Barcelona locals reclaim city from tourists during pandemic

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — For florist Laura Gómez and many other Barcelona residents, the COVID-19 pandemic has one silver lining, amid all the death and suffering.

For the first time in decades, locals won’t feel outnumbered by the throngs of foreign visitors that flood Spain’s top tourist destination each summer.

No one doubts that their absence will deepen Spain’s pandemic-induced economic slump, but those like Gómez who have avoided infection hope to enjoy at least a few weeks' respite from mass tourism, which they believe is ruining their hometown.

“Las Ramblas are ours again,” Gómez said, tending the flower stall her family has run for four generations in a prime location on that iconic Barcelona promenade. She reopened it last week after two months of lockdown due to the coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 27,000 in Spain.

Where caricature artists normally hawk their works and the incessant chatter of the flowing crowds masks all gentler sounds, you can now hear something unfamiliar: birdsong.

“You can’t imagine how annoying it is” with tourists, Gómez said. “People asking you all day long where the cathedral is, where the beach is. I am not a tourist information office!”

She still sells her dwindling number of local clients cut roses and sunflowers, bouquets, seed packets and potted geraniums, shunning the cacti in souvenir mugs that are a staple of other flower stalls.

“Tourists only want to take a photo, why would they want to buy flowers?” said Gómez. “No one lives here anymore. Go to the outer neighborhoods and you see people in the street. Here the people couldn’t take it any more and left.”

Some, however, miss the vibrancy they say tourists provide.

“It is a pity to see Las Ramblas like this,” said José...