The Last Plane Out Of Barcelona

Well, we're back in the States, despite the best effort of the Spanish judicial system to detain us in Barcelona yesterday.

Okay, so the way that first paragraph is written is a little more about us than the reality of the situation.  However, the reality could be that we would still be in Barcelona.  (I almost wrote "stuck in Barcelona" but no such thing as being "stuck in Barcelona!")

Yesterday (Monday) was the day the judge was supposed to announce the prison terms for nine Catalan separatist leaders.  We knew it would lead to protests, and we were worried we could not get to the airport.

Well, we did get to the airport, which turned out to be lucky.  And we took off, which turned out to be lucky.

After the sentences were announced (nine to 13 years for sedition and, in some cases, embezzlement), there were massive protest marches, including one that shut down the road to the airport and then the airport itself.

We love Barcelona, but we do not love being caught in the middle of a political protest (we leave that to our beloved friend, John Passacantando).

Planes were cancelled, trains were blocked, Metro stopped.  General chaos, which, when you have no place to stay, is not what you are looking out of a trip.  We got to the airport and off the ground at the right time!  

Read about it by clicking the link. 

We will miss nearly everything about Barcelona, but we're glad we left when we did!

A Perfect Birthday

My birthday coincided with our second-to-last full day in Barcelona.  (I’m writing these last posts as we’re flying home over the Atlantic.)

The day could not have been better.  Some of this is in the Restaurants – Volume 2 post, but I will give a quick recap of that here anyhow.

First we walked down to Brunch and Cake By The Sea for, well, brunch.  I went with my eggs benedict with salmon.  It was perfect.

Then, since we were meeting Katy and her new puppy Julia in the park at 1pm, we walked the mile plus over to La Boqueria (by FAR the best of the three markets we went to during our time in Barcelona) to get some fruit, some chocolate, and some empanadas.  By the way, just the act of walking through Barri Gotic to get to the market is huge fun for us.

After we got back, I went to my little Barceloneta wine shop and got a cold bottle of Cava for the picnic and a bottle of tinto Penedes for Sunday night.  I’ve expanded our Spanish wine repertoire by two Catalan regions – Penedes and Montsant.  Priorat is still the best, but those two are pretty good, and cheaper.

We headed over to Parc Ciutedella, where we met Katy and her pup.  Julia was quite the charmer.  They had already walked up to the top of Mount Tibidabo that morning, so this was Julia’s second adventure of the day.  

The picnic lasted two hours, as we played with the dog, watched Julia interact with some local kids with their family, and just had an all around enjoyable time.  Katy and Julia headed off, and we headed back to the apartment.

Our next act for the day was to head over to Santa Maria del Mar, our local church that was built in the Middle Ages.  I had purchased tickets to go up on the roof of the church.  Carol and I love that kind of stuff, and it was as cool as we expected.  

Of course you have to go up with a guide, but it was not that large a group.  We went 68 steps up the south tower, crossed the whole church on the outside a little below the rose window.  

Then we went up 48 steps to the next level where we had magnificent views of much of the city.  It was very cool as well, because the church bells rang as we were up there.  Finally, we went up another 12-15 steps to the very top of the church.  It’s pretty neat to be looking around to the views from the very top.  

Santa Maria del Mar is our neighborhood church, so getting to go up to the top via the beautiful towers was extra special.  

The final act was dinner at Dos Hermanos Torre, and it was the tops as far as we were concerned.  The best set-up, and great food.  No disrespect to Disfrutar, but wow!  Dinner AND a show!

Santa Maria del Mar tower selfie.

Rose window, up close.

Gargoyle, with grass growing

out of its mouth!

Counting shadows on the wall.

Sagrada Familia from the roof

of Santa Maria del Mar.

Chapel window.

The Cathedral.

Another view of Torre Agbar.

Church downspout.

Montjuic from the roof.

The W Hotel and the Cable car.

One of my two beloved towers

on Santa Maria del Mar.

Our apartment building.

The water tower of Barceloneta.

Just a cool random thing on a building.

Afterwards, we went to the beach bar for the last time.  That's our bar!

