La Rambla is a natural Ariadne's thread to follow in order to discover many of the treasures of Barcelona right on each of its sidewalks or only a few meters away in its side streets. Let's have a Rambla tour, an opportunity to see or visit a museum (2), palaces (3)(9), the opera (5), a church (6), a food market (8) with 2 famous tapas bars, Picasso's favorite café (10), an extravagant concert hall (11), many buildings designed or decorated by the master's of the "Modernista" architectural movement and, last but not least, the most famous pastry/chocolate shop (7) of Barcelona.
The route is materialized on the map by a blue line, indented where there is a point of interest mentioned below. The tour includes 11 major sites, represented on the map by a blue rectangle, and which have in this blog their own page of description and pictures that one can access by clicking on their name. Each of these pages has a "back" link at the end to return to the present tour page. All these pages can be selected by clicking the "Rambla Tour" label in the right column of the blog". The other links open in a new tab/window the maps, pictures,pages external to this blog.
Where La Rambla meets the sea, stands the Mirador de Colom (1), the Colombus Monument. A lift inside the column takes you to the viewing gallery at the top, 60 metres above the ground, for a unique opportunity to admire this part of Barcelona from the air. Nearby is the Museu Maritim (2), the Maritime Museum, specifically devoted to naval history in the Mediterranean.
Rambla, 39. Turning on the left, Carrer Nou de la Rambla leads to Palau Güell (3), designed by the young Antoni Gaudí with a wonderful blend of medieval opulence and the architect’s unique exuberant style.
Rambla, 44. Turn on the right, walk only 40 meters and you are on Plaça Reial (4), a really royal square with an elegant fountain and two streetlamps, work of young Antoni Gaudi again. We leave the square by its northern corner (Les Quinze Nits Restaurant), and turn left into Carrer Ferran. Molly’s Fair City (at number 7), an still has the original interior and exterior decoration in clearly Modernista style.
Rambla, 45-47. (map). Almost opposite Plaça Reial’s porticos is the , built in 1842 when the old religious school of Sant Bonaventura was converted into a thriving inn. The hotel, which discreet facade, remodelled in 1881, features the sculptures of two angels standing above the arch of the main entrance, preserves in its ballroom the magnificent structure of a 17th-century cloister with square pillars and an old rectangular refectory covered with a vault. It has accommodated such distinguished guests as the writer Hans Christian Andersen, the actor Errol Flynn, the bullfighter Manolete and the soprano Maria Callas.
Rambla, 51-65. Continuing up the Rambla one comes to one of the most emblematic buildings of the city: El Gran Teatre Del Liceu (5), Liceu Opera.
- On the left, the route could leave La Rambla momentarily to make a detour down Carrer Sant Pau at number 9-11. (map). decorated in 1902-1903 by one of the fathers of Modernisme, Lluís Domènech i Montaner. The sculptor Eusebi Arnau made the splendid alabaster chimney in one of the dining rooms and the painter Ramon Casas made the marine sgraffito work, which features a coffered skylight that casts gentle lighting on Casas’s work. Domènech i Montaner completed the work with two ingenious wooden wainscots. One of them, of meticulous design, is decorated with blue tiles representing the Spanish provinces, the other one, of Roman type, depicts floral themes.
Rambla, 74. (map). In the adjoining building is the , a café with a cosy atmosphere opened in 1929 on the premises of the former La Mallorquina chocolate shop. Featuring inside, the well-preserved original furniture: the Thonet chairs and the nineteenth-century mirrors with female figures suggesting characters from different operas.
Now the Route comes to Pla de la Boqueria, presided over by the Mosaic Ceràmic de Joan Miro placed here in 1976, now an emblematic image of the most popular street in Barcelona.
