Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
gathered during fifty years of travel. Entire rooms are devoted to keys and locks, pipes, ci-
garette cards and snuffboxes, fans, gloves and brooches, playing cards, draughtsmen's tools,
walking sticks, dolls' houses, toy theatres, old gramophones and archaic bicycles, to list just
a sample of what's on show. It's an absolute joy to spend an hour or so here, uncovering
yourownfavouritepieceofephemera.Inthe
artist'slibrary
onthesecondfloor,meanwhile,
some of Marès' own reclining nudes, penitent saints and bridling stags give an insight into
his more orthodox work.
Església de Santa María del Pi and around
Liceu
With the cathedral area and Plaça del Rei sucking in every visitor at some point during the
day, the third focus of attraction in the Barri Gòtic is to the west, around the church of Santa
María del Pi - five minutes' walk from the cathedral or just two minutes from the Ramblas.
Església de Santa María del Pi
Pl.SantJosepOriol•Mon-Fri9.30-11am&6-8.30pm,Sat5.30-8.30pm,Sun9.30am-3pm•Churchfreedur-
ing general admission times, otherwise €3 (obligatory Mon-Fri 11am-6pm, Sat 10am-3pm, Sun 4-8pm) •
basilicadelpi.com
• Liceu
Thefourteenth-century
EsglésiadeSantaMaríadelPi
standsattheheartofthreedelightful
little squares. Burned out during the Civil War fighting in 1936, and restored in the 1960s,
the church boasts a Romanesque door but is mainly Catalan-Gothic in style, with just a
single nave with chapels between the buttresses. The rather plain interior only serves to set
off some marvellous stained glass, the most impressive of which is contained within a ten-
metre-wide rose window. Its treasure room glitters with chalices and ornate reliquaries, one
of which dates back to the Renaissance, and the adjoining small museum covers the church's
1000-year history.
Plaça Sant Josep Oriol and around
The Santa María del Pi church flanks
Plaça Sant Josep Oriol
, the prettiest of the three
adjacent squares, an ideal place to take an outdoor coffee, listen to the buskers or browse
the weekend
artists' market
(Sat 11am-8pm, Sun 11am-2pm). The statue here is of Àngel
Guimerà, nineteenth-century Catalan playwright and poet, who had a house on the square.
Meanwhile, off Plaça Sant Josep Oriol, the old town's
antiquestrade
is concentrated in glit-
tering galleries and stores along c/de la Palla and c/dels Banys Nous.
Plaça del Pi and Carrer de Petritxol
The church of Santa María del Pi is named - like the squares on either side,
Plaça del Pi
and Placeta del Pi - after the pine trees that once stood here (there's a solitary example still
in Plaça del Pi). A
farmers' market
spills across Plaça del Pi on the first and third Fri-
