My husband and I arrived in Barcelona at 7:30 in the morning. That is something I’m not sure I would do again. One of the things you’re supposed to do when travelling through several time zones (we are eight hours apart) is to follow the new location’s as closely as possible. This was pretty hard because it meant being awake for another 15 hours after arriving! So what to do?
Well, like most travelers, we headed for La Ramblas. La Ramblas is basically a wide pedestrian only street with thousands of tourists and overpriced souvenir shops – very pretty with flower stalls but not particularly my cup of tea. But it’s what’s off to the side of this street that is very interesting and one of the most interesting is La Bouqueria.
La Bouqueria is a market – a foodie’s “wet dream”. The following includes excerpts from the following web site: http://www.boqueria.info/index.php?lang=en
In Catalonia, towns and cities have been founded around markets and the same rings true for La Boqueria. It originated as an open-air market, in front of one of the gates of the old city wall (Placa de la Boqueria) where fruit and vegetable traders from local towns and farms near by would sell their products.
As the market’s popularity grew, farmers from neighbouring towns, such as Les Corts and Sarrià were stopped from trading here. As the competition within the market grew increasingly fierce, there would be arguments and fights between the old greengrocers and the new ones.
Today the products at this market vary greatly: fresh fish and sea food; salty fish; tinned food; butchery and offal; birds; game and eggs; fruits and vegetables; herbs; delicatessen; breads and pastries; restaurants; frozen items; artisan products; charcuterie; farmers’ shops; wine; and even a Greek and an Italian hand made pasta stall have joined the consortium/maelstrom that keeps La Boqueria alive.
In 2005 La Bouqueria was awarded the top prize for the best market in the world by the World Markets Congress held in Washington DC. Now they have even added a cooking school!
Needless to say we enjoyed spending several hours staring, sipping and eating the delicious food this market had to offer. If you ever get a chance to go to Barcelona don’t miss La Bouqueria.
Johanne Yakula 
We LOVED this market -especially the cheeses! and I agree with your take on Los Ramblas. We were told to visit a certain small restaurant on a street parallel a few blocks over because it was not a tourist place ( although other European visitors were also there) It specializes in cod dishes–so good we returned the next evening with others from our hotel to share a variety of entrees featuring cod.
It’s always more interesting to go off the beaten path isn’t it? The tourist areas are always middle-of-the-road because they try to appeal to more general tastes. We always ask to locals’ recommendations on where to eat. One of our favorites in the Eixample district where we had our apartment was “La Musceleria” which, you guessed it, offers more than 40 ttypes of sauces and seasonings for muscles. Yum!
Everything looks so yummy!
It was. Every booth was different and being the display geek that I am I absolutely loved the way the stall owners showed off their foods. My only regret was not being able to see “Juan Bayan” at the famous Pinotxo Bar.