Rambla - keep your wits about you! and other Barcelona, Spain Tourist Trap Tips

Las Ramblas is a boulevard linking Placa Catalunya in the city centre to the port area.

The boulevard has any number of "living statues", bird stalls (Spain has signed various international conventions but protection of exotic species seems virtually non-existent), craft stalls (especially at the Port end of the boulevard) and city life in general. The Rambla is lined with hotels and hostals (pensions) ranging from fairly upmarket and decent to the direst end of the budget range.

Starting from the Placa Catalunya end, highlights [to right and left] include:

-Virreina Palace (right) (occasional art exhibitions)

-Umbrella factory (left) (the interesting thing is the facade, with 19th century chinoiserie and chinese umbrellas)

-Boqueria Market (right) (foodstuffs. There?s even a stall selling edible insects!)

-Guell Palace (right)

-Liceu (Opera House) RHS (right) worth a visit to see the ravishing restoration of the opera hall after the 1989 fire).

-Placa Real (left) (Baroque Square - a bit seedy but lined with bar terraces away from the traffic).

-Wax Museum (left) (not worth a visit but building is a 19th century oddity)

-Columbus statue (arm points seaward - to the East, not to the West!)

-Maremagnum shopping centre - over the yacht haven footbridge. IMAX, Aquarium nearby.

There are any number of bars and terraces along the Rambla (the name comes from Arabic, and means water course a stream used to run here at the foot of the now vanished city wall).

The terraces are dear (see my home page) and the atmosphere spoilt somewhat by busy traffic on the roads running on each side of the boulevard. Barcelona should turn the entire Rambla into a pedestrian precinct.

Be careful of pickpockets and don't flash expensive cameras around. Wear shoulder and handbags cross-wise. Pickpockets tend to work round the edge of crowds watching street performances. Police Station (Comisaria) - English-speaking police on hand) is on right about halfway down.

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If you are reading this, you may be thinking of visiting the Forum of Cultures in Barcelona. After all, there is something of a media blitz, carefully orchestrated by the Spanish political establishment and big corporate sponsors backing the event. Not surprisingly, the local media (never outspoken at the best of times) tamely echoes the press notes churned out by the organisers.

One of the Forum's stated aims is sustainable development. Many environmentally-conscious tourists may consider visiting the Forum on the strength of this. Unfortunately, this would be a big mistake. The criticisms made by Greenpeace in the courageous El Triangle newspaper [Issue 693, 26th July 2004, p.15] are eloquent. A summarized version is set out below.

'The Forum is a disaster for the Catalan coastline', stated Maria Jose Caballero, Director of Greenpeace's Coastline Campaign. Greenpeace has just published its annual report on the state of beaches in Spain and cites Barcelona's schemes as a glaring example of unsustainable development. Caballero says Barcelona City Council's attitude is 'appalling'. The annual report highlights the way 'The last vestiges of Barcelona's coastline have been buried under masses of reinforced concrete'. Greenpeace is particularly critical of the way in which the Forum site has turned the coastline along this stretch into a concrete jungle. 'There is simply no excuse for this' argues Caballero, 'the Council has taken over public land, built on it, and charges admission into the bargain'.

Note: Greenpeace withdrew from the Forum organization a couple of years ago when it became clear that big business was hijacking the event and betraying key principles. Amnesty International has also withdrawn from the Forum, in this case in protest at the human rights abuses committed by many of the event's commercial sponsors.

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Barcelona loudly proclaims its openness to other cultures and its defence (at least in word) of Democracy and Human Rights. In fact, it is now part of the way the city is being marketed abroad. It all comes down to trying to find what is called a 'Unique Selling Proposition' or USP. The 2004 Forum of Cultures is part of this strategy - Human Rights, Peace, Sustainable Development make an attractive 'package' that commands broad consensus. The trick is to get foreigners to associate these ideas with Barcelona - if it works the chances are that the city will become more attractive as a tourist and conference destination.

Strange then that one of the VIPs invited to speak at the Forum of Cultures debate on the problems of South America was none other than Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, erstwhile President of Bolivia*. Lozada's name is inextricably linked to the 'slash and burn' variety of Capitalism. While miners desperately try to eke a living in Bolivia's Cerro Rico de Potosi mine, 25 kilometres down the road is the wealthy and polluting Porco mine, jointly owned by Lozada and US interests. Readers may recall that Lozada fled to Miami in a private aircraft last October while the Bolivian military machine-gunned striking miners in La Paz's impoverished El Alto district from army helicopters. The toll was 84 dead and hundreds wounded. Instead of listening to Lozada's vapourings at the pompous and pedantic Forum of Cultures, Barcelona's city authorities would have done better to issue a warrant for his arrest. So much for Human Rights.

* [as reported in Joan Barril's article in El Periodico newspaper, p.96, 7th July 2004]

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At Least Do This: Read the wikipedia article and decide for yourself if this is the kind of guy you would invite to a Forum of Cultures
Alternative: Highly recommended: the city's Nits de Museu, nocturnal sessions in Barcelona's main museums. A wonderful way of avoiding the tourist crush and seeing the collections when it is a bit cooler. Details from the Barcelona Tourist Office in Placa Catalunya. I'll see if I can't dig up some more detailed information.