A taste of Barcelona - Barcelona, Spain and Canary Islands
Barcelona, Spain and Canary Islands
Happy landings
Our flight (BA2706) left on time at 07:40 and landed at Barcelona El Prat airport at 10:50 local time. Coming in to land we enjoyed a stunning view of Barceloneta and the beach below. After disembarking and collecting our bags we picked up our Barcelona cards at the tourist information desk and were on the Aerobús by 11:30.
We'd booked 4 day Barcelona (BCN) cards and return Aerobús tickets online before departing. The BCN card gave us free entrance to selected museums, galleries and other sites plus four days free travel on public transport. The Aerobús connection was simple and smooth. We boarded a waiting bus - http://www.travelpod.com/dashboard/entr y/13/1419663442#they run every five minutes at this time of day - and the driver scanned our internet receipt and printed our return tickets. There was ample room to store luggage and the journey from the airport to Plaça Catalunya only took 35 minutes. Our hotel the BCN Urban Gran Ducat on Ronda Sant Pere was a five minute walk away from Plaça Catalunya, Las Ramblas and Passeig de Gracia. The only downside of such a swift transfer was arriving early and not being able to check into our room. Rather than sit in the "lounge" we stowed our cases in the left luggage lockers and headed out into the city.
Review BCN Urban Gran Ducat For a short city break the hotel offered all that we needed. For us the location worked well, close by to Metro stations (Urquinaona and Plaça Catalunya) as well as being within walking distance of a number of sights, bars, restaurants and shops. The room was spotlessly clean and the beds comfortable. The bathroom was also well appointed, clean, with fresh towels provided daily. The facilities are limited and of those available we only made use of the left luggage lockers (€2 each non-refundable) and the wifi which was fast once we had managed to read the password.
A taste of Barcelona Our first taste of Barcelona was from Dolceria de la Colmena or La Colmena, one of the oldest cake shops in Barcelona. Although the exact date it was founded is unknown it has been serving pastries and cakes for over a century. The shop front windows are full of pastries and candies and chocolate at the side.
We had a rather good mixta - ham and cheese roll followed by croissants salados: one with sobrasada and one with a Frankfurt sausage. From La Colmena it was a five minute walk to the Picasso Museum where we got our first taste of queues. We stood in line for about 45 minutes; however, once inside the wait proved worthwhile.
Picasso Museum
The museum itself occupies five large town houses or palaces on Carrer de Montcada, which date from the 13th - 15th centuries. These palaces are fine examples of Catalan civic gothic style. They have a common structure surrounding a courtyard with access to the main floors by an open staircase.
Picasso's works are organised in chronological order which enabled us to see how his work developed and changed over time and from the display boards the significant life events and influence of people and places. Whilst much of the collection focuses on his formative years - most of which were spent in Barcelona - there are examples from other periods such as the Blue Period, some cubist paintings and ending with his dove paintings and ceramics.
Our next stop was Barcelona Cathedral which we had already passed on the way to the Picasso museum. In the late afternoon Pla de la Seu was busier and the cool evening air filled with the music of street entertainers.
One cathedral – many names
Unsurprisingly Barcelona's gothic cathedral Catedral de la Santa Creu i Santa Eulalia, Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, also known as La Seu, is located in the heart of the Gothic Quarter, Barri Gòtic.
Construction
The present cathedral is built on the site of an early Christian basilica which dates back to 343 AD. This church was destroyed in 985 AD during the invasion of the Moors led by Al-Mansur. In 1046 a Romanesque cathedral was built by Bishop Guislabert. A Roman chapel, the Capella de Santa Llucia, was added between 1257 and 1268 which was later incorporated in the cloister of the cathedral. In 1298, during the reign of King Jaume II 'the Just', work began on the present structure. With the exception of the Santa Llucia chapel all the romanesque buildings were demolished. However, construction progressed slowly due to civil wars and plagues and the main building was not completed until 1460. The Gothic facade was finished much later, in 1889, and it was not until 1913 that the central spire was completed. The cathedral is over 90m in length and 40m wide, its octagonal clock towers reach a height of more than 50m and the spire of the central tower reaches a height of 70m.
