The Boqueria market es daughter of a long history going back to the Middle Ages. The oldest records we know of date to 1217. At this time la Rambla was a brook surrounded by walls and, at this place a kings representative gave a local a display from which to butcher "boc" (Catalan for mountain goat), and from here the name Boqueria. It is more than 160 years since the first merchants moved to the old convent of St. Josep, forming what is now "the Boqueria Market" - "El Mercat de la Boqueria".

 

The placing of the first stone was on St. Joseps Day in 1840, accompanied by a very eloquent ritual; an ounce of gold, along with different denominations of gold coins, were placed below that first stone, as a symbol of the richness that the market would produce. In 1871 gas lanterns replaced the candles and by the end of the century electricity had arrived. Still open-air, in 1914 the land and Maritime Machinist constructed the metal roof that we can today admire. With an area of 13.631 m2, La Boqueria, is the largest market in Spain. Our privileged position, whitch has as its hall the inmense bouquet of flowers that is la rambla, has made us for many years the building most visited in Barcelona.

 

Let yourself be seduced by La Boqueria, let that you fall in love with its passages of unknown smells, the mosaic of colours of its exotic fruits, the aromatic message of its strawberries or the severe smell of its salted fish, the bull recently butchered, the Mediterranean jewel with its great display of silver fish....

 

As someone once said..., if the unicorn existed it would be sold here...