Rambling : The Ramblas and other Barcelona Delights

In the heart of Barcelona, in the middle of a broad sidewalk on one side of the Placa de Catalunya, there is a small, ornate iron drinking fountain with shiny brass taps. Legend has it that if you sip from this fountain--the water is potable--you will never leave the city.

And if a visitor to Barcelona, site of the 1992 Summer Olympics, is looking for a good reason to stay, here is one of the best: Just turn away from the fountain, face the sea and start walking. You will find yourself positively immersed in the city, all but inseparable from it, on one of the most colorful and exciting promenades in the world. You’ll find yourself on the Ramblas.

In fact, this famous thoroughfare has many names, or rather many versions of the same name. In Spanish, it’s La Rambla or Las Ramblas; in the local Catalan language, it’s also La Rambla, but the plural becomes Las Rambles--giving the name an accidental but appropriate English connotation.

Today, the Ramblas, a long pedestrian esplanade with narrow lanes of auto traffic on either side, is the main artery feeding Barcelona’s intensely active street life. It flows day and night with a steady stream of humanity in all its guises. Once, though, it flowed with water. A rambla is a riverbed or wadi, and along what is now the Ramblas once gushed a seasonal stream flowing down to the Mediterranean from the mountains that surround the city.

Barcelona was founded--by Phocaean Greek merchants in the 6th Century BC--slightly to the east of the Ramblas, on a rise overlooking what is now the bustling Barcelona harbor. The Carthaginians, the Romans and later the Catalans themselves expanded the city slowly but surely, and by the 13th Century its walls had reached the northeastern bank of the watercourse.

In the 16th Century, on both sides of the rambla itself, a number of convents and priories were built. Later, secular buildings replaced portions of the city wall. In the 18th Century, with the population growing on both sides of the stream, it was paved over, and the Ramblas as we know it was born.

What makes the Ramblas so special today? Its broad, gently sloping openness; its function as main thoroughfare from the city center to the water’s edge; the fascinating buildings that line it or stand just behind it, but above all its population. Whatever attractive structures or appealing shops you might encounter along its length, and whatever detours you might take to interesting sights on either side of it, the greatest pleasures of the Ramblas are human--just seeing and hearing and mingling with the incredible orchestra of individuals who share the street at any given moment, partaking, by extension, in their very spirit and their love for life and for the city in which they are strolling.

On the Ramblas, you’ll see strollers, slouchers, strutters, posers. You’ll see young men drawing 10-foot-square madonnas on the sidewalk in colored chalk and portrait artists using pastels of Marilyn, Bogie and the Ayatollah Khomeini as come-ons, and mimes doing whatever it is they do. On the Ramblas, you’ll see Barcelona from the inside--and you’ll rub shoulders with the world.

The best way to enjoy the Ramblas, then, is simply to meander--to walk from one end of it to the other without a program in mind, stopping when and where you feel like stopping, looking at anything that catches your eye, becoming part of the flow. But if you prefer some structure to your meandering, there is lots to pay attention to on the street.

For generations, the Ramblas has begun officially at the Placa de Catalunya. On the inland side of this large if not particularly graceful square, though, there is another Rambla--the Rambla de Catalunya--which was part of the medieval riverbed but never quite became part of the street with which so much of that riverbed was replaced.

The Rambla de Catalunya has remained apart, developing its own style, its own pace, its own personality. As part of their dramatic renovation of Barcelona in anticipation of next summer’s Olympics, city officials have recently begun to widen the Rambla de Catalunya and redesign it slightly, with the idea that it would become a literal continuation of the rest of the esplanade.

To really walk the Ramblas in 1990s terms, then, you must today begin beyond the Placa de Catalunya at one of the city’s main boulevards, the Avinguda Diagonal, a block west of its intersection with the Passeig de Gracia. (Don’t try taking this portion of the walk between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Sundays and holidays, though: At those times, the entire Rambla de Catalunya becomes a temporary bicycle circuit, closed to both foot and vehicular traffic.)

The city’s intentions aside, it must be said that the Rambla de Catalunya still doesn’t feel like the Ramblas, but it is attractively intimate in scale, with a number of low-key cafes with tables set in awning-covered enclosures on the median strip, and quite a few elegant shops and galleries along its length. (Fashionable local women like the Jorge Juan shoe salon at No. 125, and trendy Barcelona designer Tony Miro, who designed the uniforms for Barcelona’s local police department, has a boutique called Groc at No. 103 selling his highly original--and pricey--men’s and women’s clothing.)

About two blocks down from the Avinguda Diagonal, there is a gated, private-looking passageway running between the Rambla de Catalunya and the Passeig de Gracia called the Passatge de la Concepcio. Its exclusive appearance notwithstanding, the passageway is open to the public and noteworthy as the site of one of the city’s latest hot spots, a multilevel bar and restaurant called El Tragaluz.

