40 Fun Facts About La Rambla

Before it began turning into a street in the 15th century, what ran along the course of La Rambla?

A seasonal stream, usually dry, drained rainwater off the hills until it was diverted outside new walls in 1440. The promenade's wavy paving still nods to it.

Which artist created the colourful 1970s mosaic set into the pavement of Barcelona's La Rambla?

Joan Miró grew up a short walk away in the Gothic Quarter. His mosaic is so much a part of the paving that many people cross it without noticing.

By legend, what happens to anyone who drinks from the lamp-topped fountain at the top of La Rambla?

They return to the city, a promise spelled out in an inscription on the ground beside it. The ornate fountain has stood on the spot since 1892.

Which covered food market, first recorded in 1217 as meat stalls by a city gate, opens off La Rambla?

La Boqueria began as open-air tables selling meat near a gate in the old wall, and waited until 1914 for the metal roof it has today.

Which opera house on La Rambla, opened in 1847, was long the largest in Europe by capacity?

The Liceu held that record for more than a century. It grew out of a music school's student productions, which is why its name means lyceum.

Which American landmark was symbolically married to La Rambla's Columbus Monument in Las Vegas in 1992?

The Statue of Liberty was the bride in the artist Miralda's Honeymoon Project, launched in 1986, with Barcelona's Columbus Monument as the groom.

What were the open-air stalls on the Rambla dels Estudis stretch of La Rambla long known for selling?

Caged birds and other small pets were sold there until animal protection laws forced the stallholders out after years of legal fights.

Casa Bruno Cuadros on La Rambla, with a dragon jutting from its corner, once housed a shop selling what?

Umbrellas gave the building its nickname, Casa dels Paraigües, and one still hangs beneath the corner dragon as a sign of the trade. Fans decorate the façade above.

Which architect designed the ornate lampposts in Plaça Reial, the palm-lined square just off La Rambla?

Antoni Gaudí's lampposts stand among the palms of a square that fills with open-air concerts during the La Mercè festival each September.

Which large square at the northern end of La Rambla is generally considered the centre of Barcelona?

Plaça de Catalunya covers about 50,000 square metres and is known for its fountains, statues and the flocks of pigeons that gather in the middle.

How do visitors reach the viewing platform atop the Columbus Monument at the foot of La Rambla?

By elevator, inside the column itself: the cabin rises through the shaft to a platform just beneath the explorer's feet.

The Columbus Monument at the foot of La Rambla was built for which event of 1888?

A world's fair, the 1888 Universal Exposition, was the occasion. Most of the money was raised privately, and all the labour and materials were Catalan.

La Rambla's Columbus Monument recalls the explorer's report to which two monarchs after his first voyage?

Ferdinand and Isabella received him in Barcelona, a meeting shown on one of the eight bronze reliefs set around the monument's plinth.

A copy of La Rambla's Columbus Monument stands in a Spanish-themed park in which country?

Japan has one at Shima Spanish Village, a theme park in Mie Prefecture. Miniature versions also stand in model parks near Barcelona and in Brussels.

La Rambla divides the Gothic Quarter from which western neighbour, long known for its nightlife?

El Raval lay outside the earliest walls, and its name means the suburb. Factories and workers' housing later filled it.

The square at the top of La Rambla is where the old town meets which 19th-century grid district?

Eixample means expansion. Its square blocks have chamfered corners, so the streets widen at every crossroads.

Rambla de Sant Josep, the middle stretch of La Rambla, is nicknamed for its open-air stalls selling what?

Flowers have been sold from stalls on this stretch since the middle of the 19th century, earning it the second name Rambla de les Flors.

Which kind of tree, the usual choice since 1859, shades the central promenade of Barcelona's La Rambla?

Plane trees followed a run of other species: the street was lined with elms, then with acacias planted in 1832, before the planes took over.

Which Spanish poet said La Rambla was the only street in the world he wished would never end?

Federico García Lorca knew Barcelona well: his play Mariana Pineda opened there to great acclaim in 1927, with stage sets by Salvador Dalí.

Which lamp-topped fountain of 1892 shares its name with the uppermost stretch of La Rambla?

Font de Canaletes is one of a family: in 1888 the city ordered a set of four fountain-lampposts, and the plan later grew to fourteen.

