Barcelona log (4): In search of Dali

The only organised trip which I had booked in Barcelona was a day trip in search of Dali. We were told to be at the pickup point in central Barcelona at 8:15 (we were there at 8am) but unfortunately did not leave until 9. Again, we took a taxi from the hotel to the pickup point, but it turns out that there was a metro stop about 200 metres from the point (we came back by metro and via a different station, which involved much less walking between platforms).

Once in the van, we drove for about two hours before reaching Figueres which is near the French border. This is where Salvadore Dali was born and there is a beautiful museum dedicated to him there, in what used to be a theatre. Our tour guide came into the museum with us for a few minutes, gave us a brief overview then left, leaving us to our own devices. Fortunately, our ears picked up a narration being given in Hebrew: there was an Israeli tour group who had arrived at the same time as us, and they had a very knowledgeable guide who was explaining things in great detail. So we hitched onto this group and learnt things that we would never have found out on our own. I don't know how the others in our group fared with this museum, but we had a wonderful time - especially my wife who had studied Dali when in school. We also spent a fair amount of money in the museum shop!

From the museum, we travelled further on towards France, to the village Cadaques, which is where the Dali family used to summer. The way there led through beautiful scenery, but as we were struggling to listen to the guide's commentary (she was also the driver), it was hard to concentrate both on deciphering her mangled English and enjoying the views. I decided to close my eyes so that I could better get the Dali family story.

Cadaques itself is like any other seaside town - which is not to disparage it! I was reminded of Ascona, near Locarno in Switzerland, where we spent a magical morning (although Ascona was better). We ate a lovely sole in a restaurant on the sea front, wandered around a little then rejoined the group in order to travel to the Dali summer house at Port Lligat, a few miles up the coast.

Port Lligat is a little fishing village situated on an inland bay and probably it is very pretty - the sky was very cloudy when we were there. Dali bought a summer home here, then as he became more and more famous, he bought more and more houses. The house is delightful - especially what might be termed 'the garden' (there is no grass). Inside, there is little to hint that this is the home of the most famous surrealistic painter - in fact, it was quite bourgeois - but outside, and especially at the swimming pool, there were definitely wild influences at play.

We probably would have stayed longer, but it started to rain when we were close to finishing the tour. The local guide produced a few plastic bags and gave them to us - the bags contained one time temporary raincoats, and we became - as I termed them in Locarno - plastic people. We continued to investigate outside, but our enthusiasm was somewhat dampened by the rain.

Of course, we were the last into the tourist bus; then we set off for Barcelona and arrived back at around 8pm.  Onto the metro, back into the hotel.

Thus ends the Barcelona leg of our holiday. I think that there must be a law called the conservation of serendipity: for everything that seems to go wrong, there is something that goes astonishingly right, something which we didn't expect. The two most striking examples here are Casa Batlló and meeting the Israeli tourist guide in the Dali museum. 

Tomorrow we head for London; I'm not sure whether there is wi-fi in the bed and breakfast place where we are staying in West Hampstead.

Barcelona log (3): Rain stopped play

We woke to grey skies; during breakfast, we could see that light rain was falling which later turned into a torrential thunderstorm with lightning. It seemed that our morning plans were going to be postponed, but fortunately the rain eased off later and we were able to exit the hotel. I was wearing my bought-in-Switzerland rain coat and bought-in-Switzerland shoes.

Our first, belated, port of call was the Els Encants Vells flea market. We took the metro to the Glories station and emerged to see what seemed to be a wilderness in the centre of Barcelona, next to a discarded circle (or placa). There were few people about, but we followed them and after two or three minutes arrived at the market which was already doing a roaring trade, despite the weather.

This is the sort of place which my wife loves and that I strongly dislike, or as I put it "if you're looking for something specific, you won't find anything, but if you're not looking for anything, you'll find plenty". There were basically two kinds of stalls: those situated around the edges were 'professional' stores, selling mainly hardware items or clothing, whereas those in the middle were the 'garage sale' type of stall, selling a tremendous variety of bric'n'brac.

After a few minutes in the market, the weather had improved greatly and I was able to remove my rain coat and dry off in the sunshine. Amongst the first items which I noticed were power supplies for old computers which were glistening with rain drops (and so probably useless) as well as mini DV cassettes for our 'old' camcorder. Needless to say, I didn't buy anything. We arranged a meeting place and I went off to read a book on the Kindle.

After about an hour, my wife turned up at the meeting place after having enjoyed herself but strangely after having bought only two small items. We then returned to the metro and travelled a few stops to the Placa Catalunya station, which seems to be a fairly central plaza with huge fountains in the middle. We stopped for lunch (fish and chips) in a restaurant which turned out to be the Hard Rock Cafe (we sat outside and to one side which is why we weren't aware of the restaurant's identity initially).