Designers Sandra Taruella and Pepe Cortes are responsible for the interior, but the overwhelming visual presence is that of Mariscal--the prolific local artist/designer whose “Cobi” is the official mascot of the forthcoming Olympics and who has provided plentiful comic-book-style graphic accents for the place. There are three parts to El Tragaluz: Tragabar, great for cocktails and tapas ; Tragarapid, which offers simple food and fast service at reasonable prices, and the Tragalux dining room, upstairs under a remarkable skylight ( tragaluz ), serving Catalan/French cuisine of above-average quality.

Crossing the Placa de Catalunya to the top of the Ramblas proper, on the righthand side just beyond the drinking fountain whose water is said to make you stay here forever, there is a popular tavern and tapas bar that appears to be called simply La Cerveseria (The Beer Hall in Catalan), where the big attraction is an immense display of fresh seafood just inside the door, served in small portions, raw or cooked simply.

At this point in the Ramblas, too, appears the first of the numerous newsstands that run the entire length of the Ramblas. The stalls are actually small book and magazine shops, glass-enclosed but with broad open fronts, packed with a formidable array of reading material in many languages. Further down, these newsstands are joined by flower vendors and little stands selling tropical birds and fish and other small animals--all adding to the color of the street.

Just past La Cerveseria is one of Barcelona’s great bars, Boadas. This minuscule watering hole was opened in 1933 by one Miguel Boadas, who had owned a larger, famous bar in Havana in the 1920s--evocative photographs of which now cover the walls here. Boadas’ now-elderly daughter Maria-Dolores is still in charge of the place, presiding over the creation of excellent cocktails, mixed with consummate skill by young bartenders who love to show off their abilities by pouring them back and forth between shakers in great arcs through the air.

Farther down the street at No. 121, there is a small pharmacy, the Farmacia Antiga Dr. Maso Arumi, with an elaborate mid-19th-Century facade typical of the decorative fronts often constructed for pharmacies, bakeries and confectioneries during the last century in Spain’s Catalonia region. Just past this shop, at No. 115, is one of the most important theaters in Barcelona, unfortunately bearing a name that may put off some English speakers: the Poliorama.

This the home of the Teatre Catala de la Comedia and the Companyia Flotats, whose director, Josep-Maria Flotats, was a star of the Comedie Franaise in Paris before returning home to stage both challenging contemporary works on the order of Sam Shepard’s “Autentic Oest” (“True West”) and such classics as “Cyrano de Bergerac,” almost always to sellout crowds.

The Poliorama occupies ground-floor space in the headquarters of the Reial Academia de Ciencies i Arts (Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts), the work of Modernista (or Art Nouveau-style) architect Josep Domenech, a disciple of Gaudi. Set into the facade of this structure is a famous clock whose time is widely considered to be exact and official by the local citizenry. George Orwell writes about this clock and the dramatic moments its reputed accuracy occasioned in his 1938 Spanish Civil War chronicle, “Homage to Catalonia.”

On the other side of the street, at No. 128, is one of the city’s newest and nicest hotels, the Hotel Rivoli Ramblas. The interior is attractively contemporary--and there’s a delightful rooftop terrace bar, open to the public, from which you can gain a whole new perspective on the promenade.

Further along and back on the other side of the street yet again is the handsome Palau de la Virreina, designed for (some say by ) Manuel Amat, the Catalan-born viceroy of Peru, and built for him between 1772 and 1778. ( Virreina means “viceroy’s wife”; Amat died young, and the building was named after his widow.) The palace contains the Postal and Numismatic museums, and also stages temporary exhibitions.

Just past the palace, opening onto the Ramblas, is an absolutely essential stop for food-lovers: The Mercat de Sant Josep, known popularly as La Boqueria. This is quite possibly the most beautiful and best-stocked covered market in Europe--a huge 19th-Century ironwork structure not unlike some end-of-century French train station in appearance, in which the finest food products of Catalonia and the rest of the world are displayed in an abundance and variety that are simply breathtaking.

Mountains of bright vegetables, mounds of earthy mushrooms, oceans worth of fish displayed on ice (some so fresh they’re practically still moving), treasure boxes of candied fruit and nuts, thick screens of sausages dangling from the butcher stalls--here there is one glorious gastronomic sight and smell after another. Particularly worth visiting are Llorenc Petras’s wild mushroom and mountain herb stand near the back of the market, the Rossel olive stand near the front (ask to sample the taperots or caper fruit) and, above all, the Bar Pinocho. This is a modest-looking little stand with nine or 10 stools and a closet-sized kitchen that somehow manages to produce market-fresh traditional Catalan food: black rice, stewed calf’s head, salt cod in cream sauce and the like, as good as that at most of the white-tablecloth restaurants in town. If stewed calf’s head isn’t your dish (and locals may be seen here eating it even for breakfast), at least stop for a coffee and watch market shoppers come and go.

One of the great theatrical treasures of Europe stands just down from La Boqueria--the Gran Teatre del Liceu. It may look dull and formal from the outside, but this important opera house--opened in 1847--is richly and beautifully decorated within, complete with its original gas lamps and with a series of medallions representing a history of music through the ages.

