Barri Gothic and Port de Barcelona

Travel Day 807 – Barcelona, SPAIN

Since we walked yesterday in a big circle all over town, today we decided to have a more focused look at the city center around Barri Gothic which was right in front of our door step…

Historic Ship Replica in the Harbor of Barcelona, Spain

So we started our day with a stroll down popular La Rambla, the mayor shopping street, which was connecting Placa de Catalunya with the harbor. Our first stop along the way became the Mercat de la Boqueria which was in many ways the same sort of market place as I had seen in every single city in South America, only that it was always called Mercado over there…

Here as well all the goods for sale were nicely arranged and on display, but in comparison to South America, everything was shiny, new, clean and nicely lid up. The fruit and fish displays were similar as they would have been even in Germany, but the meat was arranged quite a bit more graphically than we would have expected. Instead of just seeing pieces of meat, all the animals could still be identified and the ham for example was sold as a complete leg with hoof and all…

Ham with Hoof and all at Mercat de la Boqueria in Barcelona, Spain

This seemed especially curious to me because even in restaurants we observed later that the ham was always cut off freshly from the entire leg. There even were special leg holders to display this piece of local delicacy. For me personally this whole market was a great way to remind myself why I didn’t like to eat meat any more. From entire rabbits with fur, to all sorts of skinned animals, every single creature seemed to be complete from head to toe. After looking into some wide open eyes and screaming faces of dead animals, I was glad to carry on, knowing at least that none of these animals had to die because of me…

We then continued our walk down to the big maritime museum, but unfortunately we found it closed and under renovation. A little bit sad about not being able to see some of the old wooden ships that once made up the superior Spanish fleet which was even able to explore those far away continents, we did at least the second best thing we could think of and walked around the old harbor. At least a few nice, historic ship replicas could be seen here and the added bonus was that we were able to continue enjoying the great weather…

Port de Barcelona Building, close to Barri Gothic in Spain

After walking around the Port of Barcelona, the rest of the day we filled then easily with an extended visit of the City Museum and a long stroll trough Barri Gotic, the historic quarter of Barcelona. The city museum was quite interesting and it turned out to be an amazing maze of underground ruins from the Roman times. Foundations of entire factories, houses and churches were excavated and could be traced through history on maps and other documents…

Our continued stroll thereafter was even more rewarding after the museum visit since we had a lot more background information about the city and could relate to everything in a more meaningful way. While then exploring all the little alleyways, we couldn’t help but imagine how life must have been here centuries ago. Yeah, Barcelona really was and actually still is a great place to be and to explore, especially in the mild winter weather…