Transatlantic 2011: Barcelona

We arrive early at Madrid's gorgeous old Atocha station, and enjoy a light breakfast at a Starbucks-like café. This is probably one of the busiest train stations in Europe and it's about the size of many airports. When the city expanded the original station they converted the classic towering old waiting room into an arboretum, a sort of indoor forest that includes a turtle pond. The turtles are a big hit with waiting children – and their thankful parents. In the modern new section there are shops of all sorts, selling everything from food to clothing.

Departure time arrives, and we head for our waiting AVE train. The name stands for Alta Velocidad Español. They're very comfortable way to travel and they look like lozenges, designed to split the air at very high speeds, if not to fly. 

We're in luck. This time we have great seats, with no support post to block the view. I lean back to absorb the sweeping vista of Spain that drifts past my window as we accelerate to 300 kph (about 180 mph). Life is good. We slice easterly across the dry and harsh deserts of La Mancha carved by a few fertile valleys and small towns – the land traveled by Don Quixote on his misbegotten adventures. I can relax, gaze out the window, and dream of my own 'castles in Spain.' 

Along the way to Barcelona we pass small desert cities and the occasional ruined farmhouse. Is it semi-recent? Medieval? Roman? Pre-Roman/Lusitanian? It's hard to tell. Probably some of each – built on a 3000-year-old foundation, using scrounged Roman stones, and medieval roofing tiles. The history here is amazingly deep and it pervades the life of the average person. Maybe many don't realize it, or even care, but it's literally part of their DNA.

A voice from the seat behind me asks, "Señor. Habla Español?" 

I say, "Sí, pues (Yeah, some)."

He wants to close the blind because it's hurting his eyes. 

It hurts his eyes? What are the chances? I finally get a great seat, and this guy ends up sitting right behind me wanting to close the blinds? Hey, I want to see the countryside. I can't take pictures with the blind down. He pulls the blind down. It's a kind of screen cloth through which you can still see some of the view, but not much. It's a major annoyance. He says, 'You can raise it when you need to take a picture.' 

It's enough trouble trying to get a picture from a speeding train window without having to deal with the shade. But I don't want a hassle here on the train. I take a deep breath of resignation and remind myself there are people in the world with real problems. I'll just have to deal with it.

There's an empty seat beside him. He lays over, curls up, and he's out. I raise the screen and enjoy the view. We pull into the station at Zaragoza and he wakes up. After we leave the station, he lowers the screen. Carolyn says, "Caballero, do you know how far we've come to see the landscape of Spain?"

We ride along in silence for awhile. Then he raises the screen and says he's decided to go to the bar car. We try to smile at each other.

A little later, he returns with a magazine about Spain as a gift for us. He explains that he was up most of the night in Madrid, then his buddy got their train tickets messed up. He spent hours dealing with that mess. Now he's exhausted and has to be back at work in Barcelona. We find out he's an architect. He makes notes in our Lonely Planet book and even more on a napkin – a list of all the things we need to see during our visit. Then he gives us his phone number if we need anything while we're in town. Everybody has a bad day now and then. Carolyn's appeal to his 'Caballero' side paid off.

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After our arrival, we check into a simple but decent hostel, and then dinner is in order. We wander the broad streets and find a good place to enjoy yet another good bottle of Rioja, as the heat of the day segues into nighttime. Gradually, it settles in: We're actually in Barcelona! This is one of the world's great cities for eclectic design and architecture. I've been wanting to visit this city for years, to enjoy its evening café society, to walk the fabled La Rambla to the sea, to wallow in the bizarre architectural essence of Antoni Gaudí. I hope I haven't constructed an impossible 'mental wonderland' that can't be fulfilled. For now, we relax and enjoy our first wonderful evening in 'Barça,' while we look forward to tomorrow's explorations.

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The strains of a distant jazz trumpet are drifting in through our open balcony door at the Pension Nevada as I take a few minutes to put down some early thoughts about this intriguing city. Our balcony opens onto a narrow alley named Carrer de Montsió which is just off the Avda del Portal de L'Angel, a wide pedestrian way lined with shops. Somewhere out there, maybe a block away, there's a small combo playing for Euros as hundreds of people drift by. The band finishes a tune and the crowd cheers. If I were among the throngs, I'd gladly add another Euro to the till.  

At night, we leave the balcony doors open and the continuing general rumble of life three stories down lulls us to sleep. We hear couples trailing home along the narrow alley after another good night in the renowned clubs of Barcelona, and it all blends into an endless general 'city murmur' that I find restful. The muted sounds of distant music drift in, the clink of dishes from Els Quatre Gats (the modern version of the old Picasso hangout) just down the block, the crescendo of soft voices and fragments of conversation as people pass below then fade on into the night. That's how it works after midnight anyway, after the very loud late night garbage trucks have finished their rounds. Better midnight than 6am. 