About 15 productions a year are mounted here, and such international stars as Placido Domingo and Barcelona’s own Montserrat Caballe and Josep Carreras perform here regularly. (Before and after performances, Barcelonans crowd into the turn-of-the-century Cafe de l’Opera across the street. Decorated with Ramon Casas murals, this is another wonderful place to sit and watch the passing parade.)

Across from the Liceu, facing each other on opposite corners of the Carrer Ferran, you’ll see two of Barcelona’s most popular restaurants: Unfortunately, they are called Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s. Just beyond them, down the Carrer Colom, is one of the city’s most beautiful squares, the Placa Reial--framed by identical buildings, four stories high, arcaded, uniformly ocher, with white attached columns and black lacquered shutters. In the square itself, wiry palm trees, kinked like ropes, rise up through the paving stones.

There is a monumental fountain in the center of the square, and there are light standards that might have been designed by a young Gaudi--though no one seems to know for sure. There are several cafes on the Placa Reial, and they are very pleasant places to idle for awhile--during the day. At night, the square seems mostly populated by drug dealers, prostitutes and other unsavory sorts.

At about this point, in fact, the Ramblas starts getting rather seedy. On the far side of the street, for instance, is the so-called Barri Xines or “Chinatown” (it has no Chinese residents; how it got its name, nobody seems to remember), which is not at all the sort of place you’d want to stroll around after dark. If you walk into the quarter down the Carrer Nou de la Rambla in broad daylight, on the other hand, you’ll come upon one of Gaudi’s first major buildings, the Palau Guell, which shows both Catalan Gothic and Moorish influences. The palace now houses both the Museum of Performing Arts and the Theater Institute. The former is open to the public.

Back on the now-seedy Ramblas, past the Placa del Teatre, sex shops start appearing and prostitutes (at least some of them female, though it’s not always easy to tell which ones) lounge in doorways. On this stretch of the street you’ll find the Museu de Cera, or Wax Museum, and one of the few good restaurants and tapas bars on the entire boulevard, Amaya, which serves a long menu of Catalan and Basque dishes, including plenty of seafood and good homemade desserts.

Across the street from the restaurant, in what was once a medieval convent, is a decidedly non-seedy establishment--the Centre d’Art Santa Monica, a well-designed new exhibition space for art and design shows. Design of a rather more plebeian sort--including handmade jewelry, dolls, scarves and other crafts--is on display in temporary stands on the median strip at the very end of La Rambla on Sunday afternoons and evenings.

Beyond that, the Ramblas ends. Off to the right is the city’s excellent Maritime Museum. Straight ahead is the 200-foot-high Columbus Monument. (Barcelona has a special affection for Columbus, both because he first reported his discovery of the New World to Ferdinand and Isabella in the city, and because many Barcelonans believe that he was really Catalan and merely pretending to be Italian to escape the rigors of the Spanish Inquisition.) To the left, along the waterfront, is the new Moll de la Fusta, a complex of bars and restaurants overlooking the harbor (and a full-sized replica, incidentally, of the Santa Maria).

All of these attractions are worthwhile. On the other hand, if you’ve been as bewitched by the Ramblas as many travelers are, by this time you might very well feel like walking back up the thoroughfare, seeing it from, as it were, the other side. And when you get back up to the edge of the Placa de Catalunya, you might want to try some of that water after all.

GUIDEBOOK

Las Ramblas

Getting there: Barcelona is served from LAX by Iberia, with a stop in Madrid. TWA, Pan Am and American make domestic stops en route. Advance-purchase fare is about $1,250 round trip.

Where to stay: Gran Hotel Calderon, Rambla de Catalunya 26, local telephone 301-58-58. Comfortable and professionally run hotel without any great personality or charm. The restaurant is above average. Double room, about $200.

Hotel Colon, Avinguda de la Catedral 7, phone 301-14-04. A few blocks off the Ramblas, facing Barcelona’s Gothic cathedral and Gothic Quarter. A bit worn around the edges, despite recent renovations, and old-fashioned in feeling, but very pleasant and well located, and a great favorite with visiting artists and writers. Double room, about $140.

Hotel Rivoli Ramblas, Rambla dels Estudis 128, phone 302-66-43; reservations, 412-09-58. One of the city’s newest, furnished in low-key contemporary style. Also a small fitness center, an attractive restaurant called Le Brut, a rooftop terrace and the vividly decorated Blue Moon piano bar. Double room, about $200.

Ramada Renaissance, Rambla dels Estudis 111, phone 318-62-00. The former Hotel Manila, completely refurbished. Good service and up-to-date facilities of all kinds. Double room, about $250.

Where to eat: Amaya, Rambla de Santa Monica 20-24, phone 302-61-38. Moderate.

Bar Pinocho, Mercat de San Josep (La Boqueria), phone 317-17-31. No reservations. Inexpensive.

El Tragaluz, Passeig Concepcio 5, phone 487-06-21. Inexpensive to moderate.

Words of warning: Pickpockets and purse snatchers abound all along the Ramblas, so beware.

For more information: Contact the National Tourist Office of Spain, 8383 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 938, Beverly Hills 90211, (213) 658-7193.

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