Hermann’s holiday in Barcelona

In which Sid and Doris make small inroads into a large city.

Sid and Doris set out for breakfast and earnest seeking after knowledge. The city is waking up. The port police are portly, taxis are taxing, buses are bustling and happily the waiters are not waiting. Here are orange juice, coffee and croissants.

First stop is the Museum of Catalan History. The region is somewhat autonomous within Spain, and we realise that this is the equivalent of going to see the Museum of Scottish History in Edinburgh – so anything that happens in the rest of Spain that does not affect Catalonia is not mentioned. The layout takes us from the Iberians (whose name is derived from the nearby River Ebro), through the various empires to have invaded and then ruled the area to the industrialisation which was so successful that it sucked in immigrants from all over the
rest of Spain. Then the civil war, Franco’s time (with some well chosen school text books, always great Litmus papers), and the recovery. At each stage the politics and changing technology are presented together. Sid plays the part of a donkey at a water lifting device for irrigation. The hands on bits are lots of fun and as the day wears on and families catch up with us, it can get difficult to get time with the exhibits.  Hence no picture of Sid in full (plastic) knight’s armour sitting on a full-size (plastic) horse.

Barcelona was a key part of the Republican struggle in the Civil War. This seems to be presented in class terms of poor workers versus the rest without looking much at different values: authoritarian vs liberal or religious conservatism vs freedom of belief. This might be down to Sid’s poor Catalan, though many of the panels have English translations and Sid has read them all vigorously.

The museum has its point of view but on the whole presents its case quite gently. Recommended.

Now by metro to the real touristica fantastica: the Gaudi La Sagrada Familia cathedral. It seems to be important to dress well in order to travel on the metro and Sid and Doris shuffle their travel-stained shoes in embarrassment.

Gaudi/gaudy, nominative determinism in another language? Anyway, when we arrive at the Great Masterwork it is considerably cleaner than when Sid was last here and much less covered with scaffolding. It is also way more crowded and more complete. The only dome to be seen is Sid’s.

The style is Catalan Gothic with a big Art Nouveau overlay with added calligraphy. You had better see some pictures. If you had seen this in a Harry Potter film you would think the computer generated graphics team had been at the mushrooms, but it is all here. Antoni Gaudi was only on religious fervour which is very powerful stuff. People have been known to see visions.  We take a couple of pictures from the outside – it is hard to photograph because it has loads of detail and bits of colour that need to be studied closely to appreciate – and regret, briefly, that we have not pre-booked the essential but surprisingly expensive tickets to join the big queue to see the inside.  Official pictures are here.

Next up is the lunch time discovery of a new bitters drink to add to the recent adoption of Suze. This is red Kas Bitters, non alcoholic and rather sharper than Martini Torino. We will go to the supermarket in Santander and drain the Spanish supply.

We walk home via more Gaudi architecture, La Pedrera and Palau Guell. We do not go in, maybe because we are mean, maybe because we have had enough of close looking in the past few busy days, but also maybe because we are not really Gaudi fans. [Note from Doris: Winter is a great time of year to photograph buildings in Barcelona.  Some public-spirited ecological obsessives seems to have planted deciduous trees in front of all these interesting buildings.]

Instead Sid and Doris think to compare with the old cathedral, but it is Sunday and shut. Sid secretly thinks the Evangelists would be open and that the old team has got complacent or resigned.

This has been a busy day. Conveyance of the day might be this submarine, The Ictineo was built in 1858 but seems not to have been a success. There is a full size replica in the Maritime Museum, just one of many places we will have to come back for.

The day ends with our visit to Historic Circus Raluy, a family business which seems to be run with just twenty people. There is a mix of panto, variety, magic, clowning, juggling and acrobatics. There were real red plush chairs (embroidered tasseled covers over folding red chairs) for the Posh Seats and red painted wooden benches for the seats that were left by the time Sid and Doris booked. It is fab and The Silk is still trying to remember which of the lovely lady acrobats were turned into the magician himself.

Doris tried to take some pictures but you really should see for yourself. A grand night out for all the family.

 

PS The Silk really liked the bit where the clowns dropped a tall tray full of eggs onto the audience – and they were wooden eggs! Attached by strings!! But when the clowns had thrown eggs from the tray at each other they were real, and they broke on the clowns heads!!!

PPS Oh, and the water down the trousers!  That was SOOOO funny!!!