Whether you have visited Barcelona or you live in it, there are probably many things that you don’t know about the city. They are curiosities, historical data that are not always available to everyone, even not to the always attentive tourist. To realize certain details of this wonderful city you must have read a lot about it, or have someone to advise you on that. To save you some time and explanations, from ShBarcelona we explain to you 5 of the curiosities you’ll find on the streets of Barcelona and we invite you to discover much more while strolling and exploring them.
–Hercules fountain, the unknown work of Gaudí: the work of the architect is in the gardens of the Royal Palace of Pedralbes and was discovered recently, in 1984, after a cleaning work carried out on the site. The fountain is attributed to Antoni Gaudí and built in 1884 for the Güell family with the idea of recreating the legend of the Garden of the Hesperides.
–Old Roman aqueduct in the Plaza March 8: If you walk through this square you’ll find four arches of an ancient Roman aqueduct of the late first century BC. This construction supplied the city of Barcino (as it was known Barcelona at the time) of water from the Besòs river. It was not until 1988 that these remains were discovered after a next door house demolition , which had taken advantage of the arches to construct the building foundation.
–“Carassa” on Mirallers Street (big face): not that time ago ordinary people could not read or write, so, stores or places in the city had to be indicated on drawings or sculptures. In this case, on a Mirallers Street corner, you will find the face (“carassa” is the face superlative in Catalan) of a sculpted woman, indicating that near there was a brothel to the potential customers.
–The Façade of horror and tragedy in the church of Sant Felip Neri: this square from which we have spoken on other occasions, is somewhat hidden between the streets of the Gothic Quarter. On the facade of the church of the same name, you will see even the flaws that caused the shrapnel from a bomb during the heavy bombardment of January the 30th, 1938 in Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War. The bombing killed 42 people, mostly San Felip Neri school children.
-The Barça fans are called “culés”, why?: you probably don’t know that the Barça fans are colloquially called “culés” (plural). But few know that this name is because, between 1909 and 1922, the club played in a stadium of small size located in the Industry Street. Its size caused that fans of the soccer team had to sit on the wall with their back facing the street and when people passed by they called them “culers”, something like “bottoms” in English. Hence they ended up calling “culés” by the pronunciation of the word.
