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The fish and seafood
restaurants
in the Palau de Mar arcade are some of the
most popular in the city, especially at weekends. Here you overlook the packed
marina
, where Catalans park their yachts like they park their cars – impossibly
tightly – fronted in summer by hawkers spreading blankets on the ground to
sell jewellery and sunglasses. A boat near the Palau de Mar in the marina has
been converted into a floating bar, the
Luz de Gas
.
Barceloneta
There’s no finer place for lunch on a sunny day than the
Barceloneta
neighbour-
hood (
o
Barceloneta), bound by the harbour on one side and the Mediterranean
on the other. It was laid out in 1755 in a classic eighteenth-century grid, where
previously there had been only mud flats, and replaced part of the Ribera district
that was destroyed to make way for the Ciutadella fortress to the north.The long,
narrow streets are still very much as they were planned, broken at intervals by small
squares and lined with abundantly windowed houses designed to give the sailors
and fishing folk who originally lived here plenty of sun and fresh air. Some original
houses feature a decorative flourish, a sculpted balcony or a carved lintel, while in
Plaça de la Barceloneta survives an eighteenth-century fountain and the Neoclas-
sical church of
Sant Miquel del Port
. A block over in Plaça de la Font is the
stylish neighbourhood market,
Mercat de la Barceloneta
(Mon 7am–3pm,
Tues–Thurs 7am–3pm & 4.30–8.30pm, Fri 7am–8.30pm, Sat 7am–4pm), beauti-
fully refurbished in 2007 and boasting a couple of classy restaurants (one, the
Lluçanès
, now Michelin-starred). Barceloneta’s many other seafood restaurants are
found scattered right across the tight grid of streets but most characteristically lined
along the harbourside
Passeig Joan de Borbó
, where for most of the year you
can sit outside and enjoy your meal.
On the seaward side of Barceloneta, what was once a scrappy fishermen’s
strand is now furnished with boardwalks, outdoor cafés, showers, benches,
climbing frames, water fountains and public art.
Platja de Sant Sebastià
is
the first in a series of landscaped
city beaches
that stretches north from here
along the coast to the River Besòs. On the spit at the harbour end, work is
well underway on a marina, office and leisure development by Catalan
architect Ricardo Bofill whose signature building will be a sail-shaped hotel
providing a “balcony over the sea”. In the other direction, a double row of
palms backs the
Passeig Marítim
, a sweeping stone esplanade that runs as far
as the Port Olímpic, a fifteen-minute walk away. On the way, you’ll pass the
Parc de la Barceloneta
, a rather plain expanse enlivened only by its
whimsical
modernista
water tower (1905), rising like a minaret above the palms.
The cross-harbour cable car
The most thrilling ride in the city centre is across the inner harbour on the cable car,
the
Trasbordador Aeri
(
T
932 252 718), which sweeps right across the water from
the
Torre de Sant Sebastiá
, at the foot of Barceloneta, to Montjuïc, with a stop in
the middle at
Torre de Jaume I
, in front of the World Trade Centre on the Moll de
Barcelona. The views are stunning, and you can pick out with ease the familiar towers
of La Seu (the cathedral) and Sagrada Família, while the trees lining the Ramblas look
like the forked tongue of a serpent.
Departures
are every fifteen minutes (daily 10.30am–7pm, June–Sept until 8pm),
though in summer and at weekends you may have to wait for a while at the top of
the towers as the cars only carry about twenty people at a time.
Tickets
cost €9 one
way or €12.50 return.
THE WATERFRONT: FROM PORT VELL TO DIAGONAL MAR
|
Barceloneta