La Rambla, is probably Spain’s most famous street.
The broad pedestrian boulevard is flanked by two narrow, one-way streets and it’s populated 24 hours a day.
When we left our hotel at 6am on Friday morning the temperature was about 22 degrees and La Rambla was almost deserted.
There were just a few people finishing their night out and a few starting their day. One of the former included a young man, wearing nothing but a nonchalant look.
When we got back a couple of hours later it was starting to come to life again.
By mid morning it was fully alive with people and lined with cafe tables and chairs, stalls selling souvenirs, flowers, birds . . .
An added attraction was street theatre – clowns, mime artists and living statues:
At 6pm the temperature was well above 30 degrees and the boulevard was crowded with people of all ages and a wide variety of nationalities.
When we went for a walk at 6am today (Saturday) La Rambla had quietened down but there were still a few hundred people milling about and only a couple of those we saw appeared to be the worse for alcohol.
July 5, 2009 at 5:39 pm
We were in Barcelona in late October 04. Our hotel was just around the corner from La Rambla and we visited it 2 or 3 times. I could have stayed all day and the street theatre included a realistic Charlie Chaplin, two ghosts on bikes (who would pedal like the clappers for a few minutes and then freeze their pose and a cowboy with a lasso plus others
A word of warning we were talking to friends who had been there a few months before we were. He had his wallet `uplifted’ by a young woman who pushed a baby into his arms screaming hungry, hungry, then grabbed it back. In the confusion either she or an accomplice got his wallet and was well gone by the time he realised a minute or so later.
July 5, 2009 at 6:26 pm
PDM – the guide books and the locals all warn about that sort of thing.
It pays to keep passport, credit cards and most of your cash in a money belt inside your shorts/skirt.
July 6, 2009 at 10:26 am
Yes – that is what we did.