When you have a free day during your internship, you have the possibility to visit Barcelona. Maybe this internship is your first experience abroad, or beside for your internship you’ve never had been in Spain before or you just has never been in Barcelona. Here are some advices to go in Barcelona when you have a free day during your internship. Take the train to the station called Barcelona Plaça Catalunya. You arrived at Plaça Catalunya.

The way you will follow in this route, is the way till the harbor of Barcelona. In this route you will walk everything. There is a street that connects Plaça Catalunya with the harbor. This street is one of the busiest and most famous streets in Barcelona and is called La Rambla. When you walk down La Rambla you will see half your way a nice little market. It is called Mercat de Boqueria.

Here you can get a lot of different kinds of food. After you have seen the Mercat de Boqueria, you will continue your way toward the harbor of Barcelona. In front of the harbor you will see a monument, called Mirador de Colom. This monument is here to honour Christopher Columbus, because he came back in the harbour of Barcelona after he discovered America. From Mirador de Colom you walk to the metro station called Drassanes. From there you can take the metro with the green signs (L3), back to Plaça Catalunya. From there you can take the train back to your destination.

If you do your internship in Spain, you will have a free day. We advise you to visit Barcelona. You cannot miss Plaça Catalunya, a big square in Barcelona that was generally considered to be the centre of Barcelona and also to function as meeting point between the 19th century part of Barcelona and the old city of Barcelona, called La Ciutat Vella.

Plaça Catalunya is always crowded because it is the centre of Barcelona where people arrive by the train to visit the famous street called La Rambla. They also visit Plaça Catalunya to go to another famous street, called Passeig de Gràcia. This street, near Plaça Catalunya, is one of the most important shopping and business area in Barcelona witch have a great amount of pieces of architecture as well.

Plaça Catalunya has an area of about 50.000 square meters. It is especially known for its fountains and statues, its proximity to some of Barcelona's most popular attractions.

We have also to mention La Rambla, which is a street in central Barcelona, popular not only with tourists, but also with the local habitants. La Rambla is a 1.2 kilometer-long tree-lined pedestrian street that connects Plaça Catalunya with the Christoper Columbus monument, located at Port Vale, the harbour of Barcelona.

La Rambla can be considered a series of shorter streets, each differently named, hence the plural forms Las Ramblas. From Plaça Catalunya toward the harbor, the street is successively the Rambla de Canaletes, the Rambla dels Estudis, the Rambla de Sant Josep, the Rambla dels Caputxins, and the Rambla de Santa Monica.

La Rambla can be crowded, especially during the tourist season. Most of the time, there are more tourists than locals occupying the Rambla. This has changed the shopping selection, as well as the character of the street in general.

The name rambla means an intermittent water flow, and is derived from the Arabic word 'ramla' which means 'sandy riverbed'.

Another place to visit is The Mercat de Boqueria, a large public market in the Ciutat Vella district, the old part of Barcelona. It is one of the city's foremost tourist landmarks, with an entrance from La Rambla.

The first mention of the Boqueria market in Barcelona dates from 1217, when tables were installed near the old city gate to sell meat. From December 1470 onwards, a pig market was hold at this site; at this time it was known as Mercat Bornet. Later, until 1794, it was known simply as Mercat de la Palla, or straw market. At the beginning, the market was not enclosed and had no official status, being regarded simply as an extension of the Plaça Nova market, which extended to the Plaça del Pi.

Later, the authorities decided to construct a separate market on La Rambla, housing mainly fishmongers and butchers. It was not until 1826 that the market was legally recognized, and a convention hold in 1835 decided to build an official structure. Construction began on March 19, 1840 under the direction of the architect Mas Vilà. The market officially opened in the same year, but the plans for the building were modified many times. The inauguration of the structure finally took place in 1853. A new fish market opened in 1911, and the metal roof that still exists today was constructed in 1914.

Once you are in Barcelona, you cannot leave without seeing the Mirador de Colom, a 60 meters tall monument for Christopher Columbus at the lower end of La Rambla. It is located at the side where Columbus returned to Spain after his first trip to the Americas. The monument serves as a reminder that Barcelona is where Christopher Columbus reported to Queen Isabella and Ferdinand after his most famous trip.

At the very top of the monument stands a 7.2 meters tall bronze statue. It stands at the top of 40 meters tall column. The statue was sculpted by Rafeel Atché and is said to depict Columbus pointing towards the New World with his right hand, while holding a scroll in the left. As it was sited, instead of pointing the west towards the New World, the statue points east towards Columbus's supposed home city of Genoa.

The column, hung with a device bearing an anchor, stands on an octagonal pedestal from which four bronze winged victories or fames take flight towards the four corners of the world.