Mercat de la Boqueria

This guide to Mercat de la Boqueria in Barcelona begins on the night of Saint James in 1835, when a mob of liberals set fire to convent after convent along the Rambla, reaching the Carmelite convent that once stood on this ground. It follows what the city fathers saw in the blackened lot afterward, and the market traders who started dragging their tables onto the ashes within months. Notice the grand fountains and columns the early planners imagined, and how little of that grandeur actually got built.