Pont del Bisbe

This guide to Pont del Bisbe in Barcelona starts with the carved skull pierced by a dagger under the bridge, and the question everyone asks about it. Though the bridge looks medieval, connecting the Palau de la Generalitat to the old canons' residence, it actually went up in 1928, designed by Joan Rubió i Bellver, who had once worked alongside Antoni Gaudí. The guide follows Rubió's much larger, rejected plan to remake the whole cathedral quarter in Gothic stone ahead of the 1929 International Exposition, and the mockery it drew from city officials and critics.