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The
Paseo de Gracia (Passage of Grace) was born as the passage that the Barcelonan used to go towards the Gràcia village, before it was converted in to the suburb that we know and love and commenced in the Portal de l’Ángel (Gate of the Angel), which there and then was the entrance to the city. The wealthiest bourgeois occupied the spacious houses that throughout the years were converted in to apartment blocks with shops on the ground floors.
Clothes shops with the most selective brands, art galleries, cinemas, restaurants, bars… all this commerce is what gives life to the extensive and wide passage where formerly the bourgeoisie would make a show of their fancy cars and the way in which they would get on a horse during the XIXth century. Although now the center of the walk is not passable, it was previously a pedestrian route surrounded by trees. It is necessary to emphasise the restaurant Tapelia, known for its speciality in rices and its avant-garde Mediterranean cuisine.
Modernism is a key piece in this passage. The visitors can admire whilst strolling past the large number of buildings of this golden age, like the Batllò House, the Milà House, both by
Antoni Gaudí, Lleó Morera house, by Domènech i Montaner, the buildings by Enric Sagnier and the bench-lampposts of
trencadís (a Catalan type of mosaic made of broken tile shards) that
Pere Falqués i Urpí designed.
It was here where the Sociedad Española de Football - Spanish Society of Football (the first name of the
RCD Espanyol) was born in 1900.