LAS RAMBLAS
Text and photos by Georgina Castillo

Yesterday
Las Rambla's liveliness is only a hundred years old. Its Latin name "arenno", accounts for the sour and desolate aspect it had in Romans' time, whereas the Arabic word "ramla", which the Arabs used to designate the bed of a river -in this case El Cagadell- where all the junk thrown over the city wall was stored, brings us closer to the name by which it is now known here and world-wide.

Las Ramblas started to look like a street when, during the XIV and XVII centuries, several nunneries were built on the "Raval" side, which were afterwards demolished and replaced by buildings that nowadays already have an undeniable historical value: the "Teatre del Liceu" (the local opera house, built in 1844 and recently restored after the devastating fire of 1994), "El mercat de la Boqueria"- the most famous market in Barcelona-, and the Oriente Hotel. However, it wasn't until Jaume the first's wall was pulled down and the first houses were edified in its place, that it officially became a street and the city's vital promenade.

Today
You call one of your friends and meet him/her to see each other and have a drink. Don't make any effort to find a suitable place: you will both turn up in Canaletas, at the beginning of "Las Ramblas". Don't even try to get away from Canaletas in order to find a quiet place where no English/German/American people can't be found with a beer mug that won't let you see their eyebrows: you will end up at "El café de l'Opera", in front of the "Liceu" and of a "patatas bravas" snack.

You go down las Ramblas complaining about everything, even about the innocent flowers and the silly mice. You might think to yourself: "People stand agaper than the statue in front of them", or "the old man who says 'bolita por aquí, bolita por allá has already swindled 30 € from an Italian", or even "haven't these guiris realized that this isn't México?", "these girls celebrating the last night before marriage look ridiculous" and so forth. You will keep complaining a whole lifetime, because you'll go down Las Ramblas again and again even if you don't want to. If you don't have a specific place to go, you will slide along las Ramblas just like all the Barcelona citizens, whether they are stupid, rich or blond. That's how it is.

The arrival at your house or at the hotel is the best part of a day spent in Las Ramblas. Some might say it's a culture mosaic, a noise and colour collage, the site where Barcelona's popular spirit is more lively expressed...yes, I agree, but, It's great to have your feet soaked, the blinds down and your favourite music at half volume!

Must-sees
If you go down las Ramblas and turn to the right through Nou de la Rambla Street, you will find, at number 3 of this street, the "Palau Güell", by the world-famous (and about to become a Saint) Antoni Gaudí. Built between 1886 and 1889 as a mansion for a local industrial family, it houses the scenic arts museum nowadays. It was Gaudí's first great work, in which he invested all of his creative potential. In other words: Palau Güell is a dream. If you don't believe it, enter the central lounge and take a glance in order to see it as a whole, without stopping in its details (leave them for later on). You will see how all the landscapes you imagined as a child, when they told you those tales in which the characters' houses were not like yours or mine but like the ones that only exist in dreams or tales, come back to you.