Travel Journal: Gothic Quarter and the Mercat de la Boqueria – Spain

Every two years or so, my organization holds a World Staff Conference (WSC), bringing together staff from all of our 15 offices that are located around the world. Our most recent WSC was this year in late August in Barcelona, Spain! For this trip, I also brought along my mom for a vacation after the conference was done and my friend Jodi, who was also attending the conference as a consultant, also joined us for a few extra days. As usual with my travel journals I have split up my blog posts in a way that made most sense to this particular trip. Enjoy! 

Catch up on my other posts about this trip here:
Intro – Barcelona, Spain
Girona, Catalonia, Spain
Pals and Calella de Palafrugell, Catalonia, Spain
Palau de la Musica and the Arc de Triomf
Basilica de la Sagrada Familia
Montjuic and the Olympic Park
Doors of Spain
Park Güell
Montserrat

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You can’t take a trip to Barcelona without taking a walk through the Gothic Quarter (Barri Gòtic), the narrow, Roman medieval streets that make up the heart of the old city that has been fused with modern architecture to create a unique setting to walk through. Personally, I love to see that charming fusion of the old and new culture together and the creativity that it inspires. We didn’t spend as much time here as I would have liked as there was a lot of history (including the Picasso museum!) and fun places to eat and drink that we could have gotten into, but you can never get to everything in a single trip.

The Bishop’s Bridge (Pont del Bisbe) that connects the two buildings. Though it blends in with the architecture around it, I read somewhere that it was actually built in 1928.

I loved these streets lamps!

The Gothic Quarter is also home to the Barcelona Cathedral (Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia). It was constructed between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries.

I’ve mentioned before that I love going to markets in every country I visit and the Mercat de la Boqueria definitely did not disappoint! We loved it so much that we actually went twice. It was on my list of things to do, but Mom and I stumbled across on our first day after we arrived in Barcelona in the morning and couldn’t get into our hotel room for several hours. I knew that we had to come back when we had Jodi with us. She and I first met while working at Kansas Pork together so I knew that the foodie in her was going to love it.

I am fascinated by food culture, what items and practices are unique to each place I visit, and what appears to transcend across several cultures. Markets are the best way to see this.

In a lot of the cases with cheese they had cute little animal figurines to quickly share what kind of cheese it came from.

Ok, on to the next! I’ll be back tomorrow to share my “Doors of Spain” post! Thanks for stopping by!

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And just for fun, here are some of my other past Travel Journal posts:

Italy -Six Day Self-Guided Hike, Rome, Venice, Florence and More
Nashville, Tennessee – Girls Weekend
London, England
Estes Park, Colorado
Thailand and the Philippines
Tumon Bay, Guam
New York City – Girls Weekend
Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Antigua, Guatemala