A week in Barcelona: Part 1

This is the first part of our serialised guest blog. For the next blog entry, click here.

Whenever we go on holiday, we keep a journal of where we have been and what we have seen, one of us doing the writing and the other the illustrations.

Our latest trip was to Barcelona for a week in September, staying with family just outside of the city itself, in Vallvidrera. We were privileged to be staying with our son and daughter-in-law who have written a number of travel guides and who already have a good knowledge of Barcelona. It was Violetta who acted as our guide.

As we were staying a little outside the city centre it was an important first step to get hold of a travel pass. Various passes are available and, because there are so many fascinating things to see and do in Barcelona, a travel card which allows you to hav unlimited journeys on trams, buses, suburban trains, the metro, and other transports seemed the best option.

The Hola Barcelona Travel Card can be purchased for 2, 3, 4 or 5 days. We went for the T-usual Card which gave us unlimited travel for a month and cost only €20. (Pic 1).

Before we went into Barcelona to experience just a fraction of what is there, we would take our grandson, Flavio, to school. This involved using a bus, the funicular railway and one stop on the S1 or S2 train, then a reverse journey.

Before we had even started to go into Barcelona, we had chalked up six journeys using our T-usual Card. During the week we must have made 60 journeys at least. Not bad for just €20!

Taking Flavio to school also gave us a chance to stop off at a recommended café/bakery, ‘Vivari’, in the Sarrià district. A coffee and croissant there cost us just €2/per person – which was why I often had more than one helping! The café was also well-attended, both inside and with people taking away a very wide range of bakery items.

Thursday 21st Sept

Our first exploration of sites was Vallvidrera itself as we were staying there.

We walked up and over the steep hill to get there from where we were staying, hoping to find a coffee shop. Plaça de Vallvidrera has two coffee shops/restaurants which seem to alternate in terms of being open.

The one that was open had all of the outside seats occupied, and inside it was very hot and stuffy, so we went up to Plaça de Pep Ventura. Just at the top of the square there is a take-away café from which we purchased a very good-value omelette baguette, freshly cooked as we waited.

Returning home, Violetta took us on our first real experience, opening our eyes as to just how much there is to see everywhere one goes.

Taking the bus, we went up to Tibidabo where there is both the amusement park and the Temple Expiatori del Sagrat Cor de Jesús (Church of the Sacred Heart).

The church is located 512 metres above sea level and offers great views over Barcelona, as does the bus trip up to Tibidabo.

The main entrance to the church is through a baroque-style doorway beneath a mosaic arch that depicts Jesus surrounded by angels and Spanish saints. The top of the amusement park is free to enter and one can see some of the attractions. There are in fact many others, including a rather scary roller-coaster ride through the wood on the side of the hill. These are out of sight from the top.

On the way up to Tibidabo one can see the Observatori Fabra, also providing great views over the city. Two observatories were originally built on La Rambla in the centre of the city. However too much pollution made them difficult to use, so Observatori Fabra was built between 1894 and 1904. It is one of the oldest still-active observatories in the world. As well as providing scientific studies it is also possible to have ‘dinner with the stars’ in the summer months; booking is essential – and the place is not cheap!

Friday 22nd Sept

Having taken Flavio to school, and enjoyed Vivari coffee and croissants, we returned home for lunch before Violetta took us into Barcelona, this time to the end of the train line at Plaça de Catalunya.

From there we walked down La Rambla and then into the Gothic Quarter, passing Els Quatre Gats on the narrow Carrer de Montsió. The restaurant was the idea of Pere Romeu who copied it from the Le Chat Noir in Paris. ‘The Four Cats’ has a significantly different meaning for the Catalonians as it is also a phrase that means ‘only a few people’.

It became a place frequented by many prominent modernist figures including Picasso and Gaudi. Closed in 1903 it has been restored in 1989 to its original condition, with many paintings and prints on the walls.

A couple of streets away from Els Quatre Gats is Plaça d’Isidre Nonell, where Joan Fontcuberta has created a mosaic of tiles, each showing one of 6,000 photographs of people, places, moments and events that were sent to him by Barcelona residents within four days of him asking for them.