Exterior
The neo-Gothic facade of the Cathedral was created by the architect José Oriol Mestres between 1887 and 1890 under the patronage of the banker Manuel Girona. Situated in the centre of the façade the main door is made up of a large Gothic arch with archivolts. There is a sculpture of Christ over the mullion and images of the twelve apostles are arranged along the sides of the door together with numerous figures representing kings, prophets, angels and saints. Of the eight stained-glass windows on the façade, some are modernist and others, like the famous Noli me tangere by Bartolomé Bermejo, are from the Renaissance. The two side towers with tall pinnacles were added between 1896 and 1898; the cimborio, which crowned by the image of Saint Helena, was constructed between 1906 and 1913.
Interior
The interior was airy, like most of the larger Spanish churches and cathedrals we have visited In Madrid, Segovia and Toldeo and in common with other cathedrals has chapels around the perimeter. The interior consists of asingle wide nave, illuminated by large, fifteenth-century stained-glass windows; with some 28 side chapels.
Crypt of Saint Eulalia
The crypt, which is below the high altar, contains the sarcophagus of Santa Eulalia. When we visited there was a service in the crypt and we were unable to see the magnificent gothic tomb and sarcophagus containing the remains of Saint Eulalia.
Choir
The cathedral also has a beautiful choir at the centre of the nave with magnificently carved choir stalls which have rich patina developed through hundreds of years of use. The enclosure around the choir is decorated with reliefs that narrate the life of Santa Eulalia.
From Innocent Saints to the roof top
We queue in front of the Chapel of Innocent Saints to access the small elevator which ascends to the rooftop walkway. From here we have close up view of the cathedral's two bell towers, the two lateral pinnacles, and cimborio plus a panoramic view of Barcelona and the gothic quarter. To an untrained eye a close up view of current repair and restoration work looked somewhat slapdash rather than carefully finished.
Cloister
Even in December the cloister is a welcomed lush green oasis with palm trees, magnolias, an orange tree and a fountain dating from the mid-15th century, where the traditional ou com balla (the dancing egg) takes place each year for the celebration of Corpus Christi.
Rectangular in shape it is made up of four galleries with ogive arches separated by pillars. The reliefs sculpted into the pillars of the Cloister's arches show scenes from the Old Testament and from a legend about the Holy Cross, and the keystones of the vault depict scenes from the New Testament. The chapels arranged along its three galleries were each initially dedicated to the patron saint of an institution or guild, or were placed under the protection of a specific family.
Not unexpected, given the time of year, was the simple nativity scene in the garden; but what was unexpected was the large pond and gaggle of 13 white geese. Each of goose represents one year in the life of the martyr Santa Eulalia, the young virgin tortured to death in 303 AD by the Romans for her Christianity.
La Sardana
On Sunday afternoon the cathedral square becomes a venue for people dancing la Sardana - the traditional folk dance of Catalonia - in which the dancers hold hands to form a circle. There are also sardana clubs or groups known as colles, and each colla wears their own uniform or costume. Originally from the Empordà region la Sardana started gaining popularity throughout Catalonia during the 20th century. There are two main styles, the original short sardana, sardana curta and modern long sardana, sardana llarga, which is more popular. When danced in the streets and town squares - sardanes popular - small circles of dancers can be seen to form and grow: these open circles are called rotllanes obertes, and passers-by can join. When a circle gets too big it splits into smaller circles. The music is provided by a woodwind band, cobla, a traditional music ensemble in Catlonia, consisting of 10 wind instruments, double bass and a tamborí (a small drum) played by 11 musicians.
Under General Franco's dictatorship there was an unsuccessful attempt to suppress regional cultures, languages and identities across Spain. Whilst expressions of Catalan unity like la sardana were banned, Catalan, like other regional languages, continued to be used in private.
