments along the street, but as we progressed it got busier and busier, even to the extent that we felt we were pushing through crowds. For a long part of La Rambla restaurants take up the space to sell their products and are active in trying to get people to stop and drink or eat. Other sights include cartoonists and various other sellers of products of good and not so good quality.

As we walked along we came to the La Boqueria Market, wow what a place, with some of the best fresh meat, fish fruit and veg I have seen. The market is teeming with life, mostly locals buying food for the table, but also quite a few tourists just doing what we were, taking in the sights and sounds. It is an amazing place that you could walk around for ours, it is possible to stop for tapa too, but as it was still well before lunch-time we resisted this and went with freshly squeezed fruit juice, Pina y Fresca for Drew and Naranja for me.

La Rambla also has a selection of Churches. One is called Our Lady of Bethlehem and is full of statues and images of Mary as well as a pretty crib scene. As we passed Churches I was also checking Mass times to see what we would fit into tomorrow.

La Rambla leads on to Plaza de Cataluña a wide open square surrounded by large buildings, mainly banks and insurance companies. Drew took a wide range of pictures in the square as there were statues, modern art and a variety of fountains. In the corner of the square was an Apple shop, so we popped in and used their free wi-fi for a short while before continuing our walk.

The walk took us from the Plaza de Cataluña along a wide open street with lovely trees for shade, it was starting to warm up. We walked through a square Plaza d'Urquinaona and into the area of town known as the Barri Gotic, this was, as the name implies, an area largely built in the gothic style. Amazing buildings just one after another, I can’t think of anywhere with this range of buildings of this distinctive style.

At the centre of the Barri Gothic is the Cathedral of Barcelona: The Catedral de la Santa Creu. This is a spectacular building, thought I’d heard often about the Basilica of the Sacre Familia I must admit I’d not heard much about the Cathedral, other than my sister referring to it as the Goose church, so I was overawed by its amazing gothic outline as we came towards it. Even more amazing is the interior, though begun in 1298 it was completely refurbished in 1450 and the gothic style exterior added in 1890. Its roots go further back than that, with the 1298 Church being built over a 1085 church and that being built on the site of a Roman era Church which had been destroyed by the Moors in 985.

As well as the Holy Cross the Cathedral is dedicated to a roman era martyr saint – St. Eualia whose shrine is in the crypt below the high altar. In commemoration of her death at the age of 13, 13 geese are kept in the cloisters of the Cathedral, hence my reference to my sister calling it the goose church. (Two of the geese photographed on the right)

We spent almost two hours in the cloister and main body of the Cathedral really enjoying it. By that time it was time for lunch, as we walked to the Cathedral we had passed a nice looking tapas bar, so walked back to that. It was called Neyras. We shared Bocarones en vinagre, Patatas Bravas, Setas a la plancha, Tortilla Española, Ensalada el tiempo all of the food was tasty and cooked well. The salad was very special including two lettuce hearts lightly toasted along with the more regular salad leaves, tomatoes and peppers. We would certainly recommend this place to anyone who visits Barcelona.

From the restaurant we continued through the Barri Gotic and came to another market. This one, Mercat de Santa Caterina, didn’t only have the meat of the La Boqueria, but also lots of lovely offal including lungs, stomachs and tripe – I’ve been trying to have some tripe since early in the holiday (it is banned substance at home unless Drew is away) but both in Florence and in Rome though on the menu it was not available. I’ll keep trying.

The market led into other parts of the Barri Gotic and we passed small church of St. Mark, another huge church, this one dedicated to Our Lady of the Sea, and then to the Bibliographic Society of Barcelona’s building, which itself looks like a Church.This was followed by the amazing post and telecoms building, see it on the right, it is huge and very formally decorated. We then passed the Church of Our Lady of Mercy - Señora de la Merce, which is near our hotel, then came back to the hotel at 2.15 p.m. and sat in our air-conditioned room loading photos to Flickr.

Barcelona is an amazing city with so much to do, can we fit it all in?

Watch this space.