Oh how Gaudi

Barcelona, Tuesday 20 October

An arty day today and if there is such a thing as too much art, which I doubt, today would be it.

Not so nice weather again (the barometers say 20 degrees but it is more like 15 and let’s face I live in Welly, I know temperatures!) but it is supposed to be stormy tomorrow so once I got going I was like the energizer battery.

My first gear shift was a minute or so from the hotel. (The hotel is fabulous, I love it. My bed is perfect for me and I have soft down pillows (six of them) and gorgeous cotton sheets. My view is across the city (I can see out but no one can see in as I am covered by a layer of metal mesh on the outside that is both stylish and practical) and there is style and thinking everywhere I turn.) However, while the hotel is only two blocks away from the action on La Ramblas the neighbourhood is pretty dodgy – one of the reasons I am not going very far at night here. I had just turned the corner this morning and I noticed a youngish guy (possibly of Moroccan decent) walking along the street while leafing through his passport in the full light of day… and he also seemed to have some cash inside the pages. Duh! How naïve is that, there are pickpockets everywhere here, he really ought to be more careful. And then I realised, he had just lifted it from someone and was checking out the cache he had taken on this much quieter connecting street. I decided to chase him. Just kidding. I took stock of my own vulnerability (Again. I seem to do this daily). Taking Angel’s local advice I take about E100 out with me each day. It is located all over my body in small amounts along with a credit card (my visa card now has two waves in it from my body heat! Who knew that would happen – I do hope it works next time I use it). This means I can get to it easily and I don’t have to open my bag. I carry a really small bag which has my camera and a few minor bits and pieces in it and my wallet which has all of five bucks and another card in it (everything else is in the hotel safe). Because it is cold I wear my bag across my body under my jacket so it can’t be cut and run away with (in that regard I am really not exaggerating). That’s it, hands free to empii (karate elbow move - one of the few I remember) anyone who comes near me. Anyway I digress but that was a clear warning to me to stay vigilant.

I walked 20 minutes up the Ramblas back along Passieg de Gracia to Casa Batllo, the house Gaudi modernized under commission for the wealthy Batllo family. It is extraordinary and well worth the E16.50 admission. Gaudi and Peter Jackson would have got along very I think. I felt like I was visiting Rivendell. Although it looks small from the outside the house itself is huge. The best visual delights are the huge gallery windows in the living room, which are made of both ordinary and stained glass and are waved bringing an amazing amount of natural light into the room; the internal atrium which is Gaudi tiled in blue all the way up, also bringing natural light into the complex and I think the outside façade: this is known as the ‘House of Bones’ as the façade is said to be an artistic representation of skulls and bones.

Because the weather is set to turn I then headed up to Parc Quell. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect here but it was way more than I could ever imagine. If there was only one thing to be done as a visitor to Barcelona, I rate this above the Sagrada (probably because I have done so many churches), this is the must see. The Parc was commissioned by another wealthy family (surprise… the Quell’s – he was a count and a patron of the architect) it was supposed to be a residential complex but only two houses were built, the idea wasn’t very popular. One, Gaudi lived in for 20 years (before he moved to the Sagrada, yes the church, to live), the other,was a show home. Some years late Quell donated it all to the city and so it is now a public park. I like it because it is crazy, because it is has a synergy of nature and building and because it is calm and peaceful. It would be a great place to live…that is if the 5000 tourists a day weren’t there as well.

Content but not quite done I then headed to the Fundacio Joan Miro. What can I say? My Tourist bus ticket expires today and as it is all the way on the other side of town I saved myself E30 doing this today on the bus. This centre houses the permanent Miro collection because he was Catalonian, from Barcelona. First a learning, his name is pronounced hwan mroh not Joan as in Joan as I say/said it up until today. While I’ve been lucky enough to see lots of Miro’s work (in New York, Boston, London, Berne and Madrid :-)) this is the ultimate. Much of the work was painting and I think the best sculptures are in the overseas galleries, however I have a far greater appreciation of Miro’s interest in tapestry. There is one truly outstanding piece here, a 12m by maybe 5m monumental image made with cottons or wools twisted in small ropes. The archetypal Miro colours of black, red, blue, yellow and green take precedence and form to make a striking and unmistakable Miro image but the texture and scale take this onto another level of fabulous. I had to return three times to just stare at it. No pictures allowed and no postcards available in the shop of this one. I am going to have to buy a book.

At last I could sit. Back on the tourist bus I travelled the southern side of the city, up to the hill from which the Teleferic runs what must be impressive cable car rides across the port (I say that because I can just see the wires from the hotel and it does look like a birds eye view…if you like that kind of height), down to Port Vell which has at least six Marinas chocka block full of lovely Mediterranean boats, through Port Olympic (the 1992 Games Village), and finally to Barri Gotic, the Gothic Quarter. The old part of town. I wandered around here for an hour or so but sadly left as I was completely shattered, it was after 7… and I set out around 10.

Pic is the entrance way to Parc Quell.