2016 Barcelona Visit

 

Plaza de Catalunya Dec 2016

Parc Guell Dec 2016 

La Rambla 

La Pedrera 

Recently as I was scanning through the old photos of our visits to Europe (we have had 5 self made tours in the last 7 years, with exceptions for 2020 and 2021 due to COVID), I chanced some lovely pictures of our visit 5 days 4 nights to Barcelona in South Spain.

The Catalan city is everything  they say it is,good and bad.

1. Antoni Gaudi and Joao Miro and their buildings are very part of the landscape.

2.It is the capital city for pickpockets and petty thievery. I had my new Samsung Note 10 stolen right under my nose.

3.  Football is a religion of sorts, we noticed the fans from Germany (Bayern Munich) were in town for a game at the Nou Camp (Barcelona FC is world class) and the place was half filled with Germans.

4. The Spanish Tapas is second to none. The Catalans (they are very proud of their heritage so they insist on being called Catalans first, Spaniards second) have a 'grazing' - as in cows method of eating their dinner. They will meet group A for Happy Hour at (say) 6pm and have a Campari Soda and tapas at one place perhaps near La Ramblas, then at 8.00 pm adjourn to Born (a small suburb filled with bars and flamenco clubs) for round 2.

5. The Walking Street La Rambla is marked at one end by the statue of Cristoforo Columbus (above) (an Italian explorer not Spanish) who was commissioned by the teenage Queen Isabella to go and conqueor the New Worlds in the mid to late 15 th Century (that is 1480 onwards). He went Westwards and landed  on the islands we now know as the Caribbean islands near Florida. Seeing the dark skinned peoples, he mistakenly thought he had arrived in India !

6. La Pedrera was a house designed by Antoni Gaudi and every angle you look at it, you will find that it is all curved, there are no sharp corners at all. At the top of the house, there are these chimneys which look like something from Star Trek - the last frontier.

7. At the top end of the city of Barcelona, there is the Plaza de Catalunya and Parc Guell (a park which was solely designed by Antoni Gaudi). 

7. My wife and I climbed to the top most of Parc Guell overlooking the entire city and found there was an old American chap playing the best 'Blues' riffs I have ever heard. Standing atop the small mound, looking at the city and the seascape and with the sounds of the Blues playing in the background, the feeling was a mixture of euphoria and grandiosity. In short, it was magical.

The picture taken above at the old tree at the top shows me fully relaxed and feeling reflective,