When Hercules arrived in these parts, the district north along the coast from old Barcelona which we now call Pueblo Nuevo or Poblenou was still open sea. Lluvial deposits from the Besòs mini-delta to the north led to marshes, inhabited by witches and fishermen and fed by whatever was left of victims of the Inquisition. Dutchmen built drains amid the farms and the executioner’s dumping ground was replaced by a great
rationalist cemetery, populated by a fine selection of saints and scoundrels, while the living gradually made way for industrial entrepreneurs, engineers and labourers. These people built hovels, working men’s associations, and some rather fine houses, alongside gypsies and members of a crazy French millenarian communist sect. This unstable mixture exploded on various occasions, most famously in the Civil War, giving rise in 1939 to a concentration camp in one of the district’s underused factories. This walk introduces you to all of this and drops you off at the beach or in town.