Today is a public holiday which I think is a necessity after last night’s festivities. Fireworks were being let off until well after midnight celebrating St John’s Night and the Shortest Night of the year, so I don’t think anyone got much sleep? Most of the fireworks were in the background but every so often we would hear a loud bang seemingly right above our apartment building! It’s all very chaotic with no one seeming to care about waiting until after dark and certainly no one seems to be concerned about packing it in at a reasonable hour. It’s a total free for all which started mid-afternoon and continued through the night. Very different from the few illicit fireworks let off in Melbourne’s suburbs around Christmas and New Year.
So, a public holiday and … not much is open. Planning ahead last night and realising that even fewer museums than usual were going to be available to visit on a Monday, Bernie booked a ‘Free’ walking tour. Of course, these tours are not really free as you are expected to tip at the end if you are happy with the tour that your guide has given. Which we don’t have a problem with. If we are going to take a tour, we are more than happy to pay for the guide’s time and local knowledge. It’s just we would be more comfortable with being charged a set price rather than us having to try to work out what a fair price (tip) is.
We caught the train part way this morning and then walked the remainder of the way to the meeting point beside Barcelona Cathedral where we met the guide with the yellow umbrella. He handed us across to Theo who was going to take the English-speaking group. We were a bit early so we found somewhere to sit and wait until the start of the tour.
At 10.00am Theo gathered us together and introduced himself to us. He is a Greek who was working in Wales when a love affair brought him to Barcelona. The love affair is over but he’s still in Barcelona working as a foreign correspondent for a Greek television network and on weekends and public holidays, he moonlights as a tour guide.
He told us about Barcelona’s Roman history and pointed out the remains of the Roman wall that we were standing beside before walking us across to the front steps of the Cathedral. Yet another Gothic cathedral!! When this one was built, they built it really plain and ugly on the outside. Come the Barcelona Universal Exhibition of 1888 it was decided the cathedral needed to be prettier, so the visible part of the façade was re-done in a gothic-revival style.
We walked to the Palau de la Música Catalana built between 1905 and 1908 by the modernist architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner. We have tickets for guided tour of this venue for tomorrow so more on this site then.
We visited the exterior of the Mercat de Santa Caterina with its distinctive wavy roof. The market dates to the 19th century but it was remodeled between 1997 and 2005 by architects Enric Miralles and Benedetta Tagliabue who also designed the Scottish Parliament. Unfortunately, the markets are not open today, so Theo was not able to take us through the interior of the market.
Our next stop was at the El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria. The site has a long and complex history linked to the demolishment of this neighborhood at the order of Spain’s King Felipe V following the War of the Spanish Succession between 1701 and 1714. When Carlos II of Spain died childless a European great power conflict broke out. Some countries supported Felipe’s claim to the throne (Bourbon Dynasty), others supported Archduke Charles of Austria (Habsburg Dynasty). Ultimately, Felipe’s claim was successful, an outcome that was unpopular amongst Catalonians hence their community was razed by the new king.
The cultural centre occupies the site of the Old Born market which was opened in 1876 in one of the first large-scale cast-iron buildings to be erected in Barcelona. It operated as a market for 95 years until it was closed in 1971 with plans to demolish it. Fortunately, its supporters prevented this from happening and archaeological works in the 1990s led to the creation of the Cultural Centre. Another snippet of information was that ‘born’ means an area where jousting tournaments were held … back in the days of jousting tournaments.
We walked to the Basilica de Santa Maria Del Mar, a large mediaeval church – built in the gothic style – between 1329 and 1383 at the height of the Principality of Catalonia’s maritime and mercantile strength. Because the church was closer to the port it became the preferred place of worship amongst sailors when they were ashore.
We continued to the Plaça del Rei, Palau Reial Major (Grand Royal Palace) and Museum of the History of Barcelona. When the museum is open – not today! – Theo makes a stop here for his tourists to use the facilities. It’s always a nuisance being somewhere on a public holiday when services are curtailed. Theo usually introduces visitors to a few gastronomic opportunities too but those were also, unfortunately, closed today. Maybe we can return tomorrow to Patisserie Hofmann, to try to sample Spain’s best croissants??
