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Published: July 24th 2011
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“Destiny is usually just around the corner. Like a thief, a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it yourself.”
The Shadow of the the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon
There is nothing quite as delicious as being enthralled and engrossed in a really good novel that is set in the very city that you are exploring for the first time, specially if that city is one of the great cities of the world, as is Barcelona.
I have passed through Barcelona a number of times over the past months while living near Girona and en route to various destinations around Catalonia and beyond. But this time I was here just to discover some of the cities delights. Of course four days is hardly enough to but scratch the surface, and even less so when you are yearning to get back to that novel.
What makes this city great? Perhaps just the vive in the streets, specially the many common squares and pedestrian only narrow lanes with café bars where people spend the afternoons in leisurely conversation while children play
around them; perhaps it’s more a summer feel as people are much more relaxed (and often on holiday during July and August); perhaps it’s the broad avenues in a city that has had some planning as it grew; or the distinctive and spectacular Gaudi buildings and the many Art galleries of repute (e.g. Picasso); or the deep sense of history around Catalanian independence and pride and the way the Spanish Civil War played out here.
The Shadow of the Wind is an historic novel of tragic love, where mysteries and secrets are slowly uncovered like Russian Dolls right up to the last page. It is a story of intrigue set in Barcelona in the first half of the 20th Century and beyond the end of the Spanish Civil War. It starts when the central character discovers a lost novel in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in Ciutat Vella (the old city), which changes his life and drags him into a labyrinth of secrets and mysteries in the dark soul of the city.
My own discovery of Barcelona included Gaudi’s architecture, most prominent of course being the Sangrada Familia. Each time I passed this impressive building that is still
unfinished more than 100 years since it was started, I would look up and wonder about the apparent disjunct between the older parts that were completed in Gaudi’s lifetime and the more modern later additions. I suppose ‘they’ know what they are doing and I reserve final judgment until the thing is completed (which is meant to be within this decade). Park Guell was another fantastic Gaudi monument, with a fabulous celebratory atmosphere enhanced by many competent buskers set amidst the arches and terraces.
El Born and Ciutat Vella feature prominently in Zafon’s novel. These areas are a must for just wandering around and being lost in the old stonework and atmosphere. The Santa Maria Del Mar is just gorgeous as are the surrounding streets and lanes. I am intrigued by the Catalonian identity as it was played out in the civil war, and the bullet holes still evident in the Plaza de San Felipe are stark reminders of the resistance to the fascist assault of the city.
When visiting Barcelona Cathedral, I was intrigued by the religious police checking the dress of the tourists and barring those (women) with bare shoulders or too much visible cleavage or
too short dresses/shorts from entering the place. Was this really 2011? But outside in the square, it being a Sunday, the weekly Catalan traditional dancing (free for all who knew the steps to join in) was underway, a living demonstration of the strong independence of this region of Spain, with its own language and customs.
Montjuic Castle looks over these areas at the left of the city, and as the novel informs, was a place where many entered and never returned, on both sides of the civil war depending on who held power at the time.
I left Barcelona with a yearning to spend more time there…… and I am sure I will.
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Linda Mondy
non-member comment
Barcelona re-visited
Thanks Paul, we were there last year and loved it too. Happy place. Yes, the book would have added another overlay of joy. x