The Pope among souvenirs, balconies and card games that go unplayed

Gonzalo Iglesias meets every day to play cards in the square with his neighbors. Folding chairs and tables on which they spread their mat and spend the morning with Guiñote or Butifarra. The scene has a peculiarity as a backdrop, with an element to which the neighbors pay no attention: the Sagrada Família rises a few meters from their usual playing space. The members of the Club de Bitlles Sagrada Família impassively deal cards among the dozens of tourists who surround their tables to try to take a photo of the basilica, without seeing that perhaps the most Barcelona-like part of the scene is precisely at those tables that seem to bother them.

Tourists move strangely these days: they crowd more around the tables and try to get into a space reserved for the Catalan bitlles club —a traditional game that serves as an excuse to be a meeting point (or resistance) for the neighborhood—. Visitors are looking for new spaces to photograph the basilica because a large part of its perimeter is fenced off. They will not have in their gallery the essential photo in front of the temple and the lake, because preparations (and access restrictions) are already being finalized to receive the Pope this Wednesday. Leo XIV, who will arrive in the city on Tuesday at noon, will go to the basilica on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. to bless the Tower of Jesus, on the centenary of Gaudí's death. Since this weekend, a commemorative plaque recalls the exact moment and place of the accident, in front of number 665 of Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes.

The restrictions will also leave Gonzalo and his usual companions without a game for a few days, during which the daily life of the neighborhood has been interrupted by a visit that will be historic for the basilica that gives it its name. "We will see it from the balcony," Gonzalo comments, while his companions nod between cards. "Some neighbors have even rented their balcony for a fortune," they laugh from the table, and it is that not a few balconies have become privileged viewpoints of what will be the Pope's visit and the blessing of the tower, with a light show included. Converted into front-row boxes, balconies have been rented at prices of up to 750 euros. And not only in front of the basilica, but also along the route that Leo XIV will take aboard the popemobile from Passeig de Gràcia to the temple, with balconies, large and small —and more or less affordable— that have been put up for rent, especially along Rosselló street. In addition, thousands of balconies, both along the route and throughout the city, will display white and yellow during the Pope's visit: a campaign promoted by the Associació Ginesta to adorn the city with Vatican flags has distributed more than 15,000 throughout Barcelona.

The white and yellow are not only seen on the balconies in the surroundings of the basilica, but also in the souvenir shops. Merchandising items and rosaries with the Pope's face fill shelves and counters of neighborhood shops, interspersed with photographs of the Sagrada Família. T-shirts, mugs, magnets, keychains and even rags with the Pope's image have found their place in the shops, but not only in the premises: the street vendors around the temple also display rosaries with the Pope's face on their white blankets. "Give me three for two," a couple of tourists haggle while choosing the color of the beads. Next to them, another white scarf displays colorful clay birds on the ground that chirp when whistled with water, and fans to air out a June heat that has pushed away the possibilities of rain during the pontiff's trip —unlike what happened with the downpour during John Paul II's visit to Camp Nou in 1982.

Tourists (and residents) have been moving since last week among fences, police cars, and the assembly of structures for giant screens, in streets that will have restricted access during the visit. Merchandising and souvenir items from stores—both formal and informal—coexist with official items designed as part of the Alça la mirada campaign, and with other items that can well serve to commemorate the visit and the culmination of the Jesus Tower on the centenary of Gaudí's death, also in the form of bricks. Of 12,060 bricks, to be exact.

The new Lego Sagrada Familia set breaks records as the model with the most pieces from the brand, reproducing the complexity of the basilica and even its stained glass windows. The set—which is close to 750 euros and can already be pre-ordered, awaiting its sale in November—also brings the temple's construction process to the brick world, as it is assembled following the construction phases faithful to the real sequence of the basilica's erection. However, it goes a step further: the set anticipates reality, with a finished Sagrada Familia, with the Glory facade and its 16 hyperboloid lanterns already standing. We will have to wait a few years and a few card games for them to also rise in real Barcelona, where, let's hope, there will still be folding tables, cards, and neighbors to play on them.