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The famous La Rambla, a wide tree-filled pedestrian way with a narrow traffic lane along each side, is one of the city's 'don't miss' experiences.

The street is crowded with people enjoying the day. There are stands selling some very interesting art, but we can't buy any art while backpacking through the Iberian Peninsula, so we avoid even looking in that direction. There are beautiful flowers for sale, and fragrant potted herbs. The delicious smell of plump basil leaves wafts our way and Carolyn wishes she had a kitchen. One of the problems of constant travel is that you eat lots of restaurant food. It's good restaurant food, but it ain't really 'home cookin,' no matter what the signs say. If we were here for a month, we'd rent a cheap apartment and cook in now and then. That worked out very well in Buenos Aires a year ago, but it's not happening this time.

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We're headed toward the harbor but soon get sidetracked by a glimpse of the charming old Mercat de la Boqueria down a crowded side street.

It's only a block away, and it draws us like a magnet. All that wonderful food whispers, "Lunch time." to us. There's a crowded stand by the door with a case full of delicious-looking items, but we can't even get close to it. We decide to press on, deeper into the Mercat, and find a nice quiet stand with plenty of good, simple things to choose from. It looks like a mother-daughter operation and we order plates of goodies, and two small beers. Behind the counter are liquor bottles, and we could have had a hard drink if we'd wanted. It's a little too early in the day for that, but liquor seems easily available here in most cafés and restaurants. Yet, we don't see lots of drunks walking the streets. Maybe all that Puritan stuff we grew up with was overstated. I'm just wondering. 

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We wander the waterfront, enjoying sailboats, ships, and all the playful public art. We pass one of many 'Borrow a Bike' stations and plenty of scooter parking, just like those we saw in Sevilla and other cities. Imagine the mess if all those people drove cars!

Then we take a different route back toward our hostel through the narrow medieval lanes of the Barri Gótic and La Ribera. At first glance, a few passageways look a bit spooky, but we soon find hidden art galleries, enticing restaurants, and edgy hair salons.

Carolyn decides not to explore her 'Goth side' with a new cut, and we continue through the warren. 

We enter a small plaça housing the Palau de la Música Catalana, one of Barcelona's Modernista treasures. It was designed by Doménech i Montaner, a contemporary of Gaudí, to celebrate great Catalán composers. I knew nothing about Catalán composers, but there would be a piano concert that evening in memory of a Catalán composer named Frederic Mompou and his pianist wife, Carme Bravo. We buy two tickets.

  The piano soloist is named Marisa Gupta, and she's an impressive interpreter of the music, having been a Fullbright Scholar and playing with symphonies in Houston, Berlin and London's Royal Academy of Music, along with a variety of famous musicians. She throws herself into the music of Mompou's "Impressions of Muntanya," which has modernist echoes of Ravel's "La Valse" and the music of Satie. I'd never heard the music of a Catalán composer before, but I was intrigued.

After a short break, she plays Chopin's entire Opus 28. It's a 2-hour concert. All of it played from memory – no sheet music, nobody standing by the piano flipping pages. Just her and the ivories. It was very impressive.

OK, I admit I don't know enough about Chopin's Opus 28 to recognize if she made stuff up along the way. And anyway, I'm always up for a bit of 'jazz improv.' But there were old guys in the audience with white mustaches and thick glasses, looking like music professors and watching her every move; they applauded at the end and nodded their approval. 

Yet I couldn't help wondering about the two young ladies sitting to my right, who somehow looked like budding young pianists themselves. Were they impressed. Or maybe intimidated? On the way out the door, did they whisper, "Ya know, my father might be right. Maybe I will go into engineering, after all."

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There's an El Corte Inglés store half a block from our hostel. It's a Spanish chain of large department stores, like Sanborn's in Mexico, or Dillard's in the US. Although we've seen them all over Spain and the Canary Islands, we've never been inside one so we decide to take a look. Carolyn soon spots the Desigual clothing section. It's time to buy a new dress. I wander away, one floor up, to the book section, where it's safe.

Desigual is a Spanish company, started in 1984 by a Swiss guy. Since then, it has grown in amazing spurts, including 60% annual growth from 2002 to 2009. In 2009 revenues were 250 million euros, jumping to 435 million euros in 2010. They have a design philosophy based on "Positivity, tolerance, commitment and fun," and they produce high-design, off-the-rack goods at an affordable price. They're based in Barcelona.