Rambla, 82. (map). You will find the , a very interesting pre-Modernista building by Josep Vilaseca, the designer the Triumphal Arch of 1888. This ancient house, known popularly as “the Umbrella House”, was restored in 1883, incorporating oriental features such as the decoration of the facade with sgraffito work and stained glass, the Egyptian-style gallery on the first floor and the Chinese dragon that protrudes from the corner of the building. The old shop of the building, today occupied by a bank, has ornamental elements of Japanese inspiration in wood, glass and wrought iron.
Close by on the right, on Carrer Cardenal Casañas, 16, the church of Santa Maria del Pi (6) built between 1319 and 1391 in the purest Gothic style is nestled between two picturesque squares, the Plaça del Pi and Plaça Sant Josep Oriol
- At the turn of the 20th century Modernisme became a daily presence and made works of art out of the most vulgar articles. The desire for renewal, was translated into a social use of art, an anonymous and popular art that dignified any design: baker’s shops, cake shops, chemist’s, clothiers or perfumeries were treated with the same respect in their decoration as the mansions of the bourgeoisie. In 1909, the magazine L’Esquella de la Torratxa summarised in a single phrase the Modernista fever : “Barcelona is destined to be the Athens of Art Nouveau”.
Rambla, 83. Almost next to it, the , currently houses Pastisseria Escribà (7), a cake shop with an elaborate Modernista decoration by Antoni Ros i Güell (1902), with an abundance of mosaics, stucco, wrought iron, stained glass and wooden furniture in chocolate colour.
Rambla, 91. One does not have to walk too far to find the (8), the oldest and most famous market in the city. Isn't it time for lunch ? The market hosts 2 famous tapas bars El Quim and Pinoxo.
The Boqueria is set in the central section of the Rambla-perhaps the most colourful and exuberant one: the Rambla de les Flors owes its name to the score of flower stalls that have been open all year round since Corpus Christi Day in 1853.
Rambla, 99. A few steps from the Boqueria one finds the Palau de la Virreina,(9), Vicereine's Palace, built for the former Viceroy of Peru, Manuel Amat i Junyent, and the Vicereine María Francisca Fivaller. In the late 1980s it became the offices of the Municipal Culture Area. Next to it, on the ground floor of number 97, is the venerated music shop, founded in 1880 by the musical publisher Rafael Guàrdia.
Rambla, 105. Continuing up the Rambla we find one of the most attractive Romantic buildings in the city, , also known as “El Regulador” after the jeweller’s shop that occupies the ground floor, today Joieria Bagués. This building by Josep Fontserè (1850) has a terra cotta and white-painted facade with pink stucco work, featuring false columns with capitals and bas-reliefs decorating the upper floors.
Rambla, 107. At the corner of Carrer del Carme, you will find the , built between 1680 and 1732 by Josep Juli. It is one of the few examples of Baroque art in Barcelona, but in its structure it remains faithful to the precepts of previous Catalan Gothic architecture, with a wide single nave flanked by chapels. Of the doors giving onto the Rambla, one was designed by Francesc Santacruz in 1690 and portrays Christ the Child; the other, portraying Saint John the Baptist, was designed in 1906 by Enric Sagnier taking Santacruz’s work as a reference. During the Civil War of 1936-39, its polychrome work, carvings, Italian stuccos and marbles were irreparably damaged. Since 1952, the church has kept an image of Our Lady of the Foresaken, by Mariano Benlliure.
- A small detour from the main route leads you up Carrer del Carme, which conceals two Modernista treasures : only a few metres from the Rambla, the popular store (Carme, 24) (map), decorated in 1922 by Vilaró i Valls in the purest Modernista style, and further along, the (Carme, 63), an establishment with a Modernista facade of wood that still has part of its original furniture, such as the old marble bar, which is over a century old
The route continues up La Rambla, known here as “Rambla dels Ocells” (Rambla of the Birds), because of the stalls selling pets that alternate with the popular newsstands of La Rambla. On the way to Plaça de Catalunya, the route has two important sites.
