The Rough Guide to Barcelona 8 (Rough Guide Travel Guides)

Just beyond, before the port, rises the dramatic latticed funnel of wood and

steel that is the

Parc Recerca Biomèdica Barcelona

(PRBB), the city’s

biomedical research centre.

Vila Olímpica and the Port Olímpic

From any point along the Passeig Marítim, the soaring twin towers of the

Olympic village and port impose themselves upon the skyline, while a

shimmering golden mirage above the promenade slowly reveals itself to be a

huge copper fish

(courtesy of Frank O. Gehry, architect of the Bilbao

Guggenheim). These are the showpiece manifestations of the huge seafront

development constructed for the 1992 Olympics. The

Vila Olímpica

(Olympic Village) housed the 15,000 competitors and support staff, with the

apartment buildings and residential complexes converted into permanent

housing after the Games. It was a controversial plan, not least because the local

population from the old industrial neighbourhood of Poble Nou – part of

which was destroyed in the process – were excluded as property prices here

later soared. Generally agreed to have been more beneficial is the

Port

Olímpic

, site of the Olympic marina and many of the watersports events.

Backed by the city’s two tallest buildings – the

Torre Mapfre

and the steel-

framed

Hotel Arts Barcelona

, both 154m high – the port area has filled up

with restaurants, bars, shops and nightspots, and is a major target for visitors and

city dwellers at weekends and on summer nights.Two wharves contain the bulk

of the action: the

Moll de Mestral

has a lower deck by the marina lined with

cafés, bars and

terrassas

, while the

Moll de Gregal

sports a double-decker tier

of seafood restaurants. Beyond here, on the far side of the port,

Nova Icària

and

Bogatell

beaches – each with a beachside café, play facilities, showers and

loungers – stretch up to the Poble Nou neighbourhood.

It’s another fifteen minutes’ walk from the port to the end of Bogatell beach

and Poble Nou. Heading back into the city, the entrance to

Ciutadella-Vila

Olímpica lies over the main Ronda del Litoral, behind the port.

Poble Nou

The next neighbourhood along from the Port Olímpic is

Poble Nou

(New

Village), a largely nineteenth-century industrial area that has been in the throes

of redevelopment since the early

1990s.As

with theVila Olímpica before it, the

redevelopment has its critics amongst the locals, who feel they’re being pushed

out as the money floods in – “Poble Nou is not for sale” reads the graffiti,

though it’s an increasingly forlorn cry.The authorities have given the regenera-

tion area a suitably contemporary epithet,

22@

(

www.22barcelona.com)

, and

are currently overseeing the transformation of almost 120 city blocks, straddling

200 hectares of land, into “the innovation district”.

Beach business

On the boardwalk arcade, in front of the Hospital del Mar, the city council has opened

a beach visitor centre, the

Centre de la Platja

(March–May Sat 11am–1.30pm

& 4–6.30pm, Sun & holidays 11am–1.30pm, June–Sept daily 10am–7pm;

932

247 571,

www.bcn.cat/platges), as a kind of one-stop-shop for information and

activities along the seafront. There’s a programme of walks, talks and sports, a small

summer lending library for beach reading, and volleyball gear available for pick-up

games on the sand.

THE WATERFRONT: FROM PORT VELL TO DIAGONAL MAR

Vila Olí

mpica and the Port Olí

mpic