Barcelona - Wax Museum

(Local Name: Museu de Cera) The Museu de Cera is located at the port end of the Ramblas in a rather old-fashioned 19th C. building. The founder of the museum, Enrique Alarcón, a great cineast, has created an eerily beautiful display by means of regularly changing groups of more than 300 wax figures in all, although the characters represented are identifiable less by their physiognomic similarity than by their clothing and general atmosphere.

The visitor reaches the museum through a small inner courtyard and then turns right (where the ticket-office is situated) into an annex which houses the "Expo-Museum", containing exclusively figures from Hollywood film history. The main part of the museum is in the building with the high facade which encloses the inner courtyard. This building, largely unrestored and decorated inside with wall and ceiling paintings, gives a good impression of the architecture of the early Modernist period. The tour of the museum begins on the first floor where a double representation of Pope John Paul II greets the visitor. This is followed by large groups of artistic and political figures of past times (incl. Pau Casals, Andrés Segovia, the Shah of Persia, George Sand and Frédéric Chopin), fairy tale characters, and dictators such as Francisco Franco, Adolf Hitler, Mussolini and Mao Tse-Tung. The world of opera is represented by Richard Wagner, Ludwig von Beethoven, Plácido Domingo, Maria Callas and others (with an appropriate sound background). Then follow artists (Francisco Goya and Maja, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Diego Velázquez, Salvador Dalí) and writers (William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, Pedro Calderón, Jean-Baptiste Molière, etc. and behind them Don Quixote, Sancho Panza and Dulcinea).

Scientists and artists from the turn of the century are gathered together in a coffee-house atmosphere.

On the second floor there is a group of film stars, assembled on the swaying deck of an ocean liner, rulers and knights from the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance period, as well as famous sports personalities. A lift brings the visitor down to the ground floor and the "Viaje Ficción" section ("Fantastic journey"). By means of a deep-sea diving bell and an underwater tunnel the visitor reaches a fantasy world (between the decks on a sailing ship, dripstone cave with Stone Age men, space journey and science fiction monster). On the far side of the souvenir kiosk is the "Terror" section (Alfred Hitchcock; various forms of execution; Bonnie and Clyde in the bank safe). The final exhibit is the "Horror" cabinet with Frankenstein, Dracula and Dr Mabuse.