The Harbour area starts at the end of the Ramblas, the most famous pedestrian street in Barcelona, and possibly one of the most well known in the world. In fact the Ramblas continues over the Harbour via the Rambla del Mar, where it connects with a shopping mall on a pier, the Aquarium and Imax theatre, all of which are surrounded by water and marina's.
Barcelonetta and the Beaches:
Barcelonetta is a facinating suburb with tiny narrow houses packed really close to each other on a grid street pattern. The apartments are usually really small, so small that much of the home life extends out onto the streets where people bring out their TV sets, hang up their birds etc. It aparently has a very special community feel to it and is popular with the traditional residents, young affluent people and hippies.
Barcelona is one of only a handful of major cities in the world with proper beaches within walking distance from the city center. This is actually more unique than you may think. Of cause, if you don't want to walk, you can always hop on the metro.
There are better beaches in Barcelona's metro, Sitges where I stayed for one. But these are still very nice and amazing considering how close to the central city.
The Olympic Village Area. I didn't spend as much time here as I would have liked as we were to head back to the Gothic Quarter for lunch, but it is a very interesting and modern part of Barcelona, only a couple of stops from the central city and all the history.
The forum area is a new development near the end of the city proper where it meets the besos river. The suburban sprawl continues way past it however. It is connected to the city via the amazing "Diagonal", the largest Avenue in Barcelona, by the metro and the new trams. At the moment, it is still in development, so it seems rather empty, even the giant new shopping mall, but over the next few years, when everything is complete this will become a very important secondary part of town.
Part 4 coming soon...>
No comments:
Post a Comment