Regular readers will have already digested Barcelona in Black and White and that gives most of the story. I’ve been so lazy with this that Barcelona in Black and White, Again, is already out. I did take colour photos, with my phone, and I present them here for your education and amusement.
Yep, we must be in Barcelona as there’s cured pig’s-legs everywhere. Our Spanish friend calls this Catalan comfort-food.
Dig in, I say. Local beer, three types of cheese, fresh bread and charcuterie up the wazoo. But there’s more to Spain’s second city than food and booze. No, really.
That’s the view from the hotel room window and that’s the Sagrada Familiar. The foundations were laid in 1882 and the final stone is yet to be placed. There are a ton of jokes to be made about the lazy Spaniards taking a 100 year siesta and such but that’s just how long it takes to make a cathedral. It’s the big tourist draw in this town and we were lucky enough to watch it taking shape from our bedroom window.
On our stroll to the pig-leg café, above, we happened to pass by this world’s most famous building-site and it really is impressive. Especially if you like cranes, which I do.
Here’s another look on our first evening in town, from battery hill. It’s a nice day and the view is good at sunset.
It’s the early the next day and we found this around the corner from our hotel. It’s a Gaudi-designed place and a pretty famous one.
We are off to the park. This involves navigating the unfamiliar public transport network. Nice marble on the walls.
The train system is pretty easy. Before you could say “knife” we were waiting for our local friends at the park gate.
If you’ve read Barcelona in Black and White you’ll know all about this park. If you haven’t, get cracking.
Enough park, it’s a nice day so let’s go for lunch.
We’ll take a spin through town first.
Even the light poles are fancy.
There’s that place again.
Tapas
This sign says don’t feed the wild pigs. But we’re in the city, right? What pigs? Oh no! Here they come!
After lunch, Ruben said he had something special planned. One can book a place at a hotel’s rooftop bar with a special view.
Yep, even better than the view from our room. They’ll let you stay up there for an hour or two, it’s not free, but if you keep ordering drinks then you’re welcome to stay.
The view really is a million bucks. Pity I can’t get the lighting right. Need a fill-flash.
It was a beautiful day and after about thirty minutes of going “Wow. That’s amazing!” one starts to notice some of the finer detail.
The cathedral is an expression of weightless mass, soaring towers and hyper-decoration, but if one gets a an idea of the scale…
These decorations a truly massive. Still hyper-detailed, almost fractal, but the delicate peak of this tower is the size of a lorry and much heavier.
The day remained sunny so it only made sense to sit back and soak it all up.
And by soak it all up, I mean soaking up a good weight of Estrella.
That’s the local Barcelona-beer and it does well in its natural habitat.
That truck in the background contains the bar. How they drive it up here each day is a mystery to me.
By now sun was getting low in the sky and the cathedral was changing colours.
It’s a spectacular sight, I wanted to stay up there until sundown to see the whole show.
So retire we did and glad we were too. Sachie had earlier laid hints that platinum-people receive gifts on checking into a room and we hadn’t. Hats off to the Renaissance Hotel team though.
And now it’s time for bed. It’s taken me, oh, a year and a half to get this post written so I’m going to cut it here and pick up the next day in a new one.
To be continued…