{"id":58214,"date":"2024-12-27T23:19:10","date_gmt":"2024-12-27T22:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=58214"},"modified":"2025-12-27T00:36:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T23:36:06","slug":"an-exploration-of-the-morrot-tunnels-under-montjuic-mountain-in-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/12\/27\/an-exploration-of-the-morrot-tunnels-under-montjuic-mountain-in-barcelona\/","title":{"rendered":"An exploration of the Morrot tunnels under Montjuic mountain, in Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia and the second largest city in Spain, and there are fascinating things underground.<\/p>\n

The history and current state of the five ghost stations of the Barcelona Metro<\/a><\/rel>
\nBarcelona: a huge metro line under construction abandoned for 11 years<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n

A few months ago, Digar Productions<\/a> explored some of the places beneath the surface of Barcelona, \u200b\u200bspecifically the ghost stations of the Barcelona Metro<\/a>. Today, the channel has published a new video, this time exploring the bowels of Montjuic mountain<\/strong>, which is 177 metres high and dominates the city of Barcelona. This exploration focuses specifically on what are known as the Morrot tunnels<\/strong> (it should be noted that these are not the only tunnels under the mountain).<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Barcelona's tram 48 passing along the old Morrot road, in a photo from 1919 (Photo: A.T.V.<\/a>).<\/div>\n

The name of these tunnels comes from the old Morrot road<\/strong>, which ran through the area where they were dug, very close to the port of Barcelona. Today only a few remains of this road remain<\/strong>, since the current Ronda Litoral was built in its place, a ring road inaugurated in 1981.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
Marked in yellow here is the location of the access to the Morrot tunnels. On the left we see Montjuic Castle, at the top of the mountain, and on the right we see the port of Barcelona (Source: Carta Arqueol\u00f3gica de Barcelona<\/a>).<\/div>\n

These tunnels were built by the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War<\/strong> (1936-1939) to store fuel for the port of Barcelona and protect it from bombing by the Italian air force, according to the website bdebarna.net<\/a>, which adds the following: \"Two overlapping galleries of a hundred metres and other transversal ones were drilled<\/strong> that were to contain six large tanks. Unfortunately, on 6 June 1938, the bombs hit their target and the CAMPSA tanks caught fire. The works were abandoned.\"<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The entrance to the old Morrot tunnels (Source: Google Street View<\/a>).<\/div>\n

After the war, the tunnels were abandoned but were soon occupied by a large community of homeless people<\/strong>, being nicknamed the \"Hotel Monte Carlo\"<\/a> (with a sad irony). Their use by criminals also led to them being known as \"Ali Baba's Caves\". Even today, you can find some homeless people living there<\/strong>, and they don't always react well to visitors, as the protagonists of this video could see (the video is in Spanish, you can activate automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):<\/p>\n