Re-discovering busking in Las Ramblas – the most famous street of Barcelona

La Rambla or Las Ramblas (which is the plural form) is the most famous street of Barcelona. It’s in fact a series of shorter streets (hence the plural form), connecting Placa Catalunya to the Christopher Columbus Monument. Before writing this post, I looked at the wiki description for Las Ramblas – which described it as ‘a 1.2 kilometer-long tree-lined pedestrian mall between Barri Gòtic and El Raval‘. However, going by how crowded the street is, I’d rather describe it as ‘pedestrian-lined‘!

If I were to describe Las Ramblas in 5 words, I’d say ‘Crowded, Touristy, Expensive, Pickpockets and Buskers‘. The first four are fairly obvious, as they are all correlated – one encourages the other. The one that piques my curiosity are the buskers (i.e. street performers). You’d find here all styles of buskers – Still-standers (is there a better word for that?), instant artists, card/dice tricks (these ones I consider almost synonymous with conmen), guitar players to break-dancers.

Well, busking is becoming a popular activity, almost an ‘art-form’, these days in so many cities. So, when I got a chance to see it in more detail in Barcelona, I stayed  to watch and take some photos. And I got some interesting behind-the-curtains shots of buskers!

The still-standers do move after all! This ‘witch’ had a long chat with the cyclist, and kissed him goodbye as he cycled away!

She really isn't a witch after all!

The street-artists, who always have these catalogue of paintings ready to sell but you’d never see them actually paint, do actually draw and paint!

Artists actually draw!

And this is the best one – this evil looking character, who earns his living standing still,surprising people and posing in scary photos, is in fact one Mr William Roberto who wears glasses and suits up in his ‘real’ life (click on the next picture to see the zoomed-in version)!

The evil busker!

Mr William Roberto!

Have you seen any interesting buskers around who provided an unforgettable experience? 🙂