The center of Barcelona’s Old Town is known as the Gothic Quarter (or Barri Gótic) because of its concentration of medieval buildings. Some of the buildings and architectural details that appear medieval (such as the front of the Cathedral) are actually products of the 19th Century neo-gothic trend, but many of the structures, and the mazelike layout of the area, date at least in part from the Middle Ages. Some structures, or fragments of structures, are even older – pieces of Roman wall are visible here and there.

We entered the Gothic Quarter without any firm plan as to what areas to visit, but on our map we noticed the presence of a Picasso Museum, and thought we would try our luck. Pablo Picasso, while born in Málaga in the south of Spain in 1881, lived in Barcelona with his family from 1895 to 1904, which were the formative years of what was to become his lengthy career. Barcelona’s Picasso Museum specializes in his output from these years, though works from other parts of his career can be seen here as well. Looking through the museum, it’s interesting to see his work progress from traditional-looking paintings by an obviously very talented teenager into what is known as his Blue Period. Or such is our understanding - as it turned out, our luck at the Picasso Museum was not good, as we found a very long line of people waiting to get in. Apparently tickets are available at the website, but we hadn’t planned ahead that far.

We didn’t want to spend hours of our last day in Barcelona standing in line, so we passed on the museum for this visit. But there was a public area outside the exhibition space that was somewhat interesting in its own right. The museum is made up of five palaces from the 13th Century which have been renovated and joined together, and the public area is definitely atmospheric.

From the Picasso Museum we wandered around somewhat aimlessly, heading back in the general direction of the Cathedral. On the way we passed a shop that sold pastries and chocolate-based creations. We bought some chocolate and continued onward.

Not far from the Cathedral we found ourselves in a square called the Plaça del Rei, or King’s Square, surrounded by picturesque buildings. On one side was a 1302 chapel dedicated to St. Agatha, complete with bell tower, and on another was the former Grand Royal Palace (Palau Reial Major), complete with a watchtower dedicated to King Martin of Aragon (1356-1410).



It’s possible to see the insides of these buildings (for a fee), but we didn’t know what there was to see or how long it would take to see it, and we had other priorities for the day. So we moved on.

From here it was a short walk to the apse portion of the Barcelona Cathedral. This was a vantage point that we hadn’t seen on our earlier visit.


At this point we examined our priorities and found them to lie in two different directions. Nella was interested in seeing what the local merchants had to offer, and maybe executing a few transactions, and I was more interested in looking around in the harbor direction of La Rambla. We decided to split up and do both. I don’t know too much about how Nella’s expedition went, except that some transactions were transacted, but I saw some interesting stuff. Read on to see some of it.