Ever since Carolyn saw our friend Catherine wearing a Desigual dress in Kino Bay, she's wanted one. She saw their stores in Tenerife, Málaga, Sevilla, and Madrid, but didn't want to drag more clothing around the continent. She's also a committed second-hand shopper and was having trouble with the concept of 'buying retail.' Now that we're nearing the end of our Spanish Sojourn, she lightened up and bought herself a Desigual dress. She'll look great on our return cruise across the Atlantic.

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  In Europe's charming older days they had Guilders, Marks, Franks, Lira, etc. Now it's all Euros. Pic 45 The Euro economy has undoubtedly helped make the entire continent more efficient as each country no longer needs to print and manage a separate currency. And cross-border travel and trading is a lot easier now without all those border guards. Euro paper money is now consistent throughout the entire area, although the coins are imprinted with the country of origin. Mostly we've had coins reading "España" or "Portugal." The EU is having a few problems these days, but overall the union is probably beneficial.

I find a 2 Euro coin in my pocket with "Lëtzebuerg" printed on it. Miriam, our German hostal host in Barcelona, doesn't recognize it so I Google the name. The tiny country of Luxembourg has three official languages: German, French, and "Luxembourgish." Lëtzebuerg is the country's name in Luxembourgish. The IMF says the 500,000 'Lëtzebuergers' have the world's highest GDP per capita. It's rumored they also have the world's highest external debt. Is there a correlation here? Have they borrowed too heavily to throw this party we call Modern Europe? Maybe I don't want to know.

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Thursday is our 'Gaudí day.' By nightfall, it will have been a grueling experience. We walk to the Sagrada Familia shrine, about a kilometer away, and arrive at 10:30 a.m. (Hey, it's Barcelona; we were out late the night before). There's a ticket line stretching around the corner and down the block to see the "most visited site in Spain," according to Lonely Planet. The building is an ongoing construction project that began in 1882 (Gaudí took over in 1883) and is ongoing today. People are sitting at a cafe across the street watching the work crew finish the building. They'll probably be sitting there for about 30 more years.

   The line is not moving. We decide to head for the Gaudí works at Park Güell, instead. It's a considerable uphill hike from the Sagrada Familia, but there's a Metro station nearby. We buy two tickets and then take a look at the large Metro wall map. There's no mention of Park Güell. It's one of the city's most famous sites. We can't believe it's not on the map. 

We look again at the map. It's not on the map. We find it on our large, folded-up, pocket map, and see two stations that are not really 'close-by.' But we're still young; we can walk from the closest station. We get on the Green Line train and get out where a nice older gentleman tells us to. At street level, there are no signs pointing us to Park Güell. We look at a few street signs and figure out roughly where it is from where we're standing – mostly uphill, of course – and we start walking. Soon, it's all uphill. There are still no signs pointing to Park Güell. So much for helpful nice older gentlemen.

The street segues into steps, then we come to the end of the pavement. We're in a park of some sort, a kind of urban wilderness with dirt hiking trails. We keep going. We come to an overlook where I expect to find those famous tile-encrusted benches that Gaudí built more than a century ago. We approach the edge with its magnificent view out over the city, and the Gaudí plaza is way below us.

We climbed over more hills than we needed to. Good thing we're not lame. Yet.

It's a wonderful Sunday in Park Güell and from our vista point we can see the place is crowded. We walk downhill toward the famous plaza, across bridges in a style that we use to call 'free-form' in the 1960s. They seemed daring and innovative back then; through older eyes, they tend to resemble molded excrement. Sorry, I just don't know how else to describe it. Soon we're at the famous overlook with the Gaudí benches, and we wait for a chance at a few photos. It's very crowded and everybody else has the same idea. We relax and wait our turn. 

The benches, stairways, and gates are actually quite remarkable and still gorgeous after 100 or so years of wear. The entire park has many good photo opportunities, and there's a kind of carnival atmosphere that adds to the day. Far below, we can see Sagrada Familia's distinct form against the skyline. It beckons us to return. 

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According to our map, the closest Metro station to the Park is more than halfway back to Sagrada Familia. It's all downhill, so we decide to skip the Metro and walk. We arrive back at Sagrada Familia around 4:30.

By now the line is manageable, so we get two tickets to see the shrine, and pay extra for the lift inside one of the towers to a vista point near the top. The ticket-seller tells us our turn at the lift is scheduled for 6:30. That will give us plenty of time to study the amazing (and somewhat zany) work on the ground floor. We find two chairs and relax. Soon we're snoozing in the church while a concert of tourist-babble and foot-shuffle goes on around us. Piped-in organ and choir music weaves through the din, punctuated at the hour by the pealing of bells. The random staccato of hammer-drills adds a modernist counterpoint as the construction project continues around us. I snooze through the noise.   