What he created with them is really very clever and painstaking. The tiles have been laid out on the wall at the side of the Plaça to show two people kissing and is titled ‘El Món Nei xen Casa Besada’ – ‘The World Begins with Every Kiss’.

It was created as part of Barcelona’s tricentenary celebrations commemorating the fall of Barcelona during The War of Spanish Succession. Initially it is difficult to see what the tiles are showing but then the picture kind of comes into focus. It is inevitably a place where many people take selfies kissing their partners.

A very short walk took us to Plaça Nova where, on the front and sides of the promontory of the Col·Legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya there is some of the street art commissioned from Pablo Picasso.

Here one finds the ‘Esgrafiat de dibuixos de Picasso de tema popular’, each side made with a technique known as ‘sgraffito‘. Originally the artwork would have been created by scratching through a surface with a stiletto to leave a pattern, although on this particular building it was done with sandblasting.

The original designs were made by Picasso on a napkin, then sent to Barcelona and actually reproduced by Carl Nesjar. The front image is the frieze of joy, with folk dancers and the palms and palmons of Palm Sunday. The other two friezes are: the frieze of the children and the frieze of the Senyera (the national flag of Catalan Estelada).

Across from Plaça Nova is Casa de L’Ardiaca (The Archdeacon’s House). Built in the 12th century using part of the Roman wall, it underwent a major renovation at the start of the 16th century under Archdeacon Lluίs Desplà with renaissance elements. We went up the steps into the elaborate entrance hallway, tiled and with an ornate fountain. Very relaxing in the afternoon heat. One noteworthy feature is the stone letterbox on the façade, the work of sculptor Alfons Juyol, showing five swifts, seven leaves and a turtle.

From the Archdeacon’s house we went across to the Cathedral, stopping on the way to listen to a group of school children singing. Some songs sounded like religious chants, others were very similar to the Medieval Babes.

As well as the impressive gothic architecture of the front of the Cathedral de la Santa Crue i Eulàlia (Holy Cross and Saint Eulàlia), there are the less ornate sides but with many gargoyles and sculptures. One of these sculptures is of Saint George (Sant Jordi) who is the patron saint of Catalonia.

He was adopted as the patron saint in 1456, supposedly, in part, because it was in this region that he killed the dragon. The sculpture of him killing the dragon is facing outwards, but on the side of the pillar is another sculpture of someone else killing a dragon, Guifré el Pilos’ father.

Unable to defeat the Barcelona counts the Saracens captured a young dragon in Northern Africa, then released it near Barcelona. As it grew it went from eating sheep and other animals, to young children, peasants and even knights. Guifré’s father attacked the dragon many times and eventually wounded it so gravely that it crashed into a mountain and died.

The Cathedral also has two other patron saints. Eulàlia was a 13th century virgin, martyred for protesting against the way Governor Dacian was persecuting the Christians. She refused to end her protests and was stripped, flagellated, beaten, tortured and eventually died from her wounds. In the Cathedral there is a well around which 13 geese are kept, symbolising Eulàlia’s age and the number of tortures she suffered. The other patron saint of the Cathedral is ‘La Mercé’ (Mare de Deó de la Mercé – Our Lady of Mercy).

Violetta also showed us where a door high up on the side of the Cathedral seemed to go nowhere. There used to be a bridge across to the next building which allowed the king to get into the Cathedral unseen and away from the hoi polloi.

A little south of the Cathedral, and on a slightly circuitous route back to La Rambla, we passed the El Caganer shop on the corner of Baixada de la Llibreteria and Carrer de les Trompetes de Jaume I.

A caganer is a figurine in the act of defecating, ‘El Caganer’ – ‘The Pooper’. It is a traditional Christmas decoration and symbolises fertilization of the earth, bringing health of body and peace of mind.

In Catalonia, the caganer is traditionally seen wearing a red Catalonian cap and a white peasant shirt. But now shops stock a huge range of different characters including well-know sportsmen, musicians and even politicians. This shop had Trump, the Queen and even the Pope.

We walked back to La Rambla which is probably the best-known street in Barcelona: 1.2 kilometres long and stretching from Plaça de Catalunya to the Monument a Colom (monument to Colombus) down by the port. Then up to the train and on to meet Flavio before a beer in a plaza near his school as he played with his friends.