La Rambla of Barcelona is the long street that from Plaça de Catalunya, center of the city, leads to a few meters from the sea, where there is the Christopher Columbus Monument, el Mirador de Colón. According to someone Barcelona without the Rambla would be nothing because many people think the spirit of the city is concentrated there; according to others this street is considered as the best place where you can indulge in the Spanish ritual of paseo, or passeig as they call it in Catalunya.
In reality the Rambla is nothing else but a cauldron in which every day mimes from the doubtful abilities and distasteful living statues, buskers, caricaturists, sellers that try to saddle you with everything, ad-libbed fortune tellers take service. In short, you will find on this street anyone who has had to invent a job somehow or other. The only merit of these people? Not choosing to become pickpockets. Perhaps they would find much more fierce competition.
I do not think these are the characteristics of a place that wants to be a symbol of a city and letter of introduction for tourists. Have you seen that one in the picture? I leave you decide if he makes crying or laughing. In any case, I would not get a photo with him.
Furthermore all the streets that constitute the district of El Raval flow onto the Rambla. We are talking about the old Barri Xino (namely the old Barcelonan 'Chinatown'), today a popular district essentially populated by plenty of Pakistanis, Moroccans, Filipinos and Romanians immigrants many of them living on the edge of society. A den of pickpockets at any time of day and night offering live performances of robbery both in the streets of the Raval and on the Rambla, gypsies who sell flowers under the pretext of trying to take off your wallets and cheats inviting you to play the game of three bells.
You will realize you were talking with a snatcher only when, on leaving, you will find your pockets lighter. So, watch out to unknown people who try to chat up with you, seeming nice and trying not let you go until they have finished their job. Probably they will ask you questions about where you bought your trousers or about how much you paid for your belt to start to get their hands on and take off something from your pockets, provided that they have not done it before in the confusion of the crowd.
The market of prostitution deserves a separate mention. Especially overnight, but also during the day, in the innermost streets of the neighbourhood it offers bad taste scenes in Barcelona. Would you have a good time walking at night in the surroundings of what should be one of the greatest market in Europe (we are talking about the market of Boqueria) and find condoms thrown all over to be shifted with your feet, if not even shameless sexual performances offered by young girls kneeling or bending ahead to their clients between the columns of the market?
If this should be the symbol of a city, then so much better to live in the desert.
