Barcelona

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[youtube=Ji2sWBjzHHo]

Before I start I'd like to apologise for my presumption that the Spanish word 'Bombero' referenced in the Madrid stage meant Bomb or had something to do with bombs. It actually has something to do with Firemen.


Years ago in Standard 4, my teacher bored us to death with tales of his travels through Spain.
He'd kept a menu which, of course, was in Spanish. So we had to somehow incorporate, then regurgitate, this incomprehensible material into projects we each presented on the country.
I, for one, at 10 years old couldn't care less about a country that hadn't produced anything like Tintin, Asterix or Commando magazines.
My 23 year old resentment towards this teacher and Spain was fading fast. Madrid was a modern, spacious city - a strong, stylish place with tidy streets. Barcelona on the hand was a grittier, lush experience.

We alighted from the packed airport bus into the mid-afternoon swarm of tourists in the Placa de Catalunya. The balmy Barcelona heat carries a salty tang from the nearby Mediterranean. Moving through the swarm, towards one of the many streets that fan-out from the tree fringed plaza proved hard going with suitcase carts in tow. Eventually the crowd thinned out and our little procession of two found the hotel close by. It was a narrow, 4 storey building with nothing going for it. After Madrid we could only feel disappointed. My pet peeve* had struck again.
Once again a hotel had promised something they couldn't deliver. The sign saying 'Free Wifi in your room' was a big fat Catalan lie. I took my laptop along the corridor, down a couple of flights of stairs and eventually found a signal. Little things like WiFi make the bunker style lodgings bearable. It would cost them a couple of hundred euros to fix.
The room would have been perfect if we were ETA members hiding from the cops rather than poor Touristas#.
.

We didn't need any extra help to force us out and go sightseeing. Barcelona is a maze of little discoveries; Las Ramblas was a good place to start. By now getting to the local markets was a number 1 priority wherever we went so we wouldn't go broke. Food markets are interesting & colourful places. Michelle had gently told me I wasn't missing anything special unless I missed the Mercat St Josep. Walking under the stained-glass entrance row upon row of stalls radiate in technicolour before you. At the back we found the American Diner's Catalan equivalent. After a mixture of finger-pointing & Spanish. We sat down around the grill eating plates of grilled chicken, squid in olive oil & garlic, mussels, spinach with pine-nuts, grilled red pepper. Utterly delicious.

As we wandered the cobbled streets after Tapas the sound of the French was never far away. The Franco-Spanish border is only 146 k's from the city and Barcelona felt like a Gallic playpen.
This worked to my advantage as there were plenty of Lacoste shops to find the best deal on a polo shirt. Our early evening meander took us through steadily narrowing streets with stray cats, dogs & the limp foliage of laundry. It was starting to feel a little dodgy so hanging a right we cut back to the tourist traps. A funny form of denial takes place traveling - we didn't want to be seen as tourists but that's exactly what we were. Although some Irish tourists mistook me for an Italian. It had something to do with the sneakers I wore apparently.
I think it was the darling of British Imperial literature Somerset Maugham who had an Indian character in one of his books that complained about the 'damned natives' milling about in downtown Nairobi where he butlered for a gentleman. We felt the same way about the British in Sitges.

My Brother in Law's Brother in Law told me about this beach town 30 minutes out of Barcelona. This required negotiations with the wife, Michelle that is....confused?
In Barcelona we had alot of stuff to see and our beaches back home are better anyway. Or so it goes.
That skeptically raised eyebrow took some convincing but we made it.
As the day grew brighter, closer to lunchtime we got off the train and onto the packed streets of Sitges.Gaggles of excited people in matching tee shirts were flowing down deep streets brightened & bisected with streamers & lanterns. It was August 23rd, Fiesta day. We had arrived just in time for a real taste of devil may care, Latin lunacy.
The lady in the information booth drily told us there would be mortar bombs, a parade & fireworks.
Mortar bombs? Had we strayed into a reenactment of Sarajevo 1994? Michelle shrugged and went off to find the parade. I stared up at the bright blue sky waiting to see the mortar bombs fall. No one else was running for the cellars. Crack!....KaBOOM!! 21 times my ears got the bash as 21 times the bombs flashed briefly in the air above us. Pure white cotton bud blooms of smoke followed, then caught by the breeze disintegrated.

