Bye bye Barcelona

Barcelona is a major working port city, with a bustling marina and a far reaching urban sprawl.

I haven´t been so lucky with my final hotel, FrontAir Congress, a purported 4 star in the Cuitat Commercial area of Sant Boi. It´s a large multi-storey box next to other large boxes and I suspect I´m in an industrial park at the edge of town.

Being right next to a ginormous supermarket has its food supply advantages, but public transport seems to be one lone bus which heads into Barcelona´s Plaça de Espanya on the hour, and despite having purchased a 4 day tourist pass (at the not cheap cost of 19.50 euros) it seems it covers all the Metros, trams and funiculars in the city, but this bus isn´t on the partnership! :(

Oh well, it´s a place to rest at the end of a day´s sightseeing and I have a few channels in English so at least I can keep up with general world news. (Australia beats England in the Ashes! BBC World sorrowfully exclaims.)

My most consistent TV here in Spain has been CNN, German MTV and BBC World News. While CNN is okay, it is alarmingly repetitive with a definite US and Big Business skew - but there have been a couple of cool things - The Daily Show Global Report (I love Jon Stewart:) and a similar satirical Washington watch called Political Mann presented by irreverant pundit Jonathan Mann.

Sunday in Barcelona and I head out to explore the works of the city´s celebrated architect atist Antoni Gaudi, who has imprinted his glorious, colourful and organic design onto much of the city´s facade.

The Metro helpfully took me to the Sagrada Familia (Holy Family) stop and I discovered that a lot of Barcelona appears to be in the midst of construction...
Is it just me? I seemed to have noticed this everywhere - large scaffolding and netting covering up beautiful monumnets and uglifying a lot of Spain´s cities.

Yes, the Sagrada Cathedral is a work in progress, but while the exterior was still stunning, the interior was practically gutted. I didn´t expect it to look so...unfinished.
There was a small museum on the lower floor which detailed plans, models and the artist´s draft illustrations of the various sculptures for the edifice and interior which was comforting to look at, else I would have thought I´d just paid entry to look inside an empty building. Gaudi´s vision is exciting, but it looks to be a long, long way from completion.

In the afternoon I visited Parc Guell, with it´s fantastical pavilions (also by Gaudi) and the famed steps flanked by mosiac animals (now regularly mobbed by summer tourists). The gingerbread style Casa-Museu Gaudi can also be visited in the park, it contains some of his stylised Modernist furniture (I have some flash free photos!) and he actually lived here for about 20 years in the early part of the last century.

During my Gaudi gaga day I had taken some cool exterior shots of Casa Mila and Casa Batllo in the Eixample´s Quadrant dÓ (these buildings are gorgeous) but the cost of entry was about 16.00 euros each so I was priced out of my budget for the day, but it´s cool, I still got to experience his intensity and enigma and understand why so many artists are crazy about his work.

I know Franz (my soon-to-be brother-in-law) has pooh-pohed The Old Town´s Las Ramblas for being totally touristy and a magnet for thieves, but how could I NOT visit Barcelona and take a holiday stroll along this avenue? :)

So Monday was centred on snaking my way (bag in front) along this mall, pushed along with the rest of Barcelona´s summer visitors and merely glancing at the plants and birds, but really craning my neck at all the costumed and painted human statues trying to outdo each other in imaginative gimmicks.
There were gargoyles, goblins and grocery stores (truly, a woman seemed to be dressed as a whole fruit shop!) and a family friendly theme seemed to be the way to go as parents posed their kids theme park style with some of the garishly painted characters. Street portrait artists soon followed later in the street, eager to render "You, On A Holiday".

On my way to the Museu de la Xocolata, I got sidetracked by the charmingly persistent Charlie, who had exclaimed the Spanish word for attractive? (I´m still not quite sure how to pronounce it - whappa? gwappa? ) when I was walking past him on the sidewalk. I had smiled at him and evidentally that´s enough for a guy here to hustle back and ask you out for a date :)
...actually, this has happened to me in London too, so maybe it´s a European thing! (The guy in question that time had been a gorgeous strawberry blond Swede - yum!)

Anyway, Charlie wanted to show me around Barcelona´s marina, and I had a nice enough pedi-conversation with him punctuated by smiles and attempts to understand each other (he also spoke French, but I´ve been concentrating so much on Spanish in recent weeks that my French vocab has taken a catnap somewhere in my brain).

He seemed funny, cute and attentive but I like to be able to understand and appreciate my date and express myself too, so after about 30 minutes or so, I had to say sorry, thanks for the lovely walk, but it´s just too difficult to figure out what you´re saying. Lo siento! (I´m sorry).
He understood and I kissed him goodbye on the cheek.

Though pleasantly delayed, I made it to the Chocolate Museum eventually and received a superfine bar of chocolate with my ticket entry which I think helps you not drool on the exhibits :)

There were some delicious sculptures worthy of a Cadbury campaign and my chocolate bar was soon gone as I continued feasting on the rest of the displays with my eyes.

My final location on Monday was the fabulous Palau de la Musica Catalana as quoted in my DK Spain, "a Modernista celebration of tilework, sculpture and glorious stained glass". It is almost hidden from sight from the street but once you come upon it, it´s lumious beauty is sublime and I was lucky that being August, tours have been extended to about 6pm else the theatre closes to the public early to prep for that evening´s performance.

We got a brief and very well put together 10 minute screen presentation of the history and some of the artists who have performed at the Palau, and then a tour of the theatre itself which included an acoustic musical check with the large pipe organs high above the stage.
It´s supposed to seat about 2146 people (I was astonished, I wouldn´t have expected that many) with small seats available next to the organ traditionally for child choristers.
There are ceramic roses dappled throughout the stage and the audience columns, images of angels on the spectacular dome glass skylight and muses decorating the back stage wall - all in all it´s actually quite representational of the artistically idealised feminine.

I faced the opposite on Tuesday, when I visited Castelle de Montjuic, an 18th century fortress castle which is now a military museum and had been a prison after the Spanish Civil War (1936-39).
Apart from the expansive view of Barcelona from the sea to the suburbs, it´s quite a sparse and desolate place (though the front gardens look to be softening that look a bit) and there were tourists enjoying the view and the cable car ride to the lookout point but there was little more to explore. Most people ended up catching the cable car back down to the rest of Montjuic and visiting it´s museums, art galleries and the Olympic stadium from the 1992 Barcelona Games.

I enjoyed a wander through the air conditioned Museu Nacional dÁrt de Catalunya which had beautiful sculpture (both classical and modern), a variety of Spanish art, and an astonishing display of 12th century frescos taken from Catalan Pyrean churches - I couldn´t get over how these were actually pieces of walls and buildings which has been painstakingly and carefully extracted and then put together to mimic it´s original form in this museum.

So finally Wednesday (today!) and the last couple of sights to see before I head home tomorow.
The Hospital de la santa Crue i de Sant Pau, a working hospital which had innovative and beautiful design concepts encompassing gardens, decorated pavilions, sculptures and mosiac murals conceived by Llius Domenach i Montaner - I spotted numerous nurses on a smoko break (!) when I was snapping my pics; and the Parc de la Ciutadella, close to the Parc Zoologic, containing the Parlament de Catalunya and angling out to the Arc del Triof where everyone seems to be napping or having a picnic in today´s hot summer day :)

So that´s my Spanish adventure, and I can´t wait to work on all the great photos I´ve taken to share with you all (and relive all that I´ve seen).

Hasta luego!