Barça fans celebrate at the fountain at the top of La Rambla because what stood facing it in the 1930s?

A newspaper office: the paper, itself called La Rambla, chalked up match results on a board outside, and the crowds have kept coming ever since.

The big food market on La Rambla has a name thought to come from the Catalan word for which animal?

Goat, boc in Catalan, is the likely root, marking a place where goat meat was sold. The French boucherie, a butcher's shop, is a cousin of the word.

Which UNESCO-listed mansion just off La Rambla has a phoenix sculpture between its two iron gates?

Palau Güell was built in the 1880s for the industrial tycoon Eusebi Güell, whose guests rode in by horse-drawn carriage through its arched gateways.

The opera house on La Rambla was paid for by private shareholders, so it was built without which feature?

A royal box was left out because no monarch paid for the building. The shareholders took permanent rights to boxes and seats of their own instead.

What twice destroyed the opera house on La Rambla, first in 1861 and again in 1994?

A fire struck in 1861 and again in 1994, when a spark fell on the curtain during a routine repair. The rebuilt house reopened in 1999.

The Teatre Principal on La Rambla, Barcelona's oldest theatre, was founded so its profits could fund what?

A hospital, the Holy Cross, was given land on the street so that plays could help pay its bills, and the theatre got a monopoly on drama in the city.

The Virreina Palace on La Rambla was built in the 1770s for a Spanish viceroy of which territory?

Peru was governed by Manuel d'Amat from 1761 to 1776. The palace is named for his wife: virreina means vicereine.

What was built for centuries in the Drassanes, the great Gothic halls near the foot of La Rambla?

War galleys for the Aragonese fleet took shape there, twelve at once in 1423. The halls now hold the city's maritime museum.

The wooden Rambla de Mar walkway carries La Rambla out over the harbour to which shopping and leisure centre?

Maremagnum is a mall of shops, bars, restaurants and cinemas in the old harbour, a run-down zone of warehouses and railway yards before its renewal for the 1992 Olympics.

Which harbour at the foot of La Rambla is now largely given over to pleasure craft?

Port Vell was hard-won: storms kept filling the anchorage with sand, and in 1743 a huge sandbank closed it, trapping ships inside.

On Sant Jordi's Day each April, when La Rambla fills with stalls, people exchange roses and which other gift?

Books joined the roses after Spain's Book Day, first held in October 1926, was moved to 23 April, the date linked to the death of Cervantes.

Which writer described gun battles around the Poliorama theatre on La Rambla in Homage to Catalonia?

George Orwell was on leave from the front in May 1937 when fighting broke out between rival factions on his own side, and he was caught up in it.

Plaça Reial, the arcaded square beside La Rambla, was laid out on the site of what demolished building?

A convent of Capuchin friars, Santa Madrona, stood there until 1835. The same order gave the nearby stretch of the street its name.

The Church of Bethlehem on La Rambla is the last trace of a 1553 college of which Catholic order?

Jesuits founded the college in 1553 and were expelled from Spain in 1767. Their church, rebuilt after a fire in 1671, is all that still stands.

Which hobbyists traditionally gather at weekends in Plaça Reial, the porticoed square just off La Rambla?

Stamp and coin collectors meet there on weekends, a quiet trade for a square better known for its restaurants and nightclubs.

The word rambla, as in Barcelona's La Rambla, comes from a word for sand in which language?

Arabic gave Catalan the word, from raml, sand. The same root lies behind the name of Ramla, a city in Israel.

The pavement mosaic on La Rambla was designed to welcome visitors arriving in Barcelona by which route?

By sea, since the street leads straight up from the harbour. It was one of three works the artist planned to greet arrivals by land, sea and air.

The bronze Columbus at the foot of La Rambla points with his right hand and holds what in his left?

A scroll is in his left hand, often read as a sea chart. The bronze figure was sculpted by Rafael Atché.

Which animals sit in pairs beside the four staircases at the base of La Rambla's Columbus Monument?

Lions flank each staircase of the circular base, while higher up winged victories and paired griffins crowd the pedestal.

Plaça Reial, the palm-lined square off La Rambla, is twinned with Plaza Garibaldi in which Latin American capital?

Mexico City's Plaza Garibaldi is known as the home of mariachi music, with bands playing for visitors through the day and night.