After lunch, we went into one of the huge department stores: I was specifically looking for a replacement battery for our new camcorder, as the one which comes with the camera doesn't last long enough. Not finding what I wanted, I then wandered onto La Rambla, which I knew contained a professional photography shop. Unfortunately, they didn't have a battery either but suggested a few more shops back at the plaza. For reasons that escape me, La Rambla is considered to be the main drag in Barcelona, but it doesn't do anything for me. The other shops too did not have the battery.

Trying to save some value for the day (possibly an unfortunate choice of words), we then boarded one of those 'explore Barcelona' buses. The idea is that one buys a ticket for 26 euro in the morning then spend the day riding the bus to a destination, disembarking, spending time at the destination, then waiting for the next bus, re-embarking, and so on. We were starting the trip at 5pm but had no intention of disembarking: the idea was more to see Barcelona from the street (as opposed to the metro). The round trip was fairly long (I believe nearly two hours) and we saw many places that we had already visited, including Casa Batlló and Casa Milà, the funicular at Montjuic, the port and even La Rambla, but also made acquaintance with new places such as the Olympic village and the zoo.

We then returned to the area of our hotel, had a light dinner, and rested for a few minutes before taking a taxi to the magic fountains at Espanya. The taxi was not because we did not know how to get there (we had been there the previous night but had not stayed) but because my wife was having difficulty in walking and there seemed to be too much walking involved. This is something which has to be seen in order to be believed - look at the photos at the linked website. It was also fairly crowded (as were most places in Barcelona), but because this was out in the open in a huge space, the crowd was not threatening - in fact, it was a very friendly crowd. We very much enjoyed this.

We took a taxi back to the hotel and fell into bed: it was already after 11pm and we had to be up early for the next day....

Barcelona log (2) - In search of Gaudi

My wife and I woke early - not surprising as we went to bed fairly early yesterday evening. After a full breakfast in the hotel, we walked a few blocks to where the souvenir stores were and bought a few bits and pieces in each, probably being their first customers of the day. The most important item as far as I was concerned was a hat - I had considered bringing my Switzerland hat to Spain, but that seemed a little strange. I certainly did not want anything to do with Barcelona FC - most of the hats and shirts seem to bear their emblem - but I found a nice hat in beige with a tasteful B logo which seems well made.

Our first port of call was the Sagrada Família cathedral, which is only a few blocks away from our hotel (not by coincidence: when booking the hotel, I thought that we might as well be close to this emblem of Barcelona). I had bought tickets for this via the Internet in order to circumvent the huge entrance queue, and indeed we didn't have to wait at all. Looking at the cathedral the previous evening and in the morning, I had felt that this huge edifice (which is only about 60% complete!) seemed to be overdone, with all the ornate decorations. Maybe it's because I'm used to synagogues, which tend to simplicity. But when viewing from inside and especially from viewing the explanations of the two museums within the cathedral - the latter having a twenty minute film about the cathedral and how it was designed - I began to appreciate the design of architect Antoni Gaudi.

My wife had given me the impression that he had been cut down in his prime, when he was killed by a tram, but it turns out that he was 73 years old when he died, and so 'had a good innings'. One of the activities described in my wife's guidebook was visiting destinations connected with Gaudi, so this is what we did today.

Our second port of call today was the Casa Milà, otherwise known as La Pedrera. We arrived there with little difficulty (we got to the correct metro station, and from there we asked random people for directions; the Spanish are very pleasant and like to help, but they tend to speak to everyone in Spanish even though they were addressed in English. This doesn't help very much) only to discover that there was a fairly large queue to get in. I think that we would have waited for maybe 20 minutes before entering, but before we actually did, a nice young lady walked down the queue and explained that the ticket office was having to close as the Casa Milà was at maximum capacity and that they could not accept any new visitors for the next half hour. The poor woman had to explain this at length to every single group in the queue, which must have taken her some time.

After discussing this for a few minutes, we decided to cut our losses and go elsewhere. I suggested that we eat first as it was already lunchtime. In doing so, we discovered the second of our two main problems with Barcelona: the first (as mentioned earlier) is the language problem (more of this to come) and the second is food. We had to try several restaurants and snack bars before we found something acceptable to our palates - unfortunately this was MacDonalds. For myself, I ordered a fish burger; my wife kindly asked for no cheese (which I countermanded) but the sales assistant wrote down both no cheese (I did want cheese) and no chips (probably just as well). My son - who is accompanying us - wanted chicken nuggets, but instead of the nine nuggets which come with the prepackaged chicken nuggets meal, he wanted the six nuggets version. In the end, we received two nine nuggets meal along with a packet of six nuggets. No matter: we ate the lot (although I do not like their chips which are far too salty for me).