The square was busier when we emerged from the cathedral, there were some more musicians, entertainers and tourists taking photos of everything including the Korean couple who looked as though they had just got married – the groom in a suit and the bride in a vibrant red dress. Hearing the music I had hoped that we might have seen sardanes popular – traditional Catalna dancing but we were out of luck. Instead we joined the crowds and headed towards MACBA, stopping to buy a cone of diced Iberian acorn ham with small bread sticks which we shared walking along.
From the gothic splendour of the cathedral we arrived at the Plaça dels Àngels which is dominated by MACBA or "the Pearl" as is known. A large white modernist building on the north-west side of the square its glass facade reflecting the buildings opposite.
Modern cathedral of contemporary art
MACBA provided a different experience from the gothic, ornate and gilded, to the stark, white concrete box, plain and simple. The building is rather brutal and at least to my eye has not settled into the square, sitting uneasily with the surrounding buildings - but perhaps that is the point, to provide a jolt, to make us stop and reassess. There were a few skateboarders outside which reminded me of the Southbank in London, which was perhaps seen as similarly brutal when it was first built. Like the cathedral MACBA is airy, with galleries along one side instead of chapels - with the faithful, just as earnest looking at the displays.
The Passion According to Carol Rama
Unfortunately I could not get passionate about carol Rama's work and whilst I hope I embrace dissent desire and strategies of resistance to normalisation, I found most of her figurative carnal work rather inaccessible and unattractive.
Her abstract geometric works, such as the series of paintings called Composizione which were inspired by the Concrete Art Movement, were impressive.
Oskar Hansen
Radical pedagogies and architecture - what's not to like I thought. Whilst the revolutionary system Hansen and his colleagues are credited as having created - providing experiences and knowledge outside of the classroom - it did not translate well into the gallery. Given that Open Forum theory is a tool for designing arhcitectural projects I was rather disapppointed with the exhibition.
We left the Pearl and crossed the square to the Capella hoping to find salvation. We did, through Sigilit Landau's video installations which included: Salted Lake, 2011, Three men hula, 1999 and Mermaids [Erasing the Border of Azkelon], 2011.
Mermaids was filmed on a beach on the border between Gaza and Ashkelon: three women repeatedly fall from the sea. They draw in the sand with their bare hands and as they are pulled back to the waves their imprints are washedaway.
From Gaza we are transported to Gadansk in Poland which was the setting for Salted Lake. For this installation Landau took a pair of boots and suspended them in the Dead Sea where they became covered in salt crystals. Placed in the middle of the frozen lake each boot melted a big hole until they finally drowned. The work is intended to touch upon collective memory and pain - burdened with history and gravity (and salt).
.
Formerly the Convent dels Àngels, this 400 year old gothic convent-church was renovated to house temporary exhibitions as well as exhibits from MACBA's permanent collection. By the time we emerged from the Capella night had fallen and more skateboarders had descended on the square. We made our way to Plaça Carles Buigas, map reading as best we could, for the magic fountain show at 19:00
Font Màgica – Light, sound and water
We eventually reached the Magic Fountain and stood watching the illuminated fountains dance and play. The fountains seem to have a magnetic attraction, drawing crowds of locals and tourists alike. The Palau Nacional, which is illuminated at night, provides a stunning backdrop for the show.
The Font Màgica or magic fountain was built as part of a project designed by the Catalan engineer Carles Buïgas i Sans for the 1929 International Exhibition. The project consisted of a series of cascades and fountains between the Palau Nacional, the main exhibition centre which was built on the top of Montjuïc, and the Plaça d'Espanya at the foot of the hill. Over 3,000 workers were commissioned to undertake the construction which was completed within one year.
Leaving the fountains to dance and play we headed down Av. Reina Maria Cristina towards Plaça Espanya from where we took the Metro to Plaça Catalunya.
Tapas Time - La Ventana We had diner at La Ventana on Carrer del Dr. Joaquim Pou. We hadn't read any reviews but the menu outside looked reasonable, wasn't translated into English (usually a good sign) and wasn't full of tourists unlike the restaurants opposite our hotel. We ordered a selection of tapa which included: patatas bravas, cod balls, padron peppers and chorizo. The food was nothing special but after a very long and tiring day it was good to sit down and talk about what we had done and seen over drinks and food.