El Born and La Ribera: the people's cathedral
Santa Maria del Mar, the excavated streets under the old market, and the best vermut hour in the city. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Basílica de Santa Maria del Mar
The people's cathedral — built fast, in the fourteenth century, by the dockworkers and merchants of the *barri* (neighbourhood) rather than by kings. Go in: the columns are set wide and the light is the whole point. Free for the first hours of the day.

2. El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria
Under the iron roof of the old market, the excavated streets of the city Felipe V flattened in 1714. You can walk above the foundations on a raised gangway, free, and the café in the hall is a fair place to sit.

3. Passeig del Born
The wide promenade that runs from the basilica to the old market — once the city's jousting ground, now lined with bars under the plane trees. The *carrers* (streets) off either side are where the smaller places hide.

4. Carrer de Montcada
A single medieval street of merchant palaces, built when this was the richest *barri* in the city. Several now hold museums and galleries behind their courtyards. Walk it slowly and look up at the gates.

5. Museu Picasso
Five linked Gothic palaces holding the painter's early Barcelona years — the work before he was Picasso. Book ahead; the queue on the street is long and the courtyards inside are worth the timed entry.

6. The vermut bars off the Passeig
Late afternoon is *vermut* (the midday vermouth) hour — a glass of sweet red on ice with an olive, in one of the small bars on the lanes around the *passeig*. Stand at the bar rather than sit; that is where the *barri* drinks.

El Born and La Ribera: the people's cathedral