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Everyone starts with the RAMBLAS , no bad thing since they're the city's most famous feature - and deservedly so. The name, derived from the Arabic ramla (or "sand"), refers to the bed of the seasonal stream which once flowed here. In the dry season, the channel was used as a road, and by the fourteenth century this had been paved over in recognition of its use as a link between the harbour and the old town. In the nineteenth century, benches and decorative trees were added, overlooked by stately balconied buildings, and today - in a city choked with traffic - this wide swath is still given over to pedestrians, with cars forced up the narrow strip of road on either side. For the visitor, the first eccentricity is that the tree-lined Ramblas is (or rather are) five separate streets strung head to tail - from north to south, Rambla Canaletes, Estudis, Sant Josep, Caputxins and Santa Monica - though this plurality of names doesn't amount to much more than a subtle change in what's being sold from the kiosks as you head down the street. Here, under the plane trees, you'll find pet canaries, rabbits, tropical fish, flowers, plants, postcards and books. You can buy jewellery from a blanket stretched out on the ground, cigarettes from itinerant salespeople, have your palm read and your portrait painted, or just listen to the buskers and watch the pavement and performance artists. Human statues - Chaplin to Zeus - are much in evidence along the Ramblas and will take any coins you can spare; card and dice sharps, operating from foldaway tables and cardboard boxes, will skin you for much more if you let them. The show goes on at night, too, as people stroll arm in arm from newspaper stall to cafe before heading off for a meal or a drink; later, in the small hours, there are still plenty of folk around, drinking in the late-opening bars or chatting on the street. Drag yourself home with the dawn, and you'll rub shoulders with the street cleaners hosing down the pavements, watchful policemen and bleary-eyed stall-holders. If you're around when Barca wins an important match you'll catch the Ramblas at their best: the street erupts with instant and infectious excitement, fans driving up and down with their hands on the horn, cars bedecked with Catalan flags and pedestrians waving champagne bottles. Our account of the Ramblas runs from Placa de Catalunya at the top down to the Columbus monument. Walking in this direction, you leave the opulent facades of the banks, department stores and hotels for a seedier area towards the port. If you head off into the backstreets towards the lower end of the Ramblas, the reality of the poverty can be depressing. The area behind the Arc del Teatre on the west side of the avenue is the most desperate corner of the old town, barely touched by any attempt at gentrification. Idling away time at newspaper kiosks or sitting at a pavement cafe, you should be aware at all times of where your bag is or someone may relieve you of it. The Ramblas also cut right through Barcelona's former red-light district, the Barrio Chino, where a few of the brothels, ill-lit clubs, rough bars and sex shops still survive. You shouldn't be unduly alarmed though, as the whole area is gradually undergoing a massive renovation, making it somewhat tamer than in days gone by, while the Ramblas themselves are never anything less than respectable
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