We left France and travelled on to the beautiful city of Barcelona, Spain. The last country we would visit on this trip, with stops in 4 cities and Tangier in Morocco.
This was not our first visit to Barcelona, having spent a few days there in January 2016. It is a truly wonderful city with stunning architecture, particularly that of Antoni Gaudi. I shall come back to that but first something about Barcelona itself.
Barcelona is Spain’s main port situated on the Mediterranean Sea and is 90 miles (150kms) southeast of the border with France. It is the capital of the Province of Barcelona and the Catalonia region. Hans Cristian Andersen visited the city in 1862 and called it the “Paris of Spain” due to its strong cultural atmosphere with lots of museums, libraries and buildings of interest.
At the core of the city is the Gothic Quarter, a close-packed maze of narrow streets with many magnificent medieval buildings including the cathedral, episcopal palace and churches showing Barcelona’s importance as a religious centre. It was also a major administrative centre with the seat of the autonomous community of Catalunya and the Royal Palace. The Romans built a city wall which was very important during the 1701-1714 War of the Spanish Succession. We visited this are previously.
When we visited in 2016, we also used the Hop on/Hop off bus but on a different route, so it was interesting to see another side of the city. We did see more of Gaudi’s buildings this visit but not the Sagrada Familia, a one-of-a-kind temple which we saw in 2016. The foundation stone for this building was laid by the Pope in 1882 and it is still not finished, 142 years later. It is a Basilica and not a cathedral as Barcelona already has a cathedral and a city can have only one.
We were able to board the bus within walking distance of the ship, which was very convenient. To get to our first stop the bus climbed a long and steep hill and dropped us off at the top of the hill. Miramar Hotel high above the city on Montjuïc Mountain. It rises 173m above sea level and its name means Jewish Mountain as this area was once the home of Barcelona’s Jewish community. We enjoyed some beautiful views from there. The hotel, a former palace which was built for the 1929 Expo and for about 30 years thereafter was the home of Catalonia Television. In 2006 it was remodelled into the Hotel Miramar, but the original façade was retained.
The Miramar Gardens themselves were down a steep set of stairs so we didn’t go down but enjoyed what we could see from above. Along the road we walked from the bus stop, were some sculptures and statues and at the end the Martinez Restaurant which has received rave reviews on the internet. I have searched but cannot find any info on the statues which we saw. The gardens can also be accessed from the bottom of the MontjuÏc Mountain, either by walking or via the MontjuÏc Cableway which we had seen from our ship.
We then stopped at the 1992 Olympic Stadium which we had seen previously but now there was a museum attached to it. These were the 22nd Olympic Games and the first at which there were no boycotting countries as the USSR had been divided into individual countries following the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and South Africa attended with its first fully integrated team. It was sad to see that it was rather dilapidated and seemed to have been badly neglected even though a museum had been opened beside it. There were workmen digging on the pavement but for what purpose it was not clear. We had visited the1896 stadium in Athens just a month ago and it was in beautiful condition.
Across the road was the high point of the cable car which went all the way down to the harbour where we had first seen it from the ship. We considered going for a ride but it was an hour return trip and, as we wanted to see so much more, it was not an hour we could spare.
We hopped back onto the bus and hopped off at the next stop halfway down the hill to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC), the National Art Museum of Catalunya. An absolutely beautiful building located in the National Park of MontjuÏc and built for the 1929 Expo. It Became the museum in 1934 with the Medieval Art collection. Sixty years later Romanesque Art was added and then, over the following 10 years the collections grew until 2004 when Modern Art was included. Outside the museum there were dozens of informal sellers, mainly from other countries.
It was a long way down to the Plaza at the bottom of the hill, but there were escalators right from the top to the bottom. Most unusual but it did make life much easier. We were very surprised, on the way down, to see that we were at the Plaça de Espana, where the hotel in which we stayed in 2016 is located. On entering the Plaça are two tall Venetian Towers. Brought back many good memories. Halfway down the hill we passed what was called the Labyrinth. There were taped off lanes where expected visitors were to line up with ticket seller s waiting for customers, of which there was not one in sight.
There was a bus stop there and we continued our journey of city sight-seeing. Our next stop brought us to what was described as the university but was, actually, a faculty thereof, with a number of restaurants. What drew us most were many animal sculptures in a park setting – mainly buck but there were a couple of pigs and bears as well. We sat there for a while just enjoying the peace and beauty.
We walked up the road from the park and saw more faculty buildings as well as an accident involving a young man on his motorcycle and an elderly gentleman in his car. Each was talking to a different policeman clearly protesting strongly that he was not at fault. There appeared to be little damage to persons or vehicles and eventually the police told them both to move off. Interesting.
From there we were taken to the Lilla Diagonal a district which had been upgraded. It had a stunning new Mall which bore the name of the district and was still partially under construction. We were startled to see that the work being done was in centre area of the mall and large trucks were driving in and out over the beautiful new floor. On entering the Mall there was one of the biggest ice-cream vending cabinets we had ever seen and the ice-cream looked fantastic. Trevor took a photo to show the 2 ladies, from Jamaica, who served the ice-cream on the ship. They were fascinated.
Then, while waiting for the bus once more, we watched people and admired the new and old buildings.
Our final stop was near the Arc de Triomf. Yes, in Barcelona. This was built in 1888 as the Gateway of the Fair for the Universal Exhibition. The Parisian Arc de Triomphe was built 50 years earlier.
Time was running out, so we caught the next bus to arrive and, fortunately, for the next 3 stops it was on the route we had been travelling. It arrived at the terminus where it waited for 15 minutes. We were the only people who did not get off and the driver asked us why and we told him that we were on our way back to the port. He then told us that he was not going there as this was the bus for the Blue Route. We were so lucky as the bus in front of us was about to leave and it was for the Red Route the one we needed. We arrived back at the ship with just a few minutes to spare.
2 fun photos to finish