Soon it's time for the lift. It's small and we're jammed in with several other people, but then the door opens high over the city for a true 'wow moment.'

There are ants crawling on the sidewalks far below, and toy buses. After a few moments at the top to breathe in the view, we start our the long winding descent down the narrow stairway. The winding, and rail-less (!) stairway is the only way down. (Note to Staff: Please send someone up to wipe down the years of 'hand grease!')

It's quite the experience, with view portals and small balconies here and there on our way back to earth. There are so many places to take a good photo that small memory cards may not hold it all. At closeup, the stark and angular sculptures by Josep Subirachs pierce the sky. Back at ground level, columns, vaults, and ceiling intersections create patterns that mesmerize and grow, plant-like, from the earth. This is such a fantastical and Modernist construction that it's sometimes hard to believe that Gaudí died in 1926 (!).

Just because you're insane it does not mean you're destined to become a great architect. But it probably couldn't hurt. As he grew older Antoni Gaudí became more and more of a religious fanatic, driven to finish his masterpiece. It now generates a tremendous cash flow in ticket sales and merchandise and, at the present rate of construction, it may well be finished within a hundred years of his death.

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Unfortunate translations always bring me a chuckle. During our Spanish sojourn we've encountered such menu items as, "Crashed Farm Egg with Truffles," "Iberian Cheeks Casserole," and Duck Breast with Pear and Outbreaks." It's a good thing we're not squeamish, but I don't recall actually ordering any of those items. Especially the 'Iberian Cheeks.' 

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Our time in Barcelona is drawing to a close, and there's much left to see. (Note to self: Watch Vicky Cristina Barcelona again, and pay closer attention to the architecture.) We find our way to the Museu Picasso (well hidden in the alleys of the Barri Gótic) for yet another dose of the world's most famous contemporary Spaniard. He spent some of his early years in Barcelona before moving to Paris, and the city remembers him well. After Franco became dictator he did not return to the country of his birth. Still, some of his formative moments occurred here, hanging out at Els Quatre Gats with fellow artists, poets, and philosophers during the heady early years of modernisme. Just down the alleyway outside our balcony is the restaurant's lamplit doorway, or at least the modern version of it (the famous original failed around 1915).

We wandered into the new Els Quatre Gats early in our visit. The food was good, but we mainly remember the kitchen staff trying to make as much noise as possible while sorting flatware in the adjacent room. It was ear-splitting and we didn't linger over a second glass of wine. 

Only after seeing his work in numerous museums on various continents do you realize just how productive Picasso was. He worked continuously and rarely took any time off. He also kept much of what he produced, since money really never interested him. He experienced great success early in life and had more money than he knew what to do with. At his death, there were around 50,000 pieces in his estate to be allotted to his heirs and various other claimants. That's why there's probably no major museum in the world without several representative pieces done by this amazingly prolific artist who dominated his field for much of the 20th Century.

Barcelona's Museu Picasso (no inside photos allowed) has his massive Las Meninas studies from 1957, based on the famous Velazquez piece hanging in the Prado. These pieces, done at the same size as the original, show almost every possible re-interpretation of the masterpiece that Picasso could imagine. There are several rooms at the Museu devoted solely to these very large pieces.

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After leaving the Museu, we pass a small market filled with beautiful vegetables. It's time to enjoy a very simple, and cheap, dinner in our room. Sometimes there's just nothing better than some good cheese, sliced fruit and vegetables, with a glass of fine wine while looking out our balcony window to the alleyways of Barcelona. 

We wrap up our Barcelona stay with a fast walk to a few more famous architectural sites – Gaudí's graceful Casa Batiló, his heavy-handed La Pedrera, and the unfortunate 'wire haircut' that Antoni Tápies installed on the roof of his studio.

Then we enjoy yet another savory dinner at an outside cafe accompanied by yet another fine bottle of Rioja as the evening spreads out against the sky. We're in no rush to leave this unique city.

But in the morning we'll leave for our last Spanish encounter. Although we'd like to stay longer in Barcelona, we're looking forward to the Basque city of Bilbao and it's famous Museo Guggenheim.

 

Comments

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Quelle mis beaucoup, il était particulièrement à la maison. Je suis confiant chaque personne se complaisent dans leur séjour dans cet endroit. Ce fut un poste exceptionnellement passionnant.