Rambla, 115. The first is the (Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts), built in 1883 by Josep Domènech i Estapà on the ruins of a former Jesuit school. In this building the architect was a pioneer in the use of ornamental and stylistic resources that would be such a success years later in the Modernista movement. As well as the Reial Acadèmia, the building currently houses the Poliorama Theatre and the Viena restaurant (map). Its most distinguishing feature is the clock on the facade that is popularly acknowledged to set the official time of Barcelona. Another element of interest on the facade is its elegant bay window. The dome and domed tower that crown the building originally housed a meteorological and astronomical observatory.
Rambla, 121. (map). The second site is the Farmàcia Nadal, a chemist’s shop dating from 1850, which was later transformed into a charming shop featuring multi-coloured mosaics and four red advertising lamps, a good example of Noucentisme (a post-Modernista neoclassical movement).
The tour could now go directly to its end, Plaça Catalunya, but a large detour to our right will allow us to see interesting and important buildings. In fact we saved the most spectacular one for the end.
Crossing the Rambla, we find Carrer Canuda and Carrer Santa Anna.
- A short way into Santa Anna is (Santa Anna, 21), a 1907 building by Jaume Torres i Grau, a typical Modernista house with its bay windows and floral ornaments.
Continuing down Carrer Canuda you will come to Plaça de la Vila de Madrid, where you can see the remains of a Roman necropolis discovered in 1954 during the redevelopment of the site of the former Discalced Carmelite monastery that had been demolished after the Civil War. The square, redeveloped in 2003, stands on an old Roman access road to the city, and a small section of the original paving can still be seen. The road was flanked by the remains of monolithic funerary monuments and modest tegulae. Carrer Canuda leads into Portal de l’Àngel.
Portal de l’Àngel, 20-22. A few metres to the left is the building of a gas company, Catalana de Gas, Gas Natural, a monumental and eclectic building designed by Josep Domènech i Estapà (1895). It was originally built for the Societat Catalana per a l’Enllumenat del Gas, and now contains an interesting Gas Museum exhibiting equipment that shows the evolution of technology for this energy source (tel.: 900 150 366, visits must be booked in advance. Anyone interested ?).
Montsió, 3 bis. Going back down Portal de l’Àngel and turning into the small Carrer Montsió, after a few metres you will come to the most popular Modernista tavern . Continuing along Montsió, turn into Carrer de n’Amargós until Carrer Comtal, which takes you to Via Laietana, a wide avenue designed in the second half of the nineteenth century to open a direct access to the old port in an imitation of the North American business centres of the time. The development of this road took several decades, and masters of Modernisme like Domènech i Montaner and especially Puig i Cadafalch contributed to the project.
Via Laietana, 50. A short walk up Via Laietana takes us to the Gremi Dels Velers (Sailmaker's Guild), which is the local association of silk producers since 1764. This magnificent baroque building is decorated by sgraffito representing Atlantes and Cariatids.
Sant Pere Més Alt, 6. Slightly hidden behind it one of the essential jewels of Modernisme in Barcelona: the (Palace of Catalan Music), commissioned by the Orfeó Català choral music organisation to the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner in 1904. The first stone of the new building was laid on Saint George’s day 1905 and the construction went on for three years. The result was a lavish concert hall for performances of Catalan choral music.
If you go round the Palau along Carrer Amadeu Vives and Carrer Ortigosa you will return to Via Laietana.
Via Laietana, 56-58. In front of you stands the triangular building , which currently houses the Administrative Law Section of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia. This Neo-Medieval work (by Enric Sagnier, 1917) bears on its facade a sculpture by Manuel Fuxà conceived as an allegory of thrift, and a spectacular Gothic arch with stained glass windows.
On the right is another building, also designed by Sagnier, known as Annexe to the Caixa de Pensions (Jonqueres, 2). Here the architect used predominantly white stone decorated with a few Valencian tiles, but it has more modern lines and is one of the first examples of contemporary office buildings in the city.
At Via Laietana, turn right towards Plaça d’Urquinaona. From this square, the route continues to the left towards Plaça de Catalunya, the nerve centre of the city and the end of Rambla tour