Not so bad then. Back up the street I found Michelle peering around a corner at the mass of people heading our way. The was a group of cops standing round grinning at each other.. The mass suddenly dispersed into the side streets pressing people together. A woman next to me with a ten gallon hat & ray bans sucked away on a fag and then gestured excitedly to her friend. The roll of drums suddenly began then beat closer. Into view came bands of drummers clenching cheroots in their mouths as their hands struck bright drums with sticks to a firm beat. Behind the first group strutted men in hessian costumes carrying umbrellas erupting in flame. They were spinning, shreaking roman candles spitting out sparks into the crowd. If you've seen Group F you'll get the picture. Kind of.
There was no safety barrier, no one was hitlering about protecting people from themselves.
The sparks sang past us but some bounced off me like red hot popcorn and others landed in my straw hat. A thick cloud of smoke came down on us, the fireworks flaring up and fading as the hessian men moved through the gray gloom. Then came the floats.
Giant chicken & cartoon like Saints. Men & Woman would stuff a paper mache hen's open beak with sparklers and roman candles then touch the wick with their cheroots. More flame, more sparks gushed out. Caught in the middle of this I felt a true sense of joy.

The parade continued for a while longer but all the action had left my tee shirt pinpricked with tiny, ashen holes and my straw hat had almost caught fire.
We retreated back to the seaside promenade to find lunch. This is a good time to discuss two archetypes neither of us are fond of. A number of times we got stuck in a confined space (like the narrow Sitges alleys or the subway) with Mr & Mrs Eurobeat. Mr and Mrs Eurobeat typically are a young Spanish or Portuguese couple about 19 years old dressed in P.W denim. His with cargo pockets, hers with rhinestones. Holding hands Mr Eurobeat clutches his image-defining cellphone in the other. From it blares the nasty, stale brand of uplifting trance that has become the staple musical goo of football matches & glow stick parties. Everyone for 100 metres round has to put up with Mr Eurobeat entertaining his missus until a text message interrupts their collective reverie.

Once we'd cleared the alley into the promenade, hunger drove us into the arms of the Set Menu Restaurant. Picking the first bunch of outdoor tables, we sat down and were warmly greeted in a Midlands accent by Graham the waiter. He slid anglicized menus under our noses. Graham left us to serve the British couple to our left champing at the bit for lager. Which brings us to...The British lout. On their best day they are sullen & hungover, on their worst you have to listen to Baz tell his mates how effing awful the rest of Europe is as they yob about, wankered on cheap beer searching for bangers & mash. Luckily these two were the former.

To our right sat a bored looking boy sitting with his father chewing their way through the Big English Breakfast we'd spotted first on the menu. I'm a pushy, demanding diner and I don't mind getting up and leaving if I feel like it. But we were starving and Graham was actually a nice waiter. So Michelle grudgingly ate the dubious fish of the day & I some beef ribs past their use by date.
We'd started to learn our food lesson.
1.Never pick a place where loads of people are drinking beer. This spells pub food. Pub food is there to help wash down alcohol, not please your taste buds
2.Brighter, more garish looking restaurants with good views fall under the 'Great view, rubbish food category'. AVOID. Small restaurants with no view except of cobblestones on the other hand are like ugly children. They have to try harder to get acceptance than the beauty queen-like Sky Tower category of eateries. Their food is cheaper, generally more authentic and delicious leaving you feeling content rather than cheated.

