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UNIQUE sights are among Barcelona's major pulls – the wonderfully-wacky Sagrada Família cathedral, the psychedelic Parc Güell, the Batlló House and the weird Royal Ramblas Hotel, which feels as though your retinae are melting when you see it – but all of these put together would not make passers-by stop in their tracks like the latest oddity spotted in a city-centre street.
And it was the only one on the above list that could not be attributed to the off-the-wall and brilliant architect Antoni Gaudí, given that he lost his life 95 years ago.
Book-shop owner and children's writer Oriol Canosa was strolling through the Verneda i la Pau neighbourhood on Friday afternoon when he had to swiftly get his phone out and film what he was seeing, in case nobody – himself included – believed it later on.
A Roomba 'robot hoover' was circulating its way along the street, sucking up dead leaves and giving the tarmac and pavement a good clean.
He saw it popping out of a shop doorway as though it had a life of its own – which, in fact, it does – and start hoovering up the outside.
It began by sweeping the pavement, then hit a wall and, thanks to the in-built sensors that these automatic, human-free vacuum-cleaners are designed with, took this as a signal to change direction, drinking up discarded cigarette butts, pebbles and dust.
After standing by watching what appeared to be the city council's new method of cleaning up Barcelona's image go about its work – by then, joined by a growing crowd of stunned bystanders – Oriol Canosa noticed a young girl dash out of a shop and 'rescue' it.
“The street was left spotlessly clean,” he commented.
His video has gone viral on Twitter, and left its viewers wondering if this may not, in fact, be a taste of the future – manual sweeping being replaced by 'pavement Roombas'.
Either because of the amusement value or a feeling of, “why hasn't anyone invented this yet?”, Canosa's Twitter post has already netted well over 5,000 'likes' and numerous retweets.
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