Barcelona
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1. Passeig del Born
Once the site of medieval jousts and the Inquisition's autos-da-fé, the passeig, at the end of Carrer Montcada behind the church of Santa Maria del Mar, was early Barcelona's most important square. Nowadays, late-night cocktail bars and small restaurants with tiny spiral stairways line the narrow, elongated plaza. The numbered cannonballs under the public benches are 20th-century works by the late poet, playwright, and designer, Joan Brossa—the so-called poet of space, whose visual-arts pieces incorporated numbers and/or letters and words. These sculptures are intended to evoke the 1714 siege of Barcelona, which concluded the 14-year War of the Spanish Succession, when Felipe V's conquering Castilian and French troops attacked the city ramparts at their lowest, flattest flank. After their victory, the Bourbon forces obliged residents of the Barri de la Ribera (Waterfront District) to tear down nearly a thousand of their own houses, some 20% of Barcelona at that time, to create fields of fire so that the occupying army of Felipe V could better train its batteries of cannon on the conquered populace and discourage any nationalist uprisings. Thus began Barcelona's "internal exile" as an official enemy of the Spanish state. Walk down to the Born itself—a great iron hangar that was once a produce market designed by Josep Fontseré and is in the Plaça Comercial, across from the end of the promenade. The initial stages of the construction of a public library here uncovered the remains of the lost city of 1714, complete with blackened fireplaces, taverns, wells, and the canal that brought water into the city. The streets of 14th- to 18th-century Born-Ribera now lie open in the sunken central square of the old market. Around it, at ground level, are a number of new, multifunctional, exhibition and performance spaces that make this area one of the city's newest and liveliest cultural hubs. Among the attractions is the Museu d'Història de la Ciutat's El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria (closed Monday, free to upper galleries, €4 to the archaeological site).
Passeig del Born, 08003, Spain93-256–6851-El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria -
2. Plaça de la Virreina
The much-damaged and oft-restored church of Sant Joan de Gràcia anchors this lovely square where the Palau de la Virreina once stood; it was the summer residence of the same virreina (wife, or in this case, widow of a viceroy) whose 18th-century palace, the Palau de la Virreina, stands on the Rambla. The story of La Virreina, a young noblewoman widowed at an early age by the death of the elderly viceroy of Peru, is symbolized in the bronze sculpture atop the fountain in the center of the square: it portrays Ruth of the Old Testament, represented carrying the sheaves of wheat she was gathering when she learned of the death of her husband, Boaz. Ruth is the Old Testament paradigm of wifely fidelity to her husband's clan, a parallel to La Virreina—who spent her life doing good deeds with her husband's fortune. The rectorial residence at the back of the church is the work of Gaudí's perennial assistant and right-hand man Francesc Berenguer.
Pl. de la Virreina, 08024, Spain -
3. Plaça del Rei
This little square is a compact nexus of history. Long held to be the scene of Columbus's triumphal return from his first voyage to the New World—the precise spot where Ferdinand and Isabella received him is purportedly on the stairs fanning out from the corner of the square (though evidence indicates that the Catholic Monarchs were at a summer residence in the Empordá)—the Palau Reial Major (admission included in the €7 entrance fee for the Museu d'Història de Barcelona; closed Monday) was the official royal residence in Barcelona. The main room is the Saló del Tinell, a magnificent banquet hall built in 1362. To the left is the Palau del Lloctinent (Lieutenant's Palace); towering overhead in the corner is the dark 15th-century Torre Mirador del Rei Martí (King Martin's Watchtower). The 14th-century Capella Real de Santa Àgueda (Royal Chapel of St. Agatha) is on the right side of the stairway, and behind and to the right as you face the stairs is the Palau Clariana-Padellàs, moved to this spot stone by stone from Carrer Mercaders in the early 20th century and now the entrance to the Museu d'Història de Barcelona.
View Tours and ActivitiesPl. del Rei s/n, 08002, Spain -
4. Plaça Reial
Nobel Prize–winning novelist Gabriel García Márquez, architect and urban planner Oriol Bohigas, and Pasqual Maragall, former president of the Catalonian Generalitat, are among the many famous people said to have acquired apartments overlooking this elegant square, a chiaroscuro masterpiece in which neoclassical symmetry clashes with big-city street funk. Plaça Reial is bordered by stately ocher facades with balconies overlooking the wrought-iron Fountain of the Three Graces, and an array of lampposts designed by Gaudí in 1879. Cafés and restaurants line the square. Plaça Reial is most colorful on Sunday morning, when collectors gather to trade stamps and coins; after dark it's a center of downtown nightlife for the jazz-minded, the young, and the adventurous (it's best to be streetwise touring this area in the late hours).
View Tours and ActivitiesPlaça Reial, 08002, Spain -
5. Plaça Rovira i Trias
This charming little square and the story of Antoni Rovira i Trias shed much light on the true nature of Barcelona's eternal struggle with Madrid and Spanish central authority. Take a careful look at the map of Barcelona positioned at the feet of the bronze statue of the architect, who is seated on the bench, and you'll see a vision of what the city might have looked like if Madrid's (and the Spanish army's) candidate for the design of the Eixample, Ildefons Cerdà, had not been imposed over the plan devised by Rovira i Trias, the legitimate winner of the open competition for the commission. Rovira i Trias's plan shows an astral design radiating out from a central square while Cerdà's design established the emblematic uniformed blocks and wide boulevards that Eixample is known for.
