WOW! BARCELONA!

BARCELONA – 2 – 6th July, 2010.

Headed off to Granada airport in time to catch the 12.30 flight to Barcelona.

Caught a taxi to the booking office where we were given keys and directions to the apartment we had at 25 Bruc No.3 on the 4th floor. Very comfortable, all the furnishing and fittings from Ikea. Nice and quite with a view of sun roofs where Brian was pleased to see some topless sunbathers!

Wow what a city! Andrea told us it was vibrant with something happening all the time and she was not wrong. After sleepy little Alhama, we thought that Granada was busy enough, but Barcelona was much more. It seemed even busier to me than Madrid but the taxi driver assured us that Madrid is a much bigger city, so I think it must be the tourists who take over Barcelona in the summer.


On Andrea’s recommendation, we bought tickets for the tourist bus, and used them for the first two days to get to most of the outside places like the beach and Park Guiel – a Gaudi project and also up to the gardens, and then walked just about everywhere else.

The apartment was not far from the main square and we found it fairly easy to find our way around the newer parts of the city. The old town was a different story though and as is usually the case, Brian being a long distance ahead of me, I could not stop to look at a fabric store, and when I finally caught up with him, we could not find it when we went back later.

We found some good restaurants, ate in the apartment a couple of times, did some people watching at the beach, and visited the sites. The Casa Batillo is amazing and Brian took lots of photos. I lost him at one stage and spent a worrying 15 minutes wondering if something had happened to him, but he was up on the roof. I didn’t think visitors were allowed up there, especially as there were doormats in front of some of the apartments (don’t think I could live in a place teaming with tourists all the time) but the doorman found him and told me where he was.

                                                   

                      

                       

The 1992 Olympic Games were obviously important in reviving the older derelict parts of Barcelona especially around the port and the coast. But like every large city there were also building works going on especially around the Cathedral and the Gaudi Sacrada Familia Cathedral.

The pick for me was the Palau de la Musica – it was designed by a contemporary of Gaudi’s – Llluis Domenech I Montaner and the concept was to have a light filled hall for choir and concert performances. It was privately built by the members of the choir and it is stilled owned by the choir, but like all these great buildings a lot of government money as well as private sponsorship has been put into it as well.

And light filled it is. The external walls around the auditorium are glass with fantastic art noveau designs – a different coloured glass for each level, pale pink like we have at Pomona with roses and other flowers in circles and borders, light aqua on the next with bows and long strings of ribbon and then various symbolic designs including the cross of St George, the patron saint of Catalonia. The stage backdrop is very ornate with an orange tiled back ground with sculptured female figures of different Spanish speaking nationalities imposed on it.

The crowning glory (pardon the pun) is the roof. It is a spectacular dome which is comprised of different sized roundels in about four shades of orange and lemon. Moving out from the circle of the dome to form the flatter part of the roof are magnificent stained glass panels of angels in shades of blue and white highlighted by their red lips and blonde hair. This is a rectangle panel over the centre of the auditorium and the remainder of the roof is comprised of flat stone columns which actually look like wooden beams, and at each end there are big sculptured roses also in stone and painted in pinks, yellows and green.

Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos in the building, but we got one of the street front entrance.

There was a very good audio visual introduction and Elizabeth our guide was excellent. I found her accent delightful especially when she was talking about areas because it sounded like arias – appropriate in a musical context!

We also visited the opera house and having been to the Palau de la Musica beforehand found it interesting that the opera house was very much an upper class venue where the wealthy could purchase boxes etc., whereas the founders of the Palau de la Musica were more democratic. Their palace would be open to everyone regardless of class. (So long as you could afford the price of the ticket I suppose!)

The opera house was burnt down twice the last time in the early 1990s, and needless to say lots of government money went into restoring/rebuilding it. We did wonder why they didn’t opt for a more modern building – especially as the design of the older style opera houses have limited vision spaces, but I guess old money would not allow that to happen.

WEDNESDAY 7th July

Returned Tuesday night in time for a Spanish class on Wednesday. Then of course out to the square for the semi-final in the World Cup. As members of the anti-football league we are definitely traitors. As you can imagine when Espana beat Alemana there was much excitement. We were surprised that there were not many people in the square, but when the game was over there was a parade of horn tooting flag waving cars streaming around and around. Brian said he could still hear the hooting of the trumpets the next morning.

