Barcelona

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La Boqueria

La Rambla 89

Barcelona’s most central food market outstrips all the rest. Visitors and residents alike never tire of wandering the hectic, colourful aisles and ogling the gory spectacle of tripe and sheep heads, the flailing pincers of live crabs and crayfish, bins of nuts, tubs of aromatic olives and sacks of herbs and spices. Packed under an impressive vaulted glass and iron structure, the succession of stalls are a cacophony of buying and selling – each one brimming with local produce. Don’t miss Llorenç Petràs’s woodland stall of mushrooms and insect goodies, at the back. If it all makes you hungry, there are some great places to eat incomparably fresh food, if you can hack the noise and are prepared to pull up a stool at a frenzied bar.

However, be sure to steer clear of the conspicuous stalls near the front, as their neatly stacked picture-perfect piles of fruit, mounds of sweets, candied fruit and nuts and ready-to-eat fruit salads are designed to ensnare tourists and have the prices to match. The Barcelona authorities seem to have cottoned on to the market’s potential as tourist attraction and are capitalising on it with a range of Boqueria merchandise, available from a stall near the entrance.

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