Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter | 10-STOP WALKING TOUR

you're coming to Barcelona and you're planning to explore the magical has start gothic quarter I don't blame you this is the most wonderful historic neighborhoods in the world and you need to explore it but it's challenging because it's labyrinthine it's full of tourists and it's really hard to get a real sense of the place in a way so I'm going to take you to some of the core key places that you have to visit in this neighborhood I'm gonna tell you some of the mysteries some of the secrets and I'm even going to tell you the mysterious thing behind this famous famous bridge right behind me so bingo let's go [Music] hey Spain lovers my name is James Blake and this is Spain revealed a channel all about helping you explore Spain like a local now I remember the first time I explored the Gothic quarter and I had no idea where I was it's a labyrinthine and confusing but when I started designing our tapas taverns in history to a here in Barcelona I learned so much about it I researched really deep and discovered that it has so many hidden secrets and things that reveal about the history of Barcelona so today I want to start with the beginning with Roman Barcelona right way back and take you through 2000 years of history by showing you some really key areas and some hidden areas that you might not find out in your own these are all places that we feature on our Pappas Terence and history tour but I thought I'd give you a real insight of what we see on that tour of course on that tour we also go and either amazing tapas there's a whole lot more so follow me and we'll discover the secrets of the Gothic quarter let's go so I thought it might be interesting to divide this little just walk through the Gothic quarter into into centuries and sections and we're gonna start with the very beginning of Barcelona which is Barcelona was founded by the Romans and a lot of people don't know that and it was called but II know it was founded as a place for pretty much retired Roman soldiers to come and sit up and have a little piece of land after they've been fighting in the walls around the empire so it began as that about 2,000 years ago there's somebody here just at the beginning of falling into the Gothic quarter which is an indication of that which if you don't know a lot for you might miss it let me show to you now so you'll see these letters behind me spelling but Aquino the C is pronounced Kerr and that was the name of Roman Barcelona when it was first founded and here is the entry into Roman Barcelona so effectively the Gothic quarter the snout wonderful collection of 13th 15th century buildings is based on the plan of what was the Roman settlement here and if you didn't know what these letters worried you'd think Barcena what the hell is that that's what it is as we walk in leading us into the gate of Roman Barcelona let's enter the old city so as we walk into it Roman Barcelona into the Gothic corner you'll see the sign up here it is more day and so that means the Roman wall so this piece right here is a piece of the Roman wall which I want to reach out touch I'll probably fall over if I do then I just love feeling the history and this part of Barcelona's got the quarters full of so many mysteries and so much magic and I want to reveal one to you now follow me so well not much really remains of the Roman city although in the history museum here in the Gothic quarter you can see that remains that are underground of the Roman city there is something it's hidden around a few corners that is pretty remarkable and it's on Paradise Street to give you any sort of indication and this is a street that back in Roman times was actually the highest point of the Roman settlement only a 15 or 16 metres above sea level and I'll show you what this is something very divine should we say so this place is something that blows people's minds and tapas downs in history to them we walk in here this is the remains of a first century Roman temple that was right in the forum here in Barcelona and it's the oldest thing above-ground that still exists in bustling and a building has been built around it there's people who live in this building and and you know they'll be cooking their lunch or you know whatever getting ready for work and they have Roman columns right outside their window which is pretty incredible so we're now behind the Cathedral and I love looking up as a few kind of secret little things here you'll see instead of gargoyles and a couple other places and one they have a unicorn and another they have an elephant and these are almost like magical mystical creatures to people at the time when there's bees being built in the Middle Ages you know elephants obviously know they existed but but they were not something you saw every day and unicorns well those didn't exist what I love about the Gothic quarter is those little hidden items that if you don't know to look for them you'll just miss them and another little hidden symbol that you want to check out up here is this image of this man with a shield and a sword and very hairy body he's called Wilford the hairy and literally they say he was so hairy he did not have to wear armor now he is considered the father of Catalunya so he lived in the ninth century and so Wilford the Harry was the first man who United what we now consider Catalunya and he's remembered as such an important person in the history of this region and you'll see him here with his hairy body fighting what looks like a dragon so Wilford the Harry chose Barcelona is effectively his capital his principal city and that was the ninth century right up to the 15th century Barcelona became the center of this massive Mediterranean trade empire there's a building here which is beautiful to enter which is called the archives of the crown of Aragon and that's where all the records have kept from the 9th century right up through that massive incredible empire and this was the time when the Gothic quarter was built up and why we have this wonderful magical Gothic quarter here with building from the 13 to the 15th century when the