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Iglesia de Belén

A Beautiful Shell

Iglesia de Belén

That striking long nubbly wall along the Ramblas belongs to Barcelona's Jesuit monastic church, founded in the 16th century and dedicated to Bethlehem, apparently on the orders of St Ignatius itself. In 1936, during the Spanish Civil War, it was set ablaze, and all the interior fittings went up in smoke, leaving only the city's most beautiful Baroque façade, with a scene of the Nativity by Catalan sculptor Francesc Santacruz i Artigas (1690).

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Corner of the Ramblas and C/Carme

Hours 9am-8pm

Adm Free

metro Liceu or Ctalunya

Renaissance, Baroque & Neoclassical

Churches

The Ramblas

Text © Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls

Image by Mario RM, Creative Commons License