Sarria Review

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Sarrià

  • Address: Pl. Sarrià, ; take Bus 22 from bottom of Av. de Tibidabo, or U-6 train on FFCC subway to Reina Elisenda. , Sarrià, Barcelona, Catalonia

Fodor's Review:

This intimate, bite-size, 1,000-year-old village was once a cluster of farms and country houses overlooking Barcelona from the hills. A good place to start exploring is the main square, Plaça Sarrià, which holds an antiques market on Tuesday morning, a book market on Friday, occasional sardana dances on Sunday morning, and Christmas fairs in season. The Romanesque church tower looms overhead. Across Passeig Reina Elisenda from the church, are a brick-and-steel produce market and the tiny Plaça Sant Gaietà behind it. From in front of the church, you can cut through the Placeta del Roser to the left of the main door, to get to the elegant town hall in the Plaça de la Vila; note the buxom bronze sculpture of Pomona, goddess of fruit and the harvest, by famed Sarrià sculptor Josep Clarà (1878-1958). After a peek at the massive ceiling beams (and tempting prix-fixe lunch menu) in the restaurant Vell Sarrià, at the corner of Major de Sarrià, go back to the Pomona bronze and turn left toward Carrer dels Paletes (with its tiny Sant Antoni, patron saint of workers, or paletes, overhead to the right). Back on Major de Sarrià, continue down this pedestrian-only street and turn left onto Carrer Canet, with its cottagelike artisans' quarters, formerly factory workers' housing provided by a nearby 19th-century textile mill. The house at No. 15 is an original two-story village house. No. 21 has unusual floral ornamentation on the facade, and No. 23 is a rustic village dwelling painted a characteristic earthy Mediterranean orange.

Turn right on Carrer Cornet i Mas and walk two blocks down to Carrer Jaume Piquet. A quick probe to the left will take you to No. 30, Barcelona's most perfect small-format Moderniste house, complete with faux-medieval upper windows, wrought-iron grillwork, floral and fruit ornamentation, and organically curved and carved wooden doors. Don't miss the restored wooden door at No. 9, or the Falangist-style eagle over the entrance of what was until 1976 the local telegraph office. The tiny, two-story pink house at No. 36 is an original Sarrià village house, one of the very few still standing. Across the intersection on the left is Casa Orlandai, a cultural center and café with a gorgeous Moderniste mosaic stairwell and stained-glass windows in the café. Back on Carrer Cornet i Mas, the next opening down is Sarrià's most picturesque square, Plaça Sant Vicenç, a leafy space ringed by early village houses and centered on a statue of Sarrià's patron saint. Note the other renditions of the saint over the square's upper right corner. The café Can Pau is the local hangout, once a haven for such authors as Gabriel García Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, who lived in Sarrià in the early 1970s, on the cusp of their fame. Check out the Gouthier oyster-, salmon-, foie- (duck or goose liver), caviar-, and wine-tasting bar on the lower corner of the square. To get to the Monestir de Pedralbes from Plaça Sant Vicenç, walk back up Mayor de Sarrià and through the market to the corner of Sagrat Cor and Ramon Miquel Planas; then turn left and walk straight west for 15 minutes, past the splendid upper-city mansions of Pedralbes.

Other Sarrià landmarks include the two Foix pastry stores, one at Plaça Sarrià 9-10 and the other on Major de Sarrià 57, above Bar Tomás. Both have excellent pastries, artisanal breads, and cold cava. The late J. V. Foix, son of the store's founders, was one of the great Catalan poets of the 20th century, a key player in keeping the Catalan language alive during the 40-year Franco regime. The store in Plaça Sarrià—a good place for homemade ice cream—has a bronze bust of the poet, while the Major de Sarrià shop has a plaque identifying the house as his birthplace and is inscribed with a famous Foix verse: Tota amor és latent en l'altra amor / tot llenguatge és saó d'una parla comuna / tota terra batega a la pàtria de tots / tota fe serà suc d'una mes alta fe. (Every love is latent in the other love / every language is part of a common tongue / every country touches the fatherland of all / every faith will be the lifeblood of a higher faith.)

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