Barcelona

I spent Easter in sunny/rainy Barcelona. The forecasts predicted heavy rain for Saturday and Sunday, which greatly affected my enthusiasm for the trip. It ended up being heavy rain overnight on Friday night, showers on Saturday and heavier & heavier rain on Sunday.

All the warnings I had from people before and during my trip about pickpockets and purse-snatchers made me completely paranoid about my belongings. However, I did not see anything that would make me feel that Barcelona was more dangerous than any large city. The transport system was clean, relatively easy to use and efficient. The streets were also clean and not too overrun with beggars (most were hanging around the Cathedral trying to guilt the church-goers into some philanthropy).

I found Barcelona strangely disappointing. Many people have told me that they loved it but it was not as beautiful & interesting as they said. Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia, La Pedrera, Casa Batllo & Parc Guell are quirky in their design but as they are all very similar to each other, the unusual started to seem quite common-place & unremarkable.

Las Ramblas had a lot of street performers, most of whom were of the statue kind. The best one was a guy who looked like he was running quickly, his tie blown over his shoulder, his trenchcoat flying behind him and his hair all windblown. The Mercat de la Boqueria was alive with fresh produce stalls, food stalls and massive crowds. When I got down to the waterfront, the sun was out and shining brightly off all of the yachts.

I had been to the visiting Picasso exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria and seen some of his non-crazy cubism work, which is actually really good. The Museu Picasso concentrates on his early work from his teens to his thirties, which included his traditional artistic education and his Blue & Rose periods. His pencil & ink sketches are also really great. They had a collection of the pottery that he made late in his life, which were weird and not wonderful.

The one thing that exceeded my expectations was the Museu d'Historia de la Ciutat, which contained a massive excavated site of Roman ruins right below the heart of the city. There were streets, a wine maker, baths and a laundry, where clothes were washed using the urine of passers-by, who pee-ed into collection amphoras (I love this word, first learnt it in Asterix) that were put in the street (eew!).

On the food front, a colleague of mine who lives in Barcelona gave me a bunch of recommendations. I went to a couple of tapas bars and a restaurant where I had a Catalan sausage & white bean dish and profiteroles. I almost overdosed on a chocolate con churros, the chocolate being so thick & rich and the churros so oily and crunchy.