Description
Plaça Reial is a grand arcaded square in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona, just off La Rambla: palm trees, yellow arcades, a fountain of the Three Graces and two lampposts by Gaudí. It looks like a picture of order in the tangle of the old city.
The first thing to see is the fountain at the center of the square, an iron fountain of the Three Graces made in the Durenne foundry in Paris. It stands where a statue of Ferdinand the Catholic was planned.
Then look for the two lampposts of 1878, among the very first works of a freshly graduated Antoni Gaudí. They stand in the middle of the square's arcaded calm, a first hint of the architect Barcelona would soon know.
The arcades hold restaurants, outdoor terraces and some of the city's best-known nightclubs, so the square is at its liveliest after dark. The Hotel Roma Reial opens onto it, and La Rambla is close by.
The square is most popular in the summer, and during the La Mercè festival in September. On Sunday mornings coin and stamp collectors gather here. Open-air concerts take place here during the festival.
The square was born from the ruins of a convent. The Capuchin convent of Santa Madrona stood here until the riots of 1835, when it was dismantled. While the city argued over what to build instead, a temporary theater opened on the site for a few years.
In 1848 the project of Francesc Daniel Molina won: a neoclassical square closed on all sides, Barcelona's take on the Spanish plaza mayor. Queen Isabella II laid the first stone, and the buildings went up in the 1850s.
Cars were banished in the 1980s, and the square has belonged to pedestrians since. The arcades keep the shade, and the terraces spill out under the palms. It is twinned with Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City, another place famous for its nights.
The first thing to see is the fountain at the center of the square, an iron fountain of the Three Graces made in the Durenne foundry in Paris. It stands where a statue of Ferdinand the Catholic was planned.
Then look for the two lampposts of 1878, among the very first works of a freshly graduated Antoni Gaudí. They stand in the middle of the square's arcaded calm, a first hint of the architect Barcelona would soon know.
The arcades hold restaurants, outdoor terraces and some of the city's best-known nightclubs, so the square is at its liveliest after dark. The Hotel Roma Reial opens onto it, and La Rambla is close by.
The square is most popular in the summer, and during the La Mercè festival in September. On Sunday mornings coin and stamp collectors gather here. Open-air concerts take place here during the festival.
The square was born from the ruins of a convent. The Capuchin convent of Santa Madrona stood here until the riots of 1835, when it was dismantled. While the city argued over what to build instead, a temporary theater opened on the site for a few years.
In 1848 the project of Francesc Daniel Molina won: a neoclassical square closed on all sides, Barcelona's take on the Spanish plaza mayor. Queen Isabella II laid the first stone, and the buildings went up in the 1850s.
Cars were banished in the 1980s, and the square has belonged to pedestrians since. The arcades keep the shade, and the terraces spill out under the palms. It is twinned with Plaza Garibaldi in Mexico City, another place famous for its nights.