On Thursday morning we found a little restaurant for breakfast of orange juice, coffee and a flauta - 7 euro in total. Our plan was to take a ramble on La Rambla, visit the market, the Cathedral and then take the hop on hop off bus on the west or orange route.
La Rambla is the most famous boulevard of Barcelona. It was nice and quiet when we were there but we could imagine it getting thronged as the day went on. I was fascinated by the wavy paving on the pedestrian path. It had quite a disorienting effect on this easily unbalanced one. We managed to get an almost totally pedestrian-free photo of Miro's circular tile mosaic. You can also see the wavy paving in the photo.
Seemingly Miro chose this site as it's near where he was born on the Passeig del Credit.
From here we went in to Mercat de la Boqueria, a large public market off La Rambla. It was absolutely fantastic - what a shame we were not doing a home exchange. There is an endless bounty of glistening fruit and veg and fish, dangling rolls of smoked meats, hams and salamis, barrels of olives and marinated peppers and colorful chocolates and sweets. We loved it. At the tapas bars we kept peering at what the customers were eating - and it was not in the slightest breakfast like!
At the foot of Las Ramblas, almost at the water's edge is the 19th century monument to Christopher Columbus, built on the occasion of the Universal Exposition of 1888.
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| The base of the monument. |
Next stop was the Cathedral. It took quite a while to find it because Jim was following his nose, as usual, and wouldn't accept my directions which were spot on! En route we passed an Irish pub.
In a small street off La Rambla we came across the Porta Ferrica Fountain. The fountain dates from 1680 and is named for one of the gates of the second city wall. The tiled panel shows groups of people of the old city at the bottom of the city walls and a clear portrayal of the protective figure of St. Josep Oriol flying over the city's entrance gate.
Finally we reached the Cathedral in the centre of Barri Gotic. The first stone of this Gothic Cathedral was laid in the 13th century but it was the early 20th century before it was completed. The interior consists of one wide nave illuminated by large, 15th century stained-glass windows. The nave is flanked by aisles with 28 side chapels. While it is very beautiful, we were spoiled by the wow factor of La Sagrada Familia.
Barcelona's roman sights are centred in the Barri Gotic near the Cathedral but, other than the photo below, we didn't take time to explore them.
We joined the west route bus and passed this sculpture reminding us of the Olympics.
We made our way up to the Jardins de Miramar on the way to Montjuic where we hopped off to get a panoramic view of Barcelona. The garden contains cacti and other plants from subtropical climates.
A brief hop on again and then a hop off at Fundacio Miro, a museum of modern art honoring Joan Miro. Obviously we could not take photos of the exhibitions so Jim had put camera and rucksack into a locker, not realising that, on the roof, there were sculptures that he could have photoed such as this one.
The foundation contains paintings, sculptures, textiles, ceramics and graphical work of Joan Miro - very interesting. We loved the above sculpture and the one at the entrance to the Foundation.
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| From the front |
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| From behind. |
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Back on the bus and we passed by the Olympic Facilities for the 1992 Olympic Games.
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| Santiago Calatrava's Olympic Flame |
And the MNAC, the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, a most beautiful building in a lovely location. We passed by Poble Espanyol, designed for the 1929 World Fair. It is an outdoor museum, a sample of the architecture of Spain. It would have been nice to have hopped off to spend some time there but our time was limited. We hopped off at Placa d'Espanya to get some lunch. That gave us the opportunity to walk as far as the MNAC in order to get some photos of the fountains.
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| This is what is called the Magic Fountain - no magic today! |
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| The view from MNAC |
Back on the bus and more sights to be seen.
This sculpture, called Woman with Bird, was bequeathed to Barcelona by Joan Miro in 1983. It was his last public work of art.
A better photo of the Roy Lichtenstein Cap de Barcelona than we got the first day.
Then on past Camp Nou, Barcelona's football stadium, home of Futbol Club Barcelona since 1957. Finally we returned to the stop outside Casa Batllo where I had to hop off as my feet were killing me and I wanted a rest in the hotel. Jim did the west route bus tour once again while I had my little rest.