Pl. Rovira i Trias, 08024, Spain -
Recommended Fodor’s Video
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6. Plaça Sant Felip Neri
A tiny square just behind Plaça de Garriga Bachs off the side of the cloister of La Catedral de Barcelona, this was once a burial ground for Barcelona's executed heroes and villains, before all church graveyards were moved to the south side of Montjuïc, the present site of the municipal cemetery. The church of San Felip Neri here is a frequent venue for classical concerts. On January 30th, 1938, one of Franco's bombs fell in the square, taking the lives of 42 people, most of whom were children from the School of Sant Philip Neri. Fragments of a bomb made the pockmarks that are still visible on the walls of the church. These days, the schoolchildren still play in the square, which is cherished by locals for its silence and serenity (at least when the children are indoors), despite its tragic history.
View Tours and ActivitiesPl. Sant Felip Neri, 18002, Spain -
7. Plaça d'Anna Frank
GràciaNear Plaça del Diamant is a small square honoring Anne Frank, the young woman whose diary was published several years after she perished in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. As you leave Plaça del Diamant on Carrer de l'Or, a left on Torrent de l'Olla and an immediate right on Carrer de Jaén lead down some stairs and into a small space where you will see, lying over the edge of the roof of the CAT (Centre Artesá Tradicionàrius), the bronze figure of a young girl, by Catalan sculptress Sara Pons Arnal, pen and journal in hand, head cocked pensively, her foot raised idly, playfully, behind her. The inscription in the open bronze book on the wall reads "While even the names of her executioners are gone, she lives on. But may never return the long shadow and the river of blood and tears and mud and mourning that snuffed out so much beauty, the symbol of which was a young girl in bloom."
Pl. d'Anna Frank, Barcelona, Catalonia, 08012, Spain -
8. Plaça d'Espanya
This busy circle is a good place to avoid, but you'll probably need to cross it to get to the National Art Museum of Catalonia and other nearby Montjuïc attractions. It's dominated by the so-called Venetian Towers, built as the grand entrance to the 1929 International Exposition. They flank the lower end of the Avinguda Maria Cristina (the buildings on both sides are important venues for the trade fairs and industrial expositions that regularly descend on Barcelona). At the far end is the Font Màgica (the Magic Fountain), which was created by Josep Maria Jujol, the Gaudí collaborator who designed the curvy and colorful benches in Park Güell, and which has a spectacular nighttime display of lights and music. The sculptures are by Miquel Blay, one of the master artists and craftsmen who put together the Palau de la Música. On the opposite side of the circle from the Towers, the neo-Mudejar bullring, Les Arenes, is now a multilevel shopping mall.
View Tours and ActivitiesPl. Espanya, 08015, Spain -
9. Plaça de Catalunya
EixampleBarcelona's main bus-and-metro hub is the frontier between the Old City and the post-1860 Eixample. Fountains and statuary, along with pigeons and backpackers in roughly equal numbers, make the Plaça de Catalunya an open space to scurry across on your way to somewhere quieter, shadier, and gentler on the senses.
View Tours and ActivitiesPl. de Catalunya, Barcelona, Catalonia, 08002, Spain -
10. Plaça de Garriga i Bachs
Ceramic murals depicting executions of heroes of the Catalan resistance to Napoleonic troops in 1809 flank this little space just outside the cloister of La Catedral de Barcelona. The first three scenes show the five resistance leaders waiting their turns to be garroted or hanged (the garrote vil, or vile garrote, was reserved for the clergymen, as hanging was considered a lower and less-humane form of execution). The fourth scene depicts the surrender of three agitators who attempted to rally a general Barcelona uprising to save the first five by ringing the cathedral bells. The three are seen here, pale and exhausted after 72 hours of hiding in the organ, surrendering after being promised amnesty by the French. All three were subsequently executed. The bronze statue of the five martyred insurgents (1929), in the center of the monument, is by the Moderniste sculptor Josep Llimona, whose prolific work in Barcelona also includes the frieze on the Arc de Triomf and the equestrian statue of Count Ramon Berenguer III (1068–1131) in the Plaça de Ramon Berenguer el Gran, between Via Laietana and the Cathedral.
Pl. de Garriga i Bachs, 08002, Spain -
11. Plaça de la Vila de Gràcia
Originally named (until 2009) for the memorable Gràcia mayor Francesc Rius i Taulet, this is the barrio's most emblematic and historic square, marked by the handsome clock tower in its center. The tower, unveiled in 1864, is just over 110 feet tall. It has water fountains around its base, royal Bourbon crests over the fountains, and an iron balustrade atop the octagonal brick shaft stretching up to the clock and belfry. The symbol of Gràcia, the clock tower was bombarded by federal troops when Gràcia attempted to secede from the Spanish state during the 1870s. The Gràcia Casa de la Vila (town hall) at the lower end of the square is another building by Gaudí's assistant Francesc Berenguer.
