|
South of Parc de la Ciutadella, and across the tracks of the Estacio de Franca, the port district of BARCELONETA is the closest to the centre of the self-contained village suburbs that used to ring the city and are now part of greater Barcelona. The triangular wedge of development was laid out in 1755 - a classic eighteenth-century grid of streets where previously there had been mud flats - to replace the neighbourhood destroyed to make way for the Ciutadella fortress. The long, narrow streets are still very much as they were planned, broken at intervals by small squares and lined with low-built, multiwindowed houses designed to give the sailors and fishing folk who lived here plenty of sun and fresh air. If you arrive by cable car from Montjuic, you'll get a superb aerial view of the district on the way in. The neighbourhood also retains something of its erstwhile village character, particularly in the central Placa de la Barceloneta , around whose fountain and eighteenth-century church continue the sort of prosaic, local activities foreign to most of Barcelona's old town squares - people filling water-bottles or simply passing the time of day, kids riding bikes and playing ball. One of the more relaxing ways to make the journey along Barcelona's seashore, is to catch the new rodamolls (every 30min from Easter week through October Sat & Sun 11am-11pm and also Mon-Fri from 22 June to 13 Sept; one-way and return trips ?1.50 and ?2.40 for adults and ?1.20 and ?1.80 for children under 11 years), a wheeled tourist train which goes between the Colombus monument, and Port Olimpic, passing through Maremagnum, Barceloneta and along the beaches.
Your Tip for Barceloneta
Help other backpackers! Write your own guides and backpacking tips to Barceloneta - they will appear instantly on this page - Please only write a tip/guide to Barceloneta - visit the main Barceloneta forum to ask a question!
Please do not post links to your site here (they won't work) - please use the Barceloneta webguide section below! Thanks.
| 
