An early example of town planning, this medieval high street was driven towards the sea from the road that in the 12th century led northeast from the city walls. It was the city's most coveted address for the merchant classes. The bulk of the great mansions that remain today mostly date to the 14th and 15th centuries.
This area was the commercial heartland of medieval Barcelona. Five of the mansions on the east side of the street have been linked to house the Museu Picasso. Across the road, others house what is to become the Museu de Cultures del Món in 2015. Several other mansions on this street are commercial art galleries where you’re welcome to browse. If you promise to drink, you can sip wine or cocktails (both rather expensive) inside the baroque courtyard of the originally medieval Palau de Dalmases at No 20 while listening to baroque music or operatic snippets (a peek inside isn't allowed without a definitive commitment to consume when you enter!).
At the corner of Carrer dels Corders and the northern end of the street, just beyond the 19th-century Carrer de la Princesa, stands a much-meddled-with Romanesque chapel, the Capella d’en Marcús , once a wayfarers’ stop on the road northeast out of medieval Barcelona.