city was just the center almost of the world in her in a lot of ways so just alongside the archive the crown of Aragon you can see the Placid Herve this is a great square with a great story behind it that may or may not be true but reflects the importance in history so we have what was the palace that the counts of Barcelona lived in when you know there was this great trading empire and you see these steps leading up so one of the stories goes and it may be true when Columbus got back from his first voyage in 1493 he was welcomed back here by Ferdinand and Isabella and of course that was such a dramatic moment in so many ways for world history Spanish history and I think it's really interesting to reflect on a few of the the impacts of that I mean one obviously all these foodstuffs came into Spain and thereby Europe because of the contact of the new world before that people in Europe didn't have potatoes tomatoes you say potato I say tomato chocolate tobacco corn none of that stuff existed you think like what were they eating so you know we've started with Rome Roman Barcelona and we got to the 15th century now only 500 years ago for the first 15 of those centuries they weren't eating any of those things it's pretty surreal so obviously that had a huge impact on the diet changed from so many things that are famous about Spanish cuisine now and just in the corner of the square is this sort of small house which is known as the hangman's house or or perhaps once was the hangman's house I don't know if it's true or not whether I have written a few places that wasn't true that nobody wanted to have the hangman or the executioner as their neighbor and so they put him here in this house that has no neighbors I had no neighbors it's not part of the the bustling a History Museum but it was built into the Roman wall and it was just the place where he had no neighbors cuz nobody wants to live next to that guy feel bit sorry for him I guess he was just doing his job but hell of a profession to choose another thing in the Gothic quarter that's not quite as it seems with the bismuth bridge this is probably or definitely the most photographed thing in the Gothic quarter there's a beautiful bridge that looks like it's hundreds of years old but it's not it's not even a hundred years old so in the 1920s there was an architect who proposed the local government to kind of redevelop the Gothic area and and again give it a bit more oomph tidy it up and he was turned down but one thing he was allowed to do was build this causeway or or passage that leads from one government building to another so it was built in 1928 and as I say not even a hundred years old 89 years old I think when you look at it you think it must be 500 years old so go figure and there's a little secret underneath I want to show you that's connected to their architecture so under the bridge there's a skull with a dagger pierced right through it nobody quite knows why it's there one of the legends is that if the dagger has pulled out then Barcelona will crumbled but what another story says is the architect who was annoyed that he couldn't give his whole redevelopment plan for the Gothic approved and going to get this bridge decided to put a little kind of negative almost curse upon those who didn't go along with his plan and that is what that skull there signifies so I don't know if it's true they also say that if you walk under the bridge backwards while looking at the skull and make a wish your wish will come true so come on Yali yeah and so another little piece of artistic license that was done in the late 19th century to give the got the quarter that little bit extra Oh with this piece of Roman aqueduct almost like an installed Roman aqueduct grew in that the Roman aqueduct did run through here I believe but in the late 19th century they decided to add this piece on to make it look all a little more ancient Alden and magical so I mean people and I mean when I first came here I was like wow there's even a remains of Roman aqueduct be running into what was the Roman city but that was put in I mean a long time ago or a hundred years ago but it was put in and so what are you doing a historical walk if you want to take a little break and have a remove that I think it'd be is a great little spot this place has been open since the 20s this still has that kind of old-world vibe and it opened in the 1920s and from the mid 20s to the mid thirties they were open 24 hours a day every day of the year that gives you a sense of what the bohemian kind of like the Barcelona was like during that pre Civil War period this is when Picasso was about everything like that and then so what happened is in 1900 it's a civil war broke out and they tried to pull down the kind of the shutters to close up to protect themselves and because it had been open for ten years they couldn't close the damn thing and so they've just left it open and they kept open right through and now still going it's in the fourth generations of family I've got down behind you can see rotate fourth generations still working in this bar and I think that's wonderful so as a safe new little refresher amid historic walk and the placidity with the beautiful church right there just a nice really spot so right here in the heart of the Gothic quarter there's a maze of very narrow wonderful little streets that from the 9th to the 14th century was the thriving Jewish neighborhood this was where there was a Jewish community of up to around 4,000 people they believe what's called the guy CA ll and here in this particular Street a tombstone from the ninth century was found so to give you an indication of the Jewish community that was here and we also have right behind me what was once the synagogue so it's now being reclaimed and restored and so there's not much to see to be honest but it's just a wonderful little area to walk around and to remember that the Jewish people had a community here until they were persecuted you know particularly in the late 1300s and then through the Inquisition beyond that and then finally expelled from Spain so i really suggest you visit this part of the gothic quarter [Music] so we're here in a square called some feet Nettie and I love this peaceful square it really reminds you of the tragedy that has been Spain's 20th century in terms of civil war and then dictatorship so in 1936 civil war broke out all over Spain it lasted for three years and of course there was a horrible tragedy for this country and this is one of the reminders of that tragedy so Franco the general who staged a coup to take over the country and became the dictator until the mid 70s in 1938 his ally Mussolini the Italian dictator who was helping Franco in the war Mussolini dropped a bomb on his square and killed 42 people including children because there's a school here and children were playing and all these marks behind me a shrapnel March from that bomb that blew up and they were decided to be kicked like that not repaired as a reminder of the tragedy of the Civil War and the children still play here so when you come to the square sometimes it's closed off because this beautiful square is literally the playground for the school that's here it's mind boggling I grew up playing and in fields of New Zealand but to think that this could have been the place where I played football I mean I can't even conceive it but it's wonderful to see and it's wonderful that it's still used for that it still has so much light so guys here we are in the plaza sant Djalma this huge expensive square has been the administrative center of the city for 2,000 years right on the spot as where the Roman Forum was and the Roman temple remember those columns we saw was also in this forum so right back then this was the focus of everything and now it has the two most important administrative buildings in the city we have the Catalunya Parliament on one side and on the other side we have the Barcelona Town Hall opposing each other and this is the perfect spot to decode something that for so many people in a visit Barcelona is a total mystery and very confusing all these flags you see all over the city come with me so there's a variety of different flags you're gonna see all over Barcelona and let me help you understand what so right behind me on the Town Hall of Barcelona you see three the one on the left is the flag of Catalunya with the poor strikes where does that come from will remember Wilfred the Harry that really hairy guy supposedly when he was dying he dipped his own fingers in his blood or someone else dip their fingers in his blood and scraped all blood-stained fingers down his shield into the flag of Catalunya and he's the father of Catalonia so that's the flag gonna see in the middle of the Spanish flag now by law that flag has to be higher than the regional flag that's why it's slightly higher and so that the next one on the right that's the flag of Barcelona the city but those are the official flags there's an unofficial flag as well swinging over here yollie and behind me this is up in that top corner of that building that is not an official building that is someone's home and you're gonna see that flag all over the place and that is the independence flag now you will have heard that there's a movement in Catalunya to separate in Spain it's so you may know that there's a very charged political atmosphere and in Catalunya and Barcelona right now because there is a percentage of the population that want to separate from Spain and there's another symbol you're gonna see around Barcelona and that is right next to that flag and that is the yellow ribbon particularly gonna see that the moment when were filming this in June 2019 now because of the independence movement in Barcelona some Catalan politicians have been put in prison by the Spanish government and now what that yellow ribbon represents is people saying that they want those people taken out of prison they're calling them political prisoners so that represents that that kind of cried to say get these people out of prison now obviously it depends on which side you're on whether you think they're political prisoners or not but that gives you an understanding and context of what that yellow ribbon means you're gonna see around this and as we swing up here you'll see the yellow ribbon and it's his free political prisoners and exile so that's what that represents is that generally that which is the Parliament of Catalunya are saying we think these people have blow prisoners and get them out of prison now if you ask the central government they will have a different opinion and call them criminals so obviously it's super complicated but that will help you get an understanding of these symbols you're gonna see all over the city right now [Music] so if we entered the Gothic quarter through what was originally the north gate we've walked through the Gothic quarter and we're exiting through what was the Sea Gate back in Roman Burkina so literally you walk down the street in the middle of the Gothic and get to a point or it says porta there mud and that means the Sea Gate and so this two thousand years ago was effectively where you exited Roman Barcelona to go out to the Mediterranean which was just behind me over the years that the land has extended its being reclaimed but right here we were at the Sea Gate and so I find it fascinating and incredible how small this place was when it was Roman Barcelona and how small the Gothic quarter is it feels big because you've so easy to get lost in it but there's so much magic in here there are also public thermal Roman baths in here also guys if we keep hitting that way we'll hit lava Philadelphia that's where the seashore is these days in the 21st century and Jana and I are heading there now for a tapas after exploring this this area and guys you do need to explore the Gothic quarter in Barcelona it's beautiful and if you want to do it with us with Devourer tours you can join our toughest tamarins in history tour you'll explore all these spots you'll get extra information and you will also get delicious tapas throughout this neighborhood check the link below I'll link to that tour hope you'll join us and either way I hope you explore this amazing part of Barcelona we'll see in the next video hasta luego child