Theo’s next stop was at the Casa de la Ciutat (City Hall) which was wrapped in scaffolding undergoing some restoration work and, across the Plaça Sant Jaume, the Palau de la Generalitat which is occupied by government offices. Along our journey Theo shared many more interesting facts about Catalonia’s history, language and culture. It’s impossible to recall all of the details but we absorbed enough to know that this area of Spain sees itself as being very different from (superior to) the southern provinces.
Finding ourselves back at the cathedral we purchased tickets to visit the interior. We couldn’t recall visiting the cathedral when we were last in Barcelona. We could recall all of the Gaudi sites that we visited – Park Güell, Casa Batlló, La Pedrera (Casa Mila) and, of course, La Sagrada Familia – but could not recall the cathedral until we entered the cloisters and saw the white geese. Oh yes, we thought, we have definitely visited a cloister with white geese before. So much amazing architecture and decoration and we remember the geese! The geese live in the cloisters beside the Font de les Oques (Well of the Geese). They number 13 to represent the 13 martyrdoms of Saint Eulalie, one for each year that she lived.
We grabbed some lunch from a small bakery that was open. It was filled with scrumptious looking cakes, but we managed to find a couple of savoury options for a healthier (?) lunch before heading back into the underground to take a train to La Sagrada Familia. We alighted at Verdaguer Station and walked towards the basilica approaching from the west.
Well, it’s still not finished but we felt that we could definitely see the progress made during the last 15 years since we visited in 2009. It is still a crazy, organic confection of a building that just makes me think of Whosville! We walked across Plaça Sagrada Familia and into masses of people which is to be expected when more than 10,000 people visit the basilica on a daily basis. Pre-booked tickets to the basilica are sold out for weeks in advance these days. You can try your luck on the day but could end up queueing for two hours to buy a ticket on the day.
Bernie booked our tickets weeks ago, so we managed to enter the complex quickly. With work being completed almost right around the perimeter of the basilica – the cloisters and sacristies – the entire block is barricaded these days with temporary (semi-permanent?) fencing. We recall the site being more open and more accessible in 2009, but with burgeoning visitor numbers and work being conducted on the exterior there is a need to have more controls in place.
Our tickets were for the 2.15pm guided tour of La Sagrada Familia. We joined Almudena who talked to us about the Nativity (eastern) Façade that was completed before Gaudi’s death before taking us inside the basilica to talk about the stained glass and the columns that Gaudi designed to look like trees. The interior definitely looks finished these days. When we visited in 2009, I put in the travel diary that the interior was due to be finished the next year. This goal must have been achieved as the basilica was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI in November 2010. Daily services are conducted in the crypt and two masses per week are celebrated in the basilica.
From the interior we were taken to to the Passion (western) façade where Almudena talked us through the sculptures that were completed by Josep Subirachs in 1976. We were told that the external works now being completed are the cloisters which will run around the perimeter of the basilica (Gaudi designed the cloisters around the outside rather than as a courtyard to provide a buffer between the street and the interior of the basilica), a second sacristy, the tower of Jesus Christ and the main entrance on the northern façade. We were told that construction work will be ‘largely’ completed by 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death but the finishing of artistic elements could take until 2032 which would be 150 years from when work was commenced.
After our guided tour our ticket entitled us to explore the Tower of the Nativity. We were able to go up the tower by lift with just a few steps to complete at the top to access the bridge between the towers. The view of Barcelona was outstanding, and it was interesting to see the fruit, wheat and grape sculptures on the towers more closely. We then had to walk down 340 steps to return to the interior of the basilica.
With our visit to the basilica finished we headed back to the apartment on the train. We could have changed trains at Universitat to travel one stop to our closest station but still chasing minutes for our Exercise goals we decided to walk ‘home’ from there.
Tonight, we were going to go to a local restaurant offering traditional Catalan food BUT it was closed today. There was a Viet-Thai restaurant across the street with a good rating on Google so we went there instead. Their spring rolls were excellent, and we also enjoyed some chicken satay sticks and Pad Thai. That’s Mexican last night and Thai tonight so we’ve definitely been having a bit of a break from Spanish cuisine!
Steps: 16,465 (10.20kms)