Far too hot to do anything but write, study or read at the moment. 40 degrees for the past three days and looks as though it is going to continue for the next few days as well

Visit to Bobastro

THURSDAY 1st July.


Today we decided to explore an archaeological site about two hours drive from Alhama. The drive was pleasant and Sofia did a good job in getting us there without too much hassle.

First stop was Ardales (pronounced Arr-da-les). We were impressed by the green lawn and gardens at the entrance to the village as well as the tourist information/cultural complex close to where we parked. The museum looked interesting but we were more interested in finding something to eat and learning how to get to Bobastro which according to the Lonely Planet Guide to Andalucia has the remains of a 9th century fortress set up by a kind of Andalucian Robin Hood.
We were advised by an enthusiastic guide at the information centre that if we walked up into the square we would find lots of restaurants. He also gave us a brochure about the site and said that it would be open and easy to get to.


We found a nice looking place where we thought we could have lunch, but what we thought was the restaurant turned out to be the town hall! The restaurant was off to one side – we could not see any signage as to its name, but followed the waitress through a bar, down a long corridor into a very large air conditioned restaurant. She subsequently told us that it is called the Juan Vera Restaurant. All round the walls were photos of the various sites and they all looked interesting. The town is obviously trying to build up its economy using tourism. From the little we saw it has a lot of potential and the town looked very prosperous.

We decided on the menu del dia and at her recommendation chose the soup of pumpkin, potatoes and meat. It was truly delicious and came in its own tureen. (Brian thought that very economical because it meant that they did not have to throw it away if we hadn’t eaten it all). We followed that with salted cod and coffee and then headed off to find Bobastro.

We did find it but when we got to the entrance, the guide waved us through, so we continued to drive up the mountain where we came to a dead end but with a fantastic view of Garganta del Chorro (the El Chorro Gorge). As it is only about 50 kms from Malaga, it is a popular drive into the hinterland but it is also more famous for its rock climbing. According to the guide book, the gorge is “about 4km long, as much as 400 metres deep and sometimes just 10 km wide”. Its sheer walls and rock faces are what attract climbers in Andalucia. (Not for the Smiths though!)

When we got to the dead end, we had a fantastic view and realised that we had come further than we needed to. We stopped to talk to some people who were also at the lookout. They were from Robe in South Australia – didn’t know Mike Gibson, but asked if we knew Peter and Leslie from Pomona! Took me a while to realise that we do know them, but by then the Robe ites had moved on. We asked them if they had been to Arr-da-les, but realised afterwards that we should have asked them if they had been to Ardales!


We turned around and went back to the stall where we had been waved through and discovered that the entrance to the site we wanted was on the opposite side of the road and was not visible from the road.


Paid the 3 Euro entrance fee and the Gatekeeper unlocked the gate and let us into the site. It is a very interesting one. According to the labels, Omar Ibn Hafsun got into trouble as a young man when he was in the army in Cordoba and in order to avoid being sent to jail fled to his uncle’s home in Morocco. He came back to Spain and converted to Christianity (thus becoming a Mozarab) and built the Iglesia Mozarabe around the large boulders on the site. The Church became the focus of a small town and at times it became the centre for the protection of Christian refugees fleeing the control of the Moslem controlled Cordoba, which ruled most of the settlements in Western Andalucia. Hafsun was recaptured at one stage and taken back into the Army in Cordoba where he was promoted, but he rebelled again and returned to Bobastro which is where he died. (This really appealed to Brian!)

Omar Hafsun was buried in the crypt of the Church at Bobastro but when Bobastro was finally conquered by Cordoba in 927, his remains were taken away for posthumous crucifixion outside Cordoba’s mesquite (mosque).

The site is on sloping ground and would have been a fantastic fortress because the views from it are spectacular. The labels are very clear and give a very good interpretation of the site, so we were really pleased that we went to see it. Brian thinks that it is probably even more significant than the Alhambra! I’m not sure that I agree, but I did find it very interesting.