Barcelona, Part 1
April 19th — 22nd
Approaching our last month in Europe, we began what I call the Greek Island Hamburger, wrapping island life in a few layers of historic cities.
Barcelona >> Athens >> Greek Islands >> Athens >> Barcelona
For most of the trip we’ve been able to work fairly linearly, making a gigantic counter-clockwise sweep around Europe. However, we wanted to save the southern coastal countries (Portugal, Spain, and Greece) for last, in hopes of taking advantage of warmer weather and beach trips.
Combine that with finding the cheapest way to throw in a month of visiting Kate’s Dad in Africa and then returning to the US, that made Barcelona a central hub and gave us two different trips to Athens as well because of the airports. (next time I’d explore flying straight from Mykonos to Barcelona instead of heading back to Athens — live and learn)
When we return to Barcelona we’ll be meeting Jamie, so we spent our first visit to the city hitting historic sites and eating weird foods — as the next time we’re there we’ll hopefully be catching a Barça game!
We wandered the streets of the Gothic Quarter in search of Picasso haunts (he grew up in the city) and famous landmarks like the Barcelona Cathedral or the Plaça de Catalunya — the central hub of Barcelona. Catalan pride booms throughout the provincial capital as rumblings for self-rule still vibrate throughout the city. You’re more likely to see a Catalan flag than a Spanish one and most signs are written first in the Catalan language, a blend between Spanish and French.
Inside the 13th century Cathedral is a trove of interesting finds. Near the front sits the baptismal stone where the first Native Americans were baptized after returning with Christopher Columbus on his historic voyage in 1492.
Further down the side altars you can find one with a pious shoe maker kneeling before the altar. Apparently different guilds would fund the altars and then use them as their headquarters, complete with a lockbox and meeting room hidden behind the facade. That practice seems eerily similar to Jesus driving out money changers from the temple.
Within the Cathedral complex is a courtyard complete with palm trees and 13 geese. That same number of geese have been there for 100s of years and is said to symbolize the age and tortures of Saint Eulalia, whom the church is named after. She was a girl of 13 who became a martyr by refusing to recant her faith during persecutions under Roman Emperor Diocletian. Now buried under the altar she is revered throughout the city.
Finally, the church was a historical meeting point for the Order of the Golden Fleece, a Roman Catholic collection of Knights who had some serious political privileges and played a role in protecting Europe from invading forces. The choir stalls are still engraved with the crests of the Knights who were part of the order and met there with the King.
The narrow streets of the Gothic Quarter occasionally open up to a small courtyards, left open in the past to serve as cemeteries but today providing the limited stretch of open ground for school children to romp and play. Plaça Sant Felip Neri contains an ominous memorial — pocked masonry left from a bombing during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s (the one that left Fascist Franco in charge).
A few streets over and you cross into the Jewish Quarter where you can explore Barcelona’s main medieval synagogue for a few euros. Money well spent in my mind as we received a personal 10–15 minute historical overview of Judaism in Barcelona and relating to the synagogue.
I was fascinated to learn that during times of plagues the Jewish population tended to fair better because of their strict laws around cleanliness (washing your hands really does matter people). However, fairing better in the short term turned out to set them up for an increase in persecution. Obviously because less of them were dying they were responsible for the spreading of the plague, right? That’s what the locals thought and forced conversions, exile, or death upon the Jews that did survive.
Behind the Cathedral are the hidden ruins of the Roman Temple of Augustus (not sure why they picked lime green as the best accent color), and the old palace of the Catalan King still flies the local flag, though it’s now dwarfed by the neighboring building where the national government officials from Madrid resided. The fires still burn.
On other days we hit up the beach, watched old men tout their skills in some form of lawn bowling with actual pins, and stopped to gawk at La Sagrada Família, an organic church designed by Barcelona’s modernist darling Antoni Gaudí.
Construction started in 1882 and is still ongoing so it’s got to be close to an award for longest building project since the industrial revolution. The design is intriguing, and spreads an artsy instead of spiritual vibe. Looking back at pictures I keep getting an image of some fancy royal hair-do.
To finish my earlier though on weird foods — I kept reading that tripe, the edible lining of an animals stomach, is a real local favorite in Portugal and Spain. Kate informed me that it’s absolutely disgusting and from her days in Africa she would at times go hungry instead of eating eat.
Obviously she had never had it cooked to perfection, so I forged on ahead and ordered us tripe and a plate of tiny octopus for our one tapas adventure.
Tripe is disgusting. It’s official. I also learned that I like adult octopus tentacles a lot more than sticking little eight limbed creatures in my mouth over, and over, and over again.
Next time we’re committed to just trying one new edgy food per meal.
