The Esquerra Eixample and the university
A cloistered university garden, a working market, and an old factory turned campus. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Universitat de Barcelona — Edifici Històric
Elies Rogent's 19th-century main building, half Romanesque, half Mudéjar, fronting *Gran Via*. Walk in — it's a working university, not a museum — and head straight through to the cloisters; the public is tolerated as long as you're quiet.

2. The cloister gardens
Two courtyard gardens behind the facade, with orange trees, a pond and students reading on the stone benches. The single best free sit-down in this part of town, and almost nobody who isn't enrolled knows to come in.

3. Mercat del Ninot
The neighbourhood's everyday food market, restored and glassy, with fishmongers and a clutch of counter bars at the back. Less of a spectacle than the famous markets, which is the point — this is where the *Esquerra* actually shops and lunches.

4. Escola Industrial
An old textile factory — the Batlló works — turned into a campus a century ago, its brick courtyards now open to walk through. The *Paranimf* and the chapel are the set pieces; the wide courtyard is the calm.

5. An Eixample interior garden
Several blocks here have had their courtyards opened to the public — a quiet pocket of green hidden inside the grid, exactly what Cerdà intended before the developers built over them. Step into any open one you pass; permission is the whole idea.

6. The Gaixample by day
The blocks around *Carrer del Consell de Cent* are the city's gay quarter — loud at night, easy and ordinary by afternoon, with good coffee and unhurried terraces. End here, then drop to *Hospital Clínic* for the metro.

The Esquerra Eixample and the university