We'd come to Sitges to sit on the beach as recommended. The bay the town sits in has been divided up into 5 or 6 beaches with stone walls separating them. They all looked the same. Crowded that is.
So picking the first beach close at hand we rented deck chairs and read books under the blazing sun.
Sitges Beach is a bit like Mission Bay on a Saturday. Crowded, with dirty looking water.
However the Europeans make up for this with comfy deck chairs and awnings to enjoy the hot, hot sun. One is equally disturbed and amazed by the nudity exhibited by all age groups on the beach.
Once the sun went down we packed up and strolled back up to the train station.

As we sat on the train back from Sitges, the hypnotic sway of the carriage putting was us to sleep. Then, a subspecies of Eurobeats swaggered through the doors. 5 or 6 local yoofs drinking from what looked like a sherry bottle alternately boasting and arguing with each other sat down in the cabin. Before we knew it out came the cellphone with more Eurobeat music. I think their mothers don't let them have stereos at home. Poor things. One yoof lit up a cigarette to add that smoky nightclub ambience required with such music.
We moved.
Smokers still have it easy in Spain. The fine for turnstile jumping on the metro is much more than for being caught smoking in a carriage.

Michelle, our very own walking Lonely Planet had found out about Montserrat.
This hilltop town an hour out of Barcelona is a must-see.We had been told that on a clear day you could see the Pyrenees and the sea. At Barcelona train station we had 2 ticket stands to choose from.
Rail & Cable car deal or Rail & Funicular package? We opted for the more expensive one because the girl selling the cable car combo was too busy twirling her hair, talking on her cellphone to sell us tickets.
Thank god for indifferent cool people! At the base of Montserrat we got off the train and boarded a brand spanking new light rail car and headed up the long, winding track hugging the steep hillside.
Our views were soon jostled away by a dozen or so Eastern Europeans madly snapping away at nothing in particular. By now the town below was a microscopic feature on rocky, shrub soaked hillsides with a river snaking through it.When the gradient on the track becomes really steep the train would use a cog to catch teeth the tracks to haul us up.

We finally pulled into the terminus near the top of the mountain. The old railway used to take 80 minutes to get here. We were up in 25. The hamlet of Montserrat sits on a narrow terrace in a ravine a few thousand feet above the town we came up from. By now it was well into the afternoon and before we walked around we had to eat. Joining the other tourists in the food queue we also discovered that Montserrat is a place of pilgrimage for Catholics. Over the centuries the Monastery was established, disestablished, destroyed, rebuilt and abandoned. In no particular order.
The pilgrims come for the Black Madonna not a history lesson or the Mc Paella we were served in the cafeteria that looks like it was designed to feed POW's in Germany.

Rather than compete with the soaring beauty of the easter island like rock formations that tower over them, the Monastery & Church from the outside are cold and austere. Stepping inside the church will give the likes of P Diddy an inadequacy attack owing to the sheer bling the Firm has in store for you.^
Up in the rear of the church above the altar sits the Black Madonna. After much queuing with the hushed devout we shuffled past a small blackened statuette encased in glass, enshrined in a room glowing with the sanctity of gold & silver leaf mosaic tiles.
Two funiculars, both much steeper than the Mt Victoria one familiar to Wellingtonians will either take you up to the top or down to a mountain walkway winding away to a cross in the distance.
I wanted to see a wider perspective. We took the one going up with still more happy snappers.
The station sat just-of-centre from the ridge line. Frosty air whipped around and Michelle stayed in the station as I wandered up a path towards an old ruined fort not so far away. But as I walked and walked tufts of cloud started to race over the ridge to my right and the fort seemed no closer.
If you're inclined, the mountain is great for rock climbing. Potholers love this place too. The porous rock after a rain storm creates underground lakes filled with ice-cold, crystal clear water.
I've no desire to put on tight pants and climb rocks or play Gollum but someday it would be nice to come back here and walk to the top.

