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Published: December 9th 2007
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Gaudy by Gaudi
One side of the Sagrada Familia My introduction to Barcelona was somewhat sketchy, but that was largely due to my own poor planning. Standout topics I had neglected when doing my homework on the city included where the airport was, how to get from there into town, and from the middle of town, how to find my hostel. Figuring that knowing the name of the hostel and what area it was in would be enough was a gross miscalculation on my part. When I got to Barceloneta metro station I realised plan B (finding an internet cafe and checking the address of my hostel) was out the window as pretty much everything was closed. Regardless, internet cafes were few and far between on the ground. In the end I found where I was supposed to be after over two hours of walking around in the dark, doorknocking and questioning the Catalan-speaking locals in broken Spanish.
After check-in I was so exhausted that I hit the hay straight away, absolutely positive that I would be out like a light. Then the bloke above me started snoring. Naturally I have had quite a degree of exposure to this over the previous eight and a bit months, and admittedly
I have been the culprit myself on a few occasions. This was something else however. The terrible, wretched, guttural sounds emanating from this fellow made me feel quite ill. So powerful and relentless a performance was it that it kept me wide awake from 11:30PM to 8:00AM the following morning. Though able to raise myself to enjoy a stroll along the nearby beach and around the harbour, I was forced to spend much of my first afternoon recovering from sleep deprivation and stockpiling sleep ahead of another similarly traumatic night.
Things turned around markedly on the third day. I met up with Suzanne and Antonio (my gracious hosts in Chicago, now living in Barcelona for a year) for lunch and got a few tips from the locals' perspective on what to do and see. Far better still, I took up residence on their apartment floor for the remainder of my stay. Though my bedding consisted of a couple of armchair cushions on top of a rubber-backed rug, I was afforded supreme comfort in the knowledge that I wouldn't ever again be sharing a room with the bloke who aurally resembled a poorly serviced and maintained piece of heavy machinery.
A1 Location
Restaurant on San Sebastian beach... which was way out of my price range With work and study commitments tying Suzanne and Antonio up the following day I did a bit of a walking tour through central Barcelona and around the old town. While Las Ramblas bills itself as "the most exciting boulevard in the world" I beg to differ. Sure, it has its lively charms (especially when a horde of English soccer louts have descended on the city for a European Cup game) but to me it seemed like a slight visual improvement on Swanston Street. Cheap, tacky souvenir shops, grifters and flim-flammers rule the roost along the strip, giving it a rather coarse edge by comparison with the rest of this highly cultured city. A three card monte hustler did manage to suck me in, but to his own detriment. Much to his (and my surprise), it turned out that I have quite a knack for the game. My basic rule of thumb is to guess whichever card I think is least likely to be the red. It worked five times in a row before I decided it was time to pocket my winnings and leave the bloke to find another pigeon to swindle.
With that extra ten Euro in
Blue sea and blue skies
Looking back toward San Sebastian beach my pocket all was in readiness for a night of tapas and sangria around the labrynth of narrow alleys and laneways which makes up the old town. I was most interested to learn that the tapas concept was developed in the south of Spain, where barmen used to put a "tapa" (top) of cured meat or some other tasty morsel on top of drinks to keep flies out of them. Though flies aren't exactly a problem in Barcelona in early November, I still whole-heartedly endorse the concept as a way of working up a thirst if nothing else. I got the distinct sense that most bar owners were wary of the effect that a high salt content in their tapas would have on their bottom lines. For a salt lover like me it was heaven, as I didn't have to deal with the guilt of adding extra even though I knew it was bad for me.
A visit to the Sagrada Familia basilica, masterpiece of local architect extraordinaire Gaudi, took up almost half the next day. This was partly due to its size and intricacy, and partly due to the fact that it is Barcelona's number one tourist attraction
Nice for a city beach
Looking across Barceloneta beach and therefore complete with attendant queues. It is quite simply a mind-blowing building. I'm no expert on architectural history but one thing I am certain of is that Gaudi's 'modernist' style did not place a great deal of emphasis on austerity or cost-effectiveness. Moreover, the construction manager (or a series of them) didn't place a great deal of emphasis on timeliness, as construction began in 1882 and isn't scheduled to be completed until 2026.
While I was overawed by many aspects of the building, especially the height of the towers (which looked three times higher from the top), I couldn't get sucked into the romance of the whole 'unfinished masterpiece' tag. Incredible though it was, it looked and felt like a construction zone inside... probably because it is one. Call me a stick-in-the-mud, but I think it will be a far better attraction once the whole thing is finished and the cranes and scaffolding have been removed. 144 years under construction with today's modern methods and machinery is ridiculous - even the Greeks could build a church faster than that.
A few other boxes were ticked the following day with Suzanne and Antonio when we headed up past
Montjuic to see Gaudi's Park Guell and the 1992 Olympic Stadium. An interesting fact that I learned at the latter was that the spectacular lighting of the Olympic cauldron by an archer's flaming arrow at the opening ceremony was actually a sham. The organisers knew there was a chance that the archer would miss given the pressure of having a few billion eyes watching him, and had an automatic pilot installed as a contingency. As it turns out the archer did fire long and wide, but so smoothly did the contingency plan work that all of us watching it on TV were none the wiser. I have a mental picture of a poor bloke who had gotten held up at work that day and was turning up to the stadium late. He probably knew something was amiss when a flaming arrow came out of the stadium and set his shirt alight as he approached the gate.
A memorable day was capped off with a bit of African culture, as we had Senegalese food for dinner before going to see a band from Sierra Leone play. Antonio is quite the African music aficionado, but I must admit I have had
Amazing views
From the top of a tower at the Sagrada Familia very little exposure to it in the past so it was all very new to me. I did nonetheless enjoy it, as what it lacked in terms of soaring melodies and lyrics that I could understand it made up for with some funky beats and catchy rhythms.
Reflecting on my time in Barcelona as I flew out, I decided that as a tourist city it couldn't compete with a Prague, Berlin, or an Amsterdam, but it would certainly appeal to me as a city to live in. Put it down to the combination of golden sandy beaches, a Mediterranean climate, lively sporting and cultural scenes, and ample tapas bars I suppose. I just hope that those lazy sods working on the Sagrada Familia have pulled their collective fingers out and finished the work that their great great grandfathers began 125 years ago before I next hit the town.
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