Barcelona Travel Blog part two -- our first walking tour

Picking up where we left off, at 4:30 pm Albert, our local tour guide led a small group of us on a two and a half hour tour of the Barri Gotic through Runnier Bean Tours. Don thought he was kidding when he said the free tour would last that long. Or maybe he just hoped it wouldn't be that long.

Albert, 32, is local to Barcelona. He learned English while living in London. His passion is history. I think for him two and a half hours was not nearly long enough. On a day with more sleep, I would have agreed with him. In the past I have taken walking tours of that length, but they included a bathroom break in the middle. 

As with all "free" tours, they are really pay what you want. In some countries I've tipped in US Dollars, anticipating our guides love to travel and the US Dollar is more widely accepted than Scandinavian currencies. This time we tipped in euros.

The tour began in Placa Reial, steps away from Las Ramblas. It is a pretty square with palm trees and restaurants. A nice meeting place. The square reminded me of Havana. Don said it reminded him of Italy. It is amazing how the brain makes connections based on past experiences.

Albert showed us historic maps of Barcelona. Up until 160 years ago, Barcelona was surrounded by a wall. It was a small Roman town founded by Roman Augustus about 2000 years earlier. The area was divided into three sections by large boulevards. About 1.6 million people live in the town. In 2019, they had at least 30 million tourists (based on the 4.40 euro per person tax charged by hotels, more since you can't count the places that don't charge the tax). 

We were efficiently led through the meandering alleys to Placa del Pi, where the 14th century Santa Maria del Pi church is located. This church dates back to the Middle Ages. It is considered the style of Catalonian Gothic. Albert showed us examples of French Gothic (Notre Dame de Paris) and Italian Gothic (Duomo in Florence, Italy). Both are much more ornate. Catalonian Gothic is somber, neutral, rather boring looking. This is not a cathedral because each city only has one cathedral (which is where the bishop is housed) and we'll see that later in the tour.

The name refers to the pine forest that was there 2000 years earlier.

We walked around the back of the church to see what was left from the Roman era.

Fooled you! The ancient Roman wall was patched in the 1950s by the brick, and capped with towers in the Middle Ages. A giant boulevard called (in English) the street of the bishops was built as a main entrance into the walls. The small portion of a Roman aqueduct that used to stretch 13 kilometers to bring water from the mountains to the city is really a replica built in the 1950s. Albert added many of the buildings in the Gothic Quarter are simply replicas built to encourage tourism. 

Albert had pictures that showed us the area without the arch. Well played, Barcelona.

This takes us to the only cathedral in Barcelona: Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, otherwise known as the Barcelona Cathedral. Yes, that is a giant ad for Samsung in the middle of the façade. They are paying for the renovations and want everyone to know it.

The cathedral was built at the end of the 13th century -- the same time as the previous church. Unlike the previous church, though, this is not the original façade. This one was added at the end of the 19th century to look pretty for the tourists. Yes, tourism was a thing over a hundred years ago. This neo-Gothic front was added in 1888. The inside (which we did not see) supposedly retains its old qualities.

Behind the cathedral we found Placa Sant Felip Neri -- both the school and a church. Unlike most European cities I have visited, Barcelona did not seem to suffer much damage in World War II, probably because it already suffered a lot of damage during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). This square was rebuilt by having buildings moved to fill in the gaps left by bombs. Some strafing was left as a reminder of the 42 lives lost during a 1938 bombing. It is a square hidden to the tourists, but enjoyed by the locals (especially the children who go to school there), and film makers.

Added section

Added in 1970s -- why doesn't our 1970s
architecture look this elegant?

"El Call" or the Jewish Quarter was our next stop. If memory serves me correctly, this was about half-way into our tour. It was a lot of great information to absorb on very little sleep. A tour goer impressed we were doing this on our first day suggested doing it again later in the trip. Alas, we didn't have time for that.

El Call is the oldest part of the Gothic Quarter. It housed their thriving Jewish community. Even 2,000 years earlier, 4,000 Jews lived among the Romans. In the Middle Ages they made up a 12th of the population. Then the Black Plague hit. For some reason (likely because the Jewish people washed their hands more often, even before germs were understood), Jews did not die as much as non-Jews. They were then looked up with wariness. Also, Jews were much more literate than Christians of the day. Three hundred Jews were murdered for not converting to Christianity. Others fled to Morocco. 

Albert walked us around to show us the location of the oldest synagogue. There didn't seem to be anything noteworthy to take a picture of.

A few more turns and we landed in Placa Sant Jaume -- the center of political life in Barcelona for over 2,000 years. The wide square is home to modern government buildings and flags begging for / against Catalonia to separate from Spain. Best as I can tell it is a fight that is happening throughout the world: we feel we pay too much to support the rest of you, we'd be better on our own, we want out, and we are taking all of our marbles with us. Think Brexit. I was clearly not going to understand the ins and outs of the debate on that beautiful afternoon, but I'll pay more attention to the news when I hear about Catalonia.

Then we took a detour to a part many locals don't know exists: Roman columns inside an apartment building. Living in the United States where we revere buildings from George Washington's era, something that is about 2,000 years old in the middle of a apartment building just astounds me. Being so secluded, it looks like a great place to take wedding pictures.

We strolled over the the King's Square (Place del Rei). It was restored in the 1930s because someone felt it did not look "Gothic enough" and would not appeal to the tourists. Beneath us, there was an old Roman village. In the square is the Museum of the History of Barcelona, highly recommended by Peter, but in the end we did not get there. 

The King's Square is where the Spanish Inquisition took place 

Much of the stones to rebuild this square came from Montjuic -- the Jewish mountain. Unfortunately many of the stones were no "stones" but tombstones.

Moving on we ended our tour with Santa Maria del Mar (Saint Mary by the Sea). 

Thought we couldn't see the sea from where we were standing, our guide assured us the sea used to be 60 meters away, today it is 300 meters away. It is called "the people's cathedral" because it was built by locals with money raised by locals (rather than by artisans with wealthy backing) ... sailors, fisherman, etc. It only took 54 years to build. (See my blog post on Sagrada Familia after I write it for a modern day comparison.) We were encouraged to walk inside at the end of the tour.

We walked around the side of the church (still not a cathedral, because you can only have one cathedral) to the graveyard of fairy trees (I swear that's what the guide said). There is always a graveyard near a church, but in the 19th century they deemed that not very hygienic (you think?). There is a monument of the eternal flame that was erected in 2001 to honor those who fought from 1713-1714 for succession.

Around the corner we were told were great places to eat. I was given the same talk I was given in Paris and in other cities ... avoid places with pictures, with menus in English, aim for the local places. They are much more authentic -- not to mention cheaper. Great ideas in theory, but when you are tired and don't understand any Spanish or Catalonian, you are sunk. So you do what feels comfortable, you find the closets Hard Rock Cafe and do take out because you have no energy to wait an hour for a table. Then you eat on a park bench and promise yourself you'll do better tomorrow (and you do). Then you commit to a 10 pack of a metro card for 7.95 euros (much less than a dollar a ride!).

Next up: day 2's adventures