Perhaps it's the Modernist architecture that Barcelona is most renowned for.
After a detailed briefing from an American woman celebrating her Bar exam success with a holiday in Barcelona; We knew that getting up early would mitigate the crowd issue.
A quick trip on the subway left us outside the Sagrada Familia. This remarkable Cathedral started in the 19th century by Gaudi is still under construction. In his wisdom, the deeply religious Gaudi acknowledged that no one could perfectly understand his vision. Which is lucky because the vandals who tried burning the place down only succeeded in destroying the plans.
Left behind were some models Gaudi had made emphasizing the organic nature of his design.
We traveled up one of the spindly, insectoid towers and Michelle gasped at the view, I gasped from vertigo. I'd had a good, long opportunity to gaze up at the interior as we queued for the lift.
Taking good photos inside is hard. Not because it's illegal (they welcome photography here) but because the light streams from everywhere. By the time we'd finished the crowd had become monstrous so we moved on to window-shopping.

We had a plan and it was working well. Sightseeing in the morning, random stuff in the afternoon.
The few enclaves of cool in Auckland had nothing on the design ware shop we found. Vincon, just down from Casa Mila (a.k.a La Pedrera) on Passeig de Gracia is packed with awesome design. They had everything from kitchenware to uber-cool scooter helmets and simple, elegant furniture. The next day I'd slyly manoevoured us down the same street again but Michelle restrained me from going in. The irony.

Gaudi managed to complete many other architectural treasures including the Casa Mila or La Pedrera as it's known to the locals, which means 'the quarry'.
Barcelona around the 1920's was going through a civic revolution of sorts. The city was being modernised at a rapid rate and new ideas extended to architecture as well as social justice.
This apartment block is famous for everything about it. My favourite thing were the sentinel-like chimneys on the undulating rooftop. Gaudi's Modernism had a symbiotic relationship with Art Nouveau. The rooftop seems to flow round and round the atrium circling the courtyard below. Inside in the attic I felt like I was inside the skeleton of a creature. The rafters form a snake-like ribcage in an emphatic display of Art Nouveau's organic fundamentals. Gaudi knew exactly what people's senses would evoke walking through here. As evidenced by the reptilian sketches he left.
Below, an entire floor of this otherwise tenanted apartment block was decorated in the early 20th
century style. It would have been a true pleasure living in such style.

When I was in the 7th form, on TV, I remember seeing the dizzying backdrop the diving pool at the Barcelona Olympics had. On our way to the cable car we passed it. The Olympics is exciting for Property Developers, The incumbent Mayor & most of the Athletes but as we looked at the pool descending gently into tattiness; is the passing sensation of an Olympiad worth the billions borrowed to produce it?
2 backpackers sitting opposite us on the cable car ride provided untranslated commentary on the magnificent view. Barcelona has a large harbour filled with cruise ships. Their gleaming white hulls seem to enrich the already deep blue water cradled gracefully by the long, modern piers.
Once, before cruise missiles & other modern death toys this fort guarded the bay.
Lined up along the battlements are 15th century cannons next to gun turrets borrowed from destroyers. From up here the jigsaw puzzle of subway travel fits together before your eyes.
We were leaving soon. Mixed feelings which had a lot to do with our hotel room kept me from saying I love this place. But it certainly was stylish & energetic place full of lush beauty.

* I'm sorry if I go on a bit but it's really cathartic.
# Please refer to 'exhibit A' picture & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA
^ Bling - A conspicuous display of wealth displayed in a flashy & extravagant manner.
Bling is a term eulogized by Hip Hop artists such as 'P Diddy' Sean Coombs.

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Photos

Hot
It was often 25 degrees even at midnight.

Columns
Inside the Sagrada Familia

Lampost
Montserrat

Windows
Inside the Sagrada Familia

Meat
At the St Josep Markets

Fire Chicken
Sitges Beach Fiesta

Hessian Men
Sitges Beach Fiesta

Drummers
Sitges Beach Fiesta

Drums
Sitges Beach Fiesta

The Glass
Inside Sagrada Familia