Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Theold-townareawestoftheRamblasisknownasElRaval(fromtheArabicwordfor
“suburb”) and has always formed a world apart from nobler Barri Gòtic. In mediev-
al times it was the site of hospitals, churches, monasteries and various noxious trades,
while later it acquired a reputation as the city's main red-light area, known to all (for
obscure reasons) as the Barri Xinès - China Town. Over the last two decades, however,
El Raval has changed markedly, particularly in the “upper Raval” around Barcelona's
contemporary art museum, MACBA. Cutting-edge galleries, designer restaurants and
fashionable bars are all part of the scene these days, while in the occasionally edgy
“lower Raval” are found the neighbourhood's two other outstanding buildings, namely
Gaudí's Palau Güell and the church of Sant Pau del Camp, one of the city's oldest
churches.
According to the Barcelona writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, El Raval once housed “the-
atrical homosexuals and anarcho-syndicalist, revolutionary meeting places; women's pris-
ons … condom shops and brothels which smelled of liquor and groins”. Even today in the
backstreets between c/de Sant Pau and c/Nou de la Rambla visitors may run the gauntlet
of cat-calling prostitutes and petty drug dealers, while a handful of atmospheric old bars
trade on their former reputations as bohemian hangouts. Yet the 1992 Olympics and then
EuropeanUnionfundingachievedwhatFranconevercould,andcleaneduplargepartsofthe
neighbourhood almost overnight. North of c/de l'Hospital, in the “upper Raval”, the devel-
opment of MACBA, the adjacent CCCB culture centre and new university faculty buildings
have seen entire city blocks demolished and remodelled. To the south, in the “lower Rav-
al” between c/de l'Hospital and c/de Sant Pau, a new boulevard - the
Rambla del Raval
- was gouged through the former tenements and alleys, providing a huge new pedestrian-
ized area, and the Josep Lluís Mateo-designed
Filmoteca de Catalunya
has polished away
some of Plaça Salvador Seguí's grit. At the same time the area's older, traditional residents
have gradually been supplanted by a more affluent, arty population, while there's also been
a growing influx of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and North Africa. Alongside
the surviving spit-and-sawdust bars, and new restaurants, galleries and boutiques, you'll find
specialist grocery stores, curry houses, halal butchers and hole-in-the-wall telephone offices
advertising cheap international calls.
You'd hesitate to call El Raval gentrified, as it clearly still has its rough edges. You needn't
be unduly concerned during the day as you make your way around, but it's as well to keep
your wits about you at night, particularly in the southernmost streets.