Our Barcelona walking tour with local guide Sandra Benzal is bringing us from the old Gothic quarter into La Ribera. This street separates the Gothic quarter from another historical quarter where we are now called La Ribera.
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Ribera, in Spanish means "by the waterside." This was a neighborhood that started to be populated outside the Roman walls 1200s, 13th-century. There was no more space there to live, so merchants and seafaring people, the guilds of craftsmen, come to live here next to the sea. The street still carry nowadays the names of the guilds. That for example, had their workshops and homes there. Like the street is called Argentaria, Carrer de l'Argentaria. Argent means silver. That's in Catalan language, yes. Carrer means street. So let's say the Gothic quarter was a political and religious center of the city, while here was a little bit more poorer quarter, more modest quarter, with merchants, seafaring people, artisans, okay.
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