Starting at the water, I walked what was the decumanus maximus and continued on the same vector as far as I could go. Remarkably, I walked almost four and a half miles and climbed over 730 feet in elevation in straight line. This transect revealed different cultures of space.
Walking out from the oldest part of Barcelona (2000 year old Barcino) the people on the street were predominantly tourists.
At the intersection of the Cardo and Decumanus Maximus. there is a plaza - a modern day forum. And like the Roman forum, this plaza is surrounded by important government buildings (Catalan Senate house and the Mayoral offices of Barcelona).
As I walked out of Barcino I joined a river of people on Ave del Portal del Angel, a promenade along the famous department store El Corte Ingles. Having just come from the somewhat empty medieval part with its cathedrals, this sudden burst of shoppers was jarring. Is consumption the new religion?
As I continued past Placa de Catalunya I was reminded of Union Square in NYC. The pace, the traffic, the energy, as well as the urban form. Spatially, these two places feel very similar. Will have to compare these two squares at scale on a map at some point. I continued along Paseo de Gracia, Barcelona's Fifth Ave, Chome 5, Nanjing Rd West. High end retail in noble 19th century buildings, nostalgic cafes. The people in this part are a mix of tourists, international businesspeople, and locals.
As I continued I entered Gracia, a denser, older neighborhood that used to be an autonomous town before Barcelona annexed it. Gracia felt much more like a neighborhood, with regular people going about their lives. I saw very few tourists.
Coming out of Gracia, the grade began to steepen and I was quickly in the hills. Now the grain of the city was less dense and I saw few people on the street. Cars were driving much faster. Buildings were newer. No retail, no restaurants, the occasional cafe.
Still further I passed a soccer field in full use, and realized it was part of a complex that decked over a major freeway (B-5). This enabled me to continue on my path uninterrupted (no freeway obstruction, barrier, overpass - I didn’t even know it was there until I looked at the map and saw I was standing over it. I walked another quarter mile before a housing complex that could have been somewhere outside Denver ended the path.
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