Discussing what to do next, we decided to take the metro to Park Güell. Whilst hesitating by the metro station, I noticed that we were standing in front of an interesting building, which turned out to be Casa Batlló (pronounced Bayou), another of Gaudi's works. I suggested that we visit this house instead of Casa Milà: there was no queue. Inside was amazing: as the audio commentary points out, there are virtually no straight lines inside. Here, the geometrical ideas of Gaudi were constructed on a more human scale than in the cathedral and were much easier to understand and appreciate. I really loved this building (my wife thought that I was being cynical when I told her so) and enjoyed the serendipity. I imagine that this is what a house looks like during an acid trip.

Less serendipity on the way to Park Güell: our son took us to one metro station, but there a helpful lady suggested that we return to a station which would be closer. "No need", said the station manager, after the lady asked him to put us back onto the metro without having to pay: "it's just down here - take the second left and go up the automatic stairs". Well, his instructions were correct, but as as result, we came into the park via the back entrance which is extremely steep. No wonder there are several escalators on the way.

At first, we weren't convinced that we had arrived at the correct destination: true, we were in a park, but there seemed to be none of Gaudi's fingerprints visible. After wandering around a bit (the park needs to improve its directions by printing maps), we eventually stumbled onto the Gaudi part.

The picture below is the main entrance, which we, in our idiosyncratic method, used as the exit. The picture doesn't really do the buildings justice as they are more colourful than the picture suggests. As I heard several people mention, the picture seems to be like something out of 'Alice in Wonderland', although I would call it a gingerbread house.

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We had to take a taxi from outside the park to the nearer metro station: by this time, my wife could hardly walk. This metro probably isn't much closer than the one that we arrived at - the distance is quoted as 1220 metres - but at least the way does not include climbing up a hill which would be at home in San Francisco.

Our next port of call had nothing to do with Gaudi - the Montjuïc Aerial Tramway or Teleferic de Monjuic. This is a cable car near the port of Barcelona which takes one to the castle which overlooks the port. The cable car ride was reminiscient of Switzerland, but the castle was something else. Built at a vary strategic site, the castle's cannons guard the sea entrance to Barcelona.

After a pleasant stroll around the extensive castle grounds, we rode the cable car back down to modern Barcelona. We then traveled to a famous fountain for an evening performance (I didn't catch its name) but as it was getting late and we were getting tired, cold and hungry, we didn't stay. We'll go there tomorrow night. Instead, we returned to the the Sangrada Familia, found a suitable restaurant, ate pizza, drunk tea, walked home and into bed.

Barcelona log (1): Have a nice day

After a fairly boring flight westwards over Santorini, Greece and Italy, we arrived in Barcelona at around 2pm. After sorting a few things out in the hotel, we had a late lunch then set off for the aquarium. We've been to quite a few aquariums over Europe but I think that this was the best. One thing which we weren't expecting was to see several penguins strolling around in their area.

Travelling on the Barcelona metro is almost the same as the London Underground, although of course one has to pay more attention to the signs in order to understand them.

Next to our hotel I spotted the sign on the left: Have a nice day - BCC. Now, that abbreviation can mean different things to different people. I imagine that most people are familiar with the term bcc in connection with email, although I also imagine that fewer know that it is an acronym for 'blind carbon copy' (who remembers what a carbon copy is, these days?). To fewer people, but especially myself, BCC is an acronym for Basal Cell Carcinoma, the kind of skin cancer from which I suffer.

Today I learnt a new meaning - Barcelona College of Chiropractic. Have a nice day.

Barcelona log (0)

Once again, holiday time has arrived. I'm sitting near the departure gate for our flight to Barcelona - we should be boarding soon. We spend four nights in Barcelona then fly to London, where we will stay for another four nights, and finally to Edinburgh, where we will be a week. Our visit culminates with the degree awarding ceremony in Edinburgh, the event for which I have been waiting a year and which determined our dates.

So far, this trip has been the worst in terms of preparation. First of all, there was the mixup regarding the date of my exam. Then on Saturday night, I idly looked at our Israeli passports, only to discover that mine had run out a few days previously whereas my wife's would run out in a few days. Fortunately, we were able to get new passports within a few days.

I needed to buy mini DV cassettes for our camcorder. No shop in the vicinity had such cassettes and it seems that no one in Israel sells them anymore. I could buy via eBay but it's a bit late for that now. So my wife bought a new camcorder yesterday afternoon with a built in memory card - Panasonic SDR S70. I intend to spend the flight learning how to use the new camera. Hopefully in London I will be able to buy an extra battery and charger for the camera.

Ok: boarding now. More news later tonight from Barcelona.