Barcelona’s Unique City-Scape

Arriving in Barcelona my expectations of what the city would look like were far different from the reality – especially due to the neighborhood within which I reside. As the capital of tourism in Spain, I pictured a traditional hustling and bustling city with traffic and tall buildings. However, as my taxi from the airport approached my neighborhood, I noticed it became increasingly harder for him to drive, and he began circling around this one area until informing me that I would have to walk the rest of the way. Confused and tired, I exited the cab and began walking the rest of the way. Slowly I began to understand why my taxi driver had experienced such trouble.

Rather than a typical city-scape with wide streets and lanes for cars, Gothic Quarter, Barcelona is filled with tiny, narrow alley ways that branch off of tiny, one-way streets – most of which are only wide enough for human traffic or mopeds and bicycles. It’s almost as though you are transported back in time. Though the buildings are not nearly as tall as any building you would find in a major city within the US, the proximity of them make them feel tall and enclosing as you stroll through the endless maze of shops with apartments fixated above. This enclosing feeling often makes it difficult to fully grasp where I am at any given time, and makes it nearly impossible to see structures and buildings beyond the street you are currently walking on. So far, this has been one of my favorite parts of the city, for stumbling upon grand, historical constructs is an every-day activity.