Download flat files within a directory of an ftp0 server with ftplib

I need to download the files stored inside a directory of a public ftp0 server, to later be able to generate a table with data extracted from them.

I've tried with various programs taken out of ftplib but I get an error:

import sys
import ftplib
import os
from ftplib import FTP
ftp=FTP("ftp0------")
ftp.login("anonymous",----------)

def downloadFiles(path,destination):
#path & destination are str of the form "/dir/folder/something/"
#path should be the abs path to the root FOLDER of the file tree to download
    try:
        ftp.cwd(path)
        #clone path to destination
        os.chdir(destination)
        os.mkdir(destination[0:len(destination)-1]+path)
        print (destination[0:len(destination)-1]+path+" built")
    except OSError:
        #folder already exists at destination
        pass
    except ftplib.error_perm:
        #invalid entry (ensure input form: "/dir/folder/something/")
        print ("error: could not change to "+path)
        sys.exit("ending session")

    #list children:
    filelist=ftp.nlst()

    for file in filelist:
        try:
            #this will check if file is folder:
            ftp.cwd(path+file+"/")
            #if so, explore it:
            downloadFiles(path+file+"/",destination)
        except ftplib.error_perm:
            #not a folder with accessible content
            #download & return
            os.chdir(destination[0:len(destination)-1]+path)
            #possibly need a permission exception catch:
            ftp.retrbinary("RETR "+file, 
             open(os.path.join(destination,file),"wb").write)
            print (file + " downloaded")
    return

source="/publico/-------/"
dest="/ftp0-------/expl/"
downloadFiles(source,dest)

I get the following error:

  

error: could not change to / public / ---- /
  An exception has occurred, use% tb to see the full traceback.

     

SystemExit: ending session

This other code does work but it does not print anything on the screen and the files do not come out.

import ftplib

# Connection information
server = 'ftp0.-------'
username = 'anonymous'
password = '-----'

# Directory and matching information
directory = '/expl/publico/MI_DIRECTORIO/'
filematch = '*.txt'

# Establish the connection
ftp = ftplib.FTP(server)
ftp.login(username, password)

# Change to the proper directory
ftp.cwd(directory)

# Loop through matching files and download each one individually
for filename in ftp.nlst(filematch):
    fhandle = open(filename, 'wb')
    print ('Getting ' + filename)
    ftp.retrbinary('RETR ' + filename, fhandle.write)
    fhandle.close()