Barri Gotic / Gothic Quarter on a Sunday

The Gothic Quarter of Barcelona is old, cramped, dark, and full of charm. Here is the kind of place where you hear of visitors to Europe getting lost in the winding alleyways and loving it. Every turn of the corner varies greatly - street performers here, rows of restaurants or confectioners' shops here, and deserted alleys there. As always, click to enlarge the pictures..

A typical, old Gothic Quarter street.

Lights coming through the Christmas/Nadal/Navidad decorations.

Here you can get an idea of the narrow streets crowded by the tall apartment buildings.

Clásic Gótic Restaurant, on a street leading to the seafront.

Spraypaint artist in quiet Plaza Mercé.

Colors of the walls in the sunset

One of the exterior city walls from the old Roman settlement.

Some oddly-shaped rounded plaza in the Barri

One elaborate Santa/Papa Noel!

Um... curio store? Who knows... they have Phrenology head.

What would Europe be without delicious pastries?

Papabubble confectionary

Who knew there was a market for artisan caramels? The signage is sharp.

Random photos from today

A few random photos from around Barcelona...

"Obama British Africa"... bar? I'm assuming so, but so far I haven't been able to find any more information about this business on Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes. Neither Carlos nor I have seen it before today and I haven't found any info about it online. Maybe I will have to swing by for a drink one day...

Chestnuts (and yams) roasting on an open fire...

I haven't had any yet, but these chestnut stands are popular around Barcelona. Apparently they are mostly run by women who travel from Galicia in Northen Spain. It's so Christmassy!

This was a really cool drawing until someone lame tagged it.

It's really popular to have some sort of artistic statement at the entrance of apartment buildings. Usually, they are some 70s-style aberration of a tree sculpture. This is one of the only 2-D attempts and was really interesting to study as you walked by on the street. Now it's still interesting to see, but it really bothers me that yet another person used graffiti as a tool for vandalism rather than artistic expression. More on graffiti in Barcelona later.