Mercat of Sant Antoni: Restored Market to Open in 2018

After 8 years of work, the remodeled Mercat de Sant Antoni is expected to be open to the public during the first months of 2018. With an important investment made by its own market stand owners and the local government, around 60 million EUR all in all, another jewel in the history of Barcelona, will be recovered in all its splendor. Do not expect it to be just like La Boqueria or at least that is the intention of the project that seems very concerned with the avalanche of tourists in Las Ramblas.

The addition of more space, including two new squares plus the inclusion of a small museum (an archeological excavation site has unveiled part of the old city walls and Via Augusta) promise to make this 135 old market something more important than just a collection of stands. There will be 4 underground floors, two for parking lots, 1 for storage and 1 for commercial areas.

The origin of the Mercat de Sant Antoni is a remnant of the 13th century Mercat dels Encants, a marginal market outside the walls that was moved to Carrer del Consolat in 1850. In 1882, Rovira i Trias finished building the iron market, and there were almost no houses in its surroundings, the working class neighborhood of El Raval.

Update 02/02/2018: According to several sources the restored Mercat de Sant Antoni will be opened by the end of April or beginnings of May. Local retailers have accepted the proposal of using awnings for the Sunday market and the book market. Such awnings will be located in the areas which were previously the market yards, now regained for public use. Lighter retractable metal canopies in a highly resistant metal structure will be used.

3, 2, 1, Queso!

It may seem like taking a photo is as easy as pressing a button on a camera, but therein lies the difference between a quick snap and art. Anybody can take a picture; children can do it, even a dog could probably do it if you trained it to. It’s not the action that captures the moment, but what the moment in itself is that you are capturing; it’s what you see behind the camera from your own eyes which is often the hardest thing for the camera to be able to interpret. Barcelona has within it everything that you could wish to capture on camera.

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Where To Start

You don’t need a top of the range DSLR to get started - this will probably slow you down and put you off what you’re doing if you don’t understand what all of the different modes are and how they can be utilised within photography. You will need something that is a great example of an entry-level camera, such as a Nikon 3300D. If you bundle up and get a kit which includes the lens that you need to capture different scenes such as portraits and landscapes, you’ll be doing yourself a favour in the long-run as your passion grows (and it will grow fast!). Find some local photography workshops to attend to get yourself to grips with what you’ve got or are going to get. The best tips are learned from the experts, and you can then expand on these to suit you and your own shooting style. Everybody has their own different ways of taking a picture, just as everybody has a different approach to cooking, painting or driving a car; it’s your take on things which will make your photos personal to you. 

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What To Shoot

Barcelona offers some of the best sights and buildings to practise your photography on. Palau de la Musica Catalana, the famous music hall, offers so many astounding and unique shots with natural light flooding through its big, open space. The stained glass windows filter through dapples of colours which in turn reflect off the furniture and decorations within the hall. If you prefer to shoot outside, walk along and take in all of Gaudi’s fantastic architecture which adorns the city. The free movement of the lines of his buildings is unlike anything anywhere else in the world, and with so many angles to aim, there is sure to be a shot within your camera’s memory that you have taken that hasn’t been captured by anyone before. Especially with the continual work of La Sagrada Família expecting to last another 20 years, there is always going to be something new to snap. From buildings you can then move on to people; street art is a fascinating subject, and no more so than on the streets of Barcelona. Be sure to keep it as natural as possible and capture people as they are going about their day-to-day lives. A picture tells a thousand words

Nocturne Carnival Thoughts in Some Barcelona Bar

Carnival in Barcelona or in any other part of the world is not just parading and dancing like a wild animal in costumes. Carnival is an attitude, a change of look, a detachment from the usual you and in a way, a special opportunity to release the inner child that still dwells in there somewhere. This girl wearing strange glasses and big flowers in her hair in the most pure bailaora de flamenco style and with reminiscences of La Martirio, has a cool glamorous something under the mysterious lights of the Carnival night and is indeed a good example of what I meant.