In this neighbourhood, you will find a mix between tradition and modernity. Historic buildings stand beside art galeries, innovative shops and hip restaurants.
Note that the majority of streetnames in this district refer to professions, because this was the district where artesans were concentrated.
You cannot neglect the active nightlife of this district either. You will find a large gastronomic offer (tapas, Mediterranean cuisine, international cuisine, fusion, etc.) and lots of places where you can enjoy live music, dance or just have a drink.
We start our route in the street Argentería, peatonal street, full of restaurants, shops and ideal to have some tapas or to go shopping. At the end of this street, you will find the church "Santa Maria del Mar", symbol of this district. It was built in de 13th century. It has an extreme beauty and is considered as one of the examples of Catalan gotic movement. Don't forget to go inside, with its large structure of the 15th century, you will surely be impressed. If you have the chance to assist to a concert in this church, you will enjoy an excelent acoustic.
In the square before the church, you will find the "Fossar de les Moreres", a symbolic sculpture for those who died while defending Barcelona during the Borbon invasion in 1914 are burried. In their honour, you will find the text that says: "in the Fossar de les Moreres, you will not find traitors. Until we have lost our flags, this will be an urn of honour".
Behind the Santa Maria del Mar, the pitoresc "Passeig del Born" starts, scene of tournaments until the second half of the 17th century. Currently, you will find a lot of restaurants, bars, alternative shops, sofisticated shops and modern and bohemian places. In the end, you can see the "Mercat del Born", a good example of the architecture with iron that was very popular during the second half of the 19th century. In this market, you can see the remnants of the city from the 18th century.
On the other side of Santa Maria del Mar starts the street "Montcada", full of museums and art galeries. It is worth walking through it to find some palaces from the gothic era, for example: Museo Textil y de Indumentaria on number 12; Palacio Nadal on numbner 14; Museo Picasso on numbers 15-19; Palacio Dalmases on number 20 and Palacio Cervelló on number 25.
We can recommend you to stop in the bar "Xampanyet", a little place full of life, always full, where you can taste the Catalan sausages, tortilla de patata with bread and tomotoes and many other things. All of this has to be accompanied with "xampanyet", a sparkling wine. Finally, have a "caquinyolis" with "moscatell" as dessert.
To end this itinary, you can have a look at the train station Estación de França, built for the Universal Exposition in 1929.