Barcelona Guide
The waterfront
The Mirador de Colón
Address: Plaça Portal de la Pau
Opening time: Daily: June– Sept 9am–8.30pm; Oct– May 10am–6.30pm
Price: €2.50
Telephone: 933 025 224
Inaugurated just before the Universal Exhibition of 1888, the Mirador de Colón commemorates Christopher Columbus's visit to Barcelona in June 1493. The Italian-born navigator was received in style by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella, who had supported his voyage of exploration a year earlier, when Columbus had set out to chart a passage west to the Orient. Famously, he failed in this, as he failed also to reach the North American mainland (instead "discovering" the Bahamas, Cuba and Haiti), but Columbus did enough to enhance his reputation and made three more exploratory voyages by 1504.
Nineteenth-century Catalan nationalists took the navigator to their hearts – if he wasn't exactly Catalan, he was the closest they had to a local Vasco da Gama – and so put him on the pedestal that they thought he deserved. Awkwardly for the locals, the statue is actually pointing in the general direction of Libya, not North America, but, as historian Robert Hughes puts it, at least "the sea is Catalan".
Columbus himself tops a grandiose, iron column, 52m high, guarded by lions at the base, around which unfold reliefs telling the story of his life and travels – here, if nowhere else, the old mercenary is still the "discoverer of America". On the harbour side of the column, steps lead down to a ticket office and lift, which you ride up to the enclosed mirador at Columbus' feet. The 360-degree views are terrific but the narrow viewing platform, which tilts perceptibly outwards and downwards, is emphatically not for anyone without a head for heights.