Even at dusk there are folks

hanging out on the beach.

Sometimes you want to go where

everybody knows your name.

This isn't it, but they knew our

drink order, and that's good enough!

Beach bar selfie.

It's A Big Wide World With A Million Shades of Modern Blue

Well, we all need a bit of Rosanne Cash lyrics in our blog post titles, now, don't we.  Especially when in Barcelona.

Anyhow, here's photos of the apartment.  Even if you don't care about the apartment, hey, this blog is both an immediate read for you and a historical record for Carol and I.  

The place is amazing.  Once we realized how great a location it is, we pinched ourselves every day with how lucky we were to have rented here.  It is essentially at the intersection of El Born and Barceloneta neighborhoods, right on the edge of Barri Gotic.

We were within walking distance of so many city highlights, as well as great bars/restaurants, the beach, three markets, and much more.  Sometimes we liked to just take off and walk the narrow, twisting streets.

Right outside our apartment?  The Barceloneta Metro stop, so when we need to go further afield, it was not hard at all.

The amenities of the apartment were perfect for us.  Air conditioning, a washer and dryer, an elevator, two bedrooms, two baths, and a larger fridge than usual in Europe.

Master bedroom

Guest bedroom

Part of the living room.

Kitchen and laundry room

The living room.

Nine For Nine

There are nine UNESCO World Heritage sites in/near Barcelona, and we hit the last of the nine on our last full weekday day in Barcelona.  

Faithful readers of the blog know I coined the clever phrase, "UNESCO means you must go!"  I'm just sitting back, waiting for the royalties to roll in on that phrase!

We walked the mile to the Liceu Metro, took that to Placa Espanya, and then caught the subway train to Colonia Guell, about a 25 minute local train ride outside of Barcelona.  We then had a 500 meter walk to the info center for Colonia Guell.  It could not have been easier to get there.

Seven of the UNESCO World Heritage sites are by Gaudi, and this is one of them.  The other two are by Domenech.  I actually feel bad for Cadafalch, because he’s been shut out, even though his work is noteworthy as well.

A “Colonia” was a factory town back from the 1850s to the 1950s.  Colonia Guell was owned by Eusebi Guell, a Gaudi patron whose name you should recognize from Parc Guell and Palau (Palace) Guell.  Guell sure was swell, as he hired Gaudi to build what are now three/four UNESCO World Heritage sites!

Colonia Guell focused on textiles.  But, it was not near a river.  Instead, they relied on steam to keep the plant running.  The place had a 1,000 workers, and they needed housing, medical, a school, and a church all close to the factory.

Gaudi had gotten the crypt built, and later used many of the ideas he had developed whilst planning the Church at Colonia Guell for Sagrada Familia.  Of course, Sagrada Familia is on steriods compared to the crypt at Colonia Guell.  Gaudi left the project at Colonia Guell in 1914 to focus on Sagrada Familia, and within two years, Eusebi Guell had further construction on the church stopped because of money problems.

What we didn’t fully realize is that Guell had hired a number of modernisme architects to build the workers housing, the school, key buildings, and the association hall.  So you don’t just go to see the crypt, even though that is the prime directive of the trip out there.

The stroll through town with the audioguide was interesting enough, although the school is being reconstructed.  That looks like the second most interesting part of the tour.

The crypt itself is worth spending the lion’s share of your time on.  It’s no Sagrada Familia, but it’s still outrageously interesting.  The colored tiles, the stained glass, the brick ceiling, and, of course, the pillars that look more like trees than building pillars.  It’s the product of one of the most interesting men on Earth in the last 150 years.

The photos below don’t do it justice.  When you go to Barcelona, it should be the last of the Gaudi buildings you go to, just because it takes more time to get there.  That said, if you have time, it is worth the trip.

When he completed his studies at the School of Architecture in 1878 the Director, Elies Rogent, declared: “I do not know if we have awarded this degree to a madman or to a genius; only time will tell.” 

The verdict is clear.  

Typical street in Colonia Guell.  Note

the artistry of the windows.

Chimney cap

Mr. Guell, A Man In Full.

