THE STREET OF SOULS: A MYSTERY IN SANTS, BARCELONA

Souls Street in Sants, Barcelona

The Grandma is in Sants, a suburb of Barcelona. She's visiting a special street with an incredible story that wants to share with you: Souls Street.

The Romans founded the Colony Iulia Augusta Faventia Barcino between 15 and 13 BC and planned all the city inside and outside. They wanted to know which lands they were going to control and keep but to do it they needed a large net of roads to allow them the total control of the city. They profited some roads which were Iberian probably. 

One of this roads connected the little colony with the Via Augusta. In the western part, crossing the Raval in Avinguda Mistral direction, this road arrived to Hostafrancs and Sants and was named Camí Ral during the Middle Age.

During 1344, a big cross was built in this road and some years later, the cross was covered naming the real suburb Creu Coberta. The road continued crossing a place named the Inforcats a name with a Latin origin, inforcatos, that means crossroads, and obviously, this name demonstrates the different directions that you could take: Martorell, Sant Boi and Llobregat Delta.

More information: Historia de Barcelona

If you continued across Creu Coberta and passed near the current church of Santa Maria de Sants, the road arrived to one of the most mysterious streets nowadays in Barcelona: el Carreró de les ànimes (the street of souls).

The Grandma in Souls Street

This street took this name because there was a little cemetery of animals in the past. It seems that appeared soft lights that floated on the air. This is a real phenomenon with some scientific theories but there's still a little controversy. Some theories say that these fires appear thanks to the rot of the organic materies that produces the oxidation of the phosphine and the methane gas, other say that the real cause of those lights is a phenomenon caused by the natural phosphorescence of the calcium salts of the bones.

The popular voices created the legend of these fires saying that they were the souls of the deads that appear to the mortals.

Some years later, in the 20th century, on the wall of a private house in 260, Sants Street, there was a tile that announced the presence of these souls from the purgatory which were consumed by the seven capital vices.

Nowadays, the street of the souls keeps its magical structure and it's one of the most lovely and appreciate places for the neighbours who live sadly how the new constructions are changing the suburb and how the City Hall is not interested in the idea of keeping and promoting the history of the suburb, a history that is an homage to the past generations and a great proud for the neighbourhood.