La Rambla: back to normal after impromptu memorials removed

Only a few memorials have been left in place. La Rambla, the bustling and colorful boulevard where a white van drove through a crowd twelve days ago in Barcelona’s worst terror attack in three decades, is getting back to normal.

On Friday 18, a day after the attack, the street was flooded by mementos that people spontaneously brought to honor the victims — which rose to 16 after a critically injured German woman died in the hospital last Sunday. All kinds of objects were brought by both visitors and locals: candles, flowers, letters, paintings and even teddy bears. They were distributed among dozens of improvised memorials, big and small, set in trees, streetlights and directly on the ground. On Monday night, as the cleaning services started to clear the street for the first time, there were still people lighting up new candles.

“We will do a very careful job of removing these elements,” said Gerardo Pisarello, Barcelona’s first deputy mayor, as he announced the withdrawal of the memorials at a press conference on Monday morning. “They have value, they are real jewels and they are part of the popular and collective memory of the city.”