Supervisor's house.

Gaudi Crypt

Holy water receptacle.  A giant clam.

Look at the stunning brick

ceiling. And the pillar.

This bell tower was not part

of the original plan, but when

work was going to end, this

was added.

Miles Walked -- Total

I'm home, but my mileage blog by the week did not include the last two full days in Barcelona.  So, here it is. . .

My goal was to get to eight miles walked for both Saturday and Sunday, and so I hit those marks.

Saturday, 10/12:               8.46 miles
Sunday, 10/13:                 8.09 miles

Total On Trip:               232.30 in 30 days
Average Per Day:            7.74 miles

Now, that's not a lot for people who run ten miles a day, but since I'm scheduled to have knee replacement surgery in November, I don't think that's too shabby.

Welcome to the 1700s

After lunch at the old bull ring mall, we took Metro back to the Arc de Trompf stop, which put us near the Born Cultural Center.  

When they were going to redo the old Born Market, they found the remains of an old part of the city, dating back to the 1700s underneath the market.  It’s an on-going archaeological sight, but also open to the public.

Back when Bourbon troops (France and Spain) was beating Catalonia up yet another time, the Spanish decided keep a close eye on Barcelona, so they destroyed a neighborhood and built a citadel on the sight.  Homes were destroyed and dirt put over it in the early 1700s.  A lot of people were forced to move to the newly created, nearby, Barceloneta neighborhood.

Time passed and people forgot about what lay underneath.  When the citadel was torn down, and Parc Citudella was created, some of the land nearby the park was built upon, including the old Market.  It was not until the market was going to be redeveloped that the foundations were found, along with much detritus, such as plates, bottles, toys, and other knick-knacks from back in the day.

It’s pretty neat, but if you only have a limited time in Barcelona, it does not need to be on your list of things to do.  We’re glad we went, but we’re kind of nerdy that way with old ruins and stuff.

Another view of the Arc de Trompf.

These homes, businesses were torn down around 1716.

MNAC With More Of A Knack For Art

Post-Miro, we walked and rode the escalators down to the National Museum of Catalan Art, or MNAC (Musee National Art Catalan).  

The MNAC looks like a capital building of sorts, and can be seen from many vantage points in Barcelona.  We had been to it on our 4th day, but did not pay to go into the various wings.  Instead, we went up to the roof terrace and enjoyed spectacular views of the city.  This trip we realized we were supposed to pay to go up, so I suppose that makes us scofflaws.  But I scoff at that law!

Anyhow, there are five main wings – a medieval Romanesque wing, a medieval Gothic wing, a Renaissance and Baroque wing, and a Modern Art wing.  I believe by “modern art” they mean stuff other than the kind of crap we had just seen at the Joan Miro gallery, but we couldn’t take that chance you know, so instead we hit the Romanesque and then the Gothic/Renaissance/Baroque wings (need to fact that!).  And, the wings are huge!

Anyhow, to us, the art from the 11th and 12th Century was far more interesting than the modern art we were expected to swoon over in the Miro Museum.  

The Romanesque section, which we found to be the most interesting, featured a lot of art that had been rescued from crumbling churches, and displayed similar to how they appeared in the churches.  Very fascinating stuff.  

I’m going to let the photos below speak for themselves.  As much as I liked the two wings of the museum, we were pretty hungry and tired after essentially three straight museums.  It has the same soul sucking effect on me as going to a mall, although the museums are better.  Carol is the art museum aficionado of the two of us (Editor’s Note: Well, actually nobody will be surprised by that news.  Blogger: Hmm, I suppose you are right.)

Not sure if this is a wolf.  Or a dog. Or something

else.  But it's definitely something else.

Early complaint about dog breath.

Saint John the Revelator.

Brilliant color.

What's dogging him?

The flag of Catalonia.  And a bad guy.

This picture, and the next three were all part of

the same art: how to kill and dismember saints?

Dude, don't give me THAT look!

It's tempting to say this

is Adam and the snake.

Talk about your great hand-eye

coordination, this guy had it!

A couple of dragons high-fiving!