View Tours and ActivitiesPl. de la Vila de Gràcia, 08012, Spain -
12. Plaça de les Olles
Born-RiberaThis pretty little square named for the makers of olles, or pots, has been known to host everything from topless sunbathers to elegant Viennese waltzers to the overflow from the popular nearby tapas bar Cal Pep. Notice the balconies at No. 6 over Café de la Ribera, oddly with colorful blue and yellow tile on the second and top floors. The house with the turret over the street on the right at the corner leading out to Pla del Palau (at No. 2 Plaça de les Olles) is another of Enric Sagnier i Villavecchia's retro-Moderniste works.
Pl. de les Olles, Barcelona, Catalonia, 08003, Spain -
13. Plaça del Diamant
This little square is of enormous sentimental importance in Barcelona as the site of the opening and closing scenes of 20th-century Catalan writer Mercé Rodoreda's famous 1962 novel La Plaça del Diamant. Translated by the late American poet David Rosenthal as The Time of the Doves, it is the most widely translated and published Catalan novel of all time: a tender yet brutal story of a young woman devoured by the Spanish Civil War and, in a larger sense, by life itself. An angular and oddly disturbing steel and bronze statue in the square, by Xavier Medina-Campeny, portrays Colometa, the novel's protagonist, caught in the middle of her climactic scream. The bronze birds represent the pigeons that Colometa spent her life obsessively breeding; the male figure on the left pierced by bolts of steel is Quimet, her first love and husband, whom she met at a dance in this square and later lost in the war. Most of the people taking their ease at the cafés in the square will be unaware that some 40 feet below them is one of the largest air-raid shelters in Barcelona, hacked out by the residents of Gràcia during the bombardments of the civil war.
Pl. del Diamant, 08012, Spain -
14. Plaça del Pedró
This landmark in medieval Barcelona was the dividing point where ecclesiastical and secular paths parted. The high road, Carrer del Carme, leads to the cathedral and the seat of the bishopric; the low road, Carrer de l'Hospital, heads down to the medieval hospital and the Boqueria market, a clear choice between body and soul. Named for a stone pillar, or pedró (large stone), marking the fork in the road, the square became a cherished landmark for Barcelona Christians after Santa Eulàlia, co-patron of Barcelona, was crucified there in the 4th century after suffering the legendary 13 ordeals designed to persuade her to renounce her faith—which, of course, she heroically refused to do. As the story goes, an overnight snowfall chastely covered her nakedness with virgin snow. The present version of Eulàlia and her cross was sculpted by Barcelona artist Frederic Marès and erected in 1951. The bell tower and vacant alcove at the base of the triangular square belong to the Capella de Sant Llàtzer church, originally built in the open fields in the mid-12th century and used as a leper hospital and place of worship after the 15th century when Sant Llàtzer (St. Lazarus) was officially named patron saint of lepers. Flanked by two ordinary apartment buildings, the Sant Llàtzer chapel has a tiny antique patio and apse visible from the short Carrer de Sant Llàtzer, which cuts behind the church between Carrer del Carme and Carrer Hospital.
Pl. del Pedró, 08001, Spain -
15. Plaça Sant Jaume
Facing each other across this oldest epicenter of Barcelona (and often on politically opposite sides as well) are the seat of Catalonia's regional government, the Generalitat de Catalunya, in the Palau de La Generalitat, and the City Hall, the Ajuntament de Barcelona, in the Casa de la Ciutat. This square was the site of the Roman forum 2,000 years ago, though subsequent construction filled the space with buildings. The square was cleared in the 1840s, but the two imposing government buildings are actually much older: the Ajuntament dates from the 14th century, and the Generalitat was built between the 15th and mid-17th century.
View Tours and ActivitiesPl. Sant Jaume, 08002, Spain -
16. Plaça Sant Just
To the left of city hall, down Carrer Hèrcules (named for the mythical founder of Barcelona) are this square and the site of the Església de Sant Just i Pastor, one of the city's oldest Christian churches. Although the present structure dates from 1342, and nothing remains of the original church, founded in 801 by King Louis the Pious, early Christian catacombs are reported to have been found beneath the plaça. The Gothic fountain was built in 1367 by the patrician Joan Fiveller, then the city's Chief Minister. (Fiveller's major claim to fame was to have discovered a spring in the Collserola hills and had the water piped straight to Barcelona.) The fountain in the square bears an image of St. Just, and the city and sovereign count-kings' coats of arms, along with a pair of falcons. The entryway and courtyard to the left of Carrer Bisbe Caçador are for the Palau Moixó, the town house of an important early Barcelona family; down Carrer Bisbe Caçador is the Acadèmia de Bones Lletres, the Catalan Academy of Arts and Letters. The church is dedicated to the boy martyrs Just and Pastor; the Latin inscription over the door translates into English as "Our pious patron is the black and beautiful Virgin, together with the sainted children Just and Pastore."
Pl. Sant Just, 08002, Spain
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