Life in Barcelona

Want to buy Gucci sunglasses without paying Gucci prices? Or Prada handbags for just a few euros? Then take a stroll around Plaza de Catalunya!

You won’t find the designer boutiques of Paseo de Gracia, but you will find loads of street vendors with ‘designer look-alike goods’ of all kinds. You really can find anything you want at ANY price in Barcelona!! If you don’t mind it being a fake (but who does, really?).

Last night, I was walking from the metro station at Plaza de Catalunya to the Ramblas and while crossing the Plaza I saw a lot of people selling stuff, with a huge crowd around them, so I walked over to have a look. The people were selling accessories of all the fancy brands such as Prada, Gucci, Guess, Dolce & Gabbana, Louise Vuitton and Burberry. It was incredible that they were selling perfectly imitated bags, watches, wallets, belts, caps etc! And they were even selling copies of the newest DVD’s and CD’s of which a lot aren’t even published yet!

The salesmen were all standing in a row on both sides of the street and using blankets to display their goods on. They just put a few of the models on the blankets and the rest of the goods they keep in big sports bags which they carry on their backs.

When walking past all the displays to see if I fancied buying something, I was wondering why they had knotted ropes to the corners of the blankets which they were holding on to. Just when I wanted to buy the unreleased DVD Déjà Vu of my favourite actor Denzel Washington, I found out why they were holding those ropes! There were two undercover police men, who moved ever-so-fast and grabbed a couple of these blankets with all the goods on them and they pulled a sports bag out of the hands of a salesman. They took all of the goods but no arrests were made.

It was an exciting Saturday scene to be a part of! I suppose I understand why the Police have to do something, but it’s also true that everyone has to make a living, isn’t it? I felt a bit sorry for the street vendors - as well as wishing I’d made my purchase a bit earlier!!

Patrick

This entry was posted on Friday, January 12th, 2007 at 3:26 pm and is filed under General Barcelona, Other, Shopping. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.