By the way, before I start, a note to say I only publish blog posts when we leave a city, so since our manic start which involved lots of moves, at the moment that’s about once a month, and I just summarise what we experienced during that past month. If any of what I write is of interest to you and you would like to receive an alert so you know when I make a new post, just register your email address in the box at the very bottom of the page. You can also deregister at any time if I bore you, I won't take offence.
So… Barcelona…
An interesting arrival
Dodgy stairs and balcony
First, the only Airbnb flat within a reasonable price range and filling or other criteria was at the 4th floor without a lift. Turns out it’s more like 8 floors and the stairs are so narrow Arnold Schwarzenegger would have to climb sideways.
There are 62 steps, some higher than others because nothing is symmetrical in this building which is old, very, very old. We have to carry Didi, especially downstairs since we don’t trust her not to step on her ears or miss a step and we don’t fancy another trip to the vet. The snag is that I am a renowned klutz too and had my fair share of stairs-tumbling in the past, so I have to be very, very focused when I use them especially with the added responsibility of Didi’s survival on my arms. At least I have small feet, Cuong’s overshoot the stairs by about half of his feet!
We have a tiny balcony which has some suspicious cracks, Didi loves it though! We put her grass tray outside for her to watch over pedestrian beneath (in case she wants a wee so we’d stay out of trouble), but the grass finally decided to die. Didi doesn't have vertigo, is very happy, loving her walks and is in good health since I haven't yet dropped her down the stairs.
LEZ, bollards and boilers
We only found out about the low emissions zone (LEZ) restriction in Barcelona a few days before our journey. Annoyingly but to some extent understandably, our year 2002 Polo doesn’t quite reach the ‘eco-friendly’ basic requirements, but thankfully, we learnt that rules don’t apply during weekdays before 7am and after 8pm. Since we had a 6 hour drive from Hendaye to Barcelona, we carefully planned our stops to arrive at 8pm on the border of the LEZ. Well that was genious until our GPS outsmarted us, changed the route without asking our permission in the middle of a big motorway spaghetti junction near Barcelona and took the initiative to find us a “BETTER way”, which means we crossed the LEZ border exactly 5 minutes before 8pm…🙄 What do we learn from this? Anyway, we don’t think the system to fine UK registered trespassers is in place yet.
The next hurdle was reaching the flat with the car, since the street is in the old town and fenced off by Bollards to prevent excessive traffic from ruining it. We couldn't park closer than a 10 minute walk from the door, in an area covered by Graffiti. At that time we hadn’t had the leisure to to assess whether the area was safe or not (turned out to be), which was a bit iffy when a homeless guy with glassy eyes and high on drugs decided to hang out right next to the car, stare, then faff about near the car looking in bins and his bags. For lack of other options, I stayed in the car to keep an eye on the gear and the guy while in semi-broken phone contact with Cuong who had to carry all the luggage to the 4th (8th) floor on his own with 5 separate trips. Free weightlifting, Arnie would argue…
Anyways, we settled in what turned out to be a lovely looking flat. The ceiling structure was a bit scary because it is made out of brick vaults and beams. The vaults themselves are sensible, but the weight of the bricks means that the whole ceiling is curved as if a whale has been chilling on the floor above us for a couple of centuries. We decided to stop looking suspiciously at the cracks in the bricks and beams, and rely on probabilities that the ceiling won’t collapse for another month since it has lasted so far.
We proceeded to explore the neighbourhood, which is way cleaner than the last France towns, no dog poo here, they literally wash the whole hood every single day with little cars and brooms, there are bins everywhere. I was super impressed since Spain wasn’t so clean a few years before, someone seemed to have cracked down on the whole city's management (hence the ZEB)! Our flat is in the old town, 10 minutes from a beautiful large sunny park. A few people hang out and seem to have dodgy business but there are always lots of people walking about and eating out in the many street shops, restaurants and cafes until late. There are regular rounds from police cars who sometimes scoop a few small dealers for the sake of looking busy, and the streets are lit all night. So overall, the Old town feels very safe.
Graffitti
If I had to define Barcelona in a couple of words, I’d say Arty-querky. So first, we found out there was some interesting arty-querky art above the bed in the flat we rented 🤣
Bondage and bum paintings and Gaudí architecture aside, the first thing that hit us when we walked in the Old town near our flat is the amount of huge quality graffiti, most of them painted on shutters of closed shops.
I’m not a fan of meaningless ugly tags, but Graffitis are different. They are artistic and often have meaning. So ironically, I found myself happy whenever I noticed closed shops, that meant I could discover new graffitis. I have a routine of walking Didi to the park one hour each morning. She’s quite slow because as we’ve already established, she’s an old lady, but also because she enjoys sniffing Spanish smells and probably getting lost in translation. But I am glad she is so slow because during each of my walks to and from the park, I discovered more graffiti, sometimes mixed with funky stickers.
We probably should have gone to the Picasso museum, but, well, we didn’t in the end. I ended up having more fun compiling a little gallery of all my favourites graffiti, which became a mini personal museum. The vast majority of pics were taken within 10 minutes of our flat, and are the size of a shop front, ie above person height. It’s not easy to tell from the gallery, but a few were also either tiny or the size of large buildings.
With this, I’d like to dedicate my Arty-querky Barcelona tiny museum to anonymous talented young artists including the guy we ran into on our way to a nightclub, and whom we were lucky to snap just as he was putting final touches to a bulldog. You will notice some common styles in different graffiti so it is likely shop owners commissioned a few dudes (or gals?) on a word of mouth basis. Some are just freestyle on random worn-out bits of walls and show someone's signature style, like the cute little snake that turns up in lots of corners in different forms, and the mad dogs. I caught a few cats whose presence honoured the Vietnamese year of the Cat (Rat for the Chinese, regardless, cat or rat, Happy New Lunar year!). It felt like the best way to visit a museum, finding a surprise at every corner, and it’s free. Have a browse through the pics and see which ones you might like!
Gaudí and Duende
Okay there are lots of pictures and info on the web about Gaudi and his kitch style so I won’t dwell on it, but we were gobsmacked to learn that the genious architect who built one of if not the finest and most complex churches in the world in honour of the Divine and Mother Nature (la Sagrada Familia, still in construction since 144 years) , died at 49 run over by a.... tram. A TRAM for God's sake!?! So unworthy of this worthy guy, that’d give anyone a decent reason to question one’s religion! One of the most impressive things was the light, the sun behind the windows almost seemed to be burning with a rainbow of warm yellow and ocres on one side of the church and cool shades of jade and blue on the other, pictures don’t do it justice so there is only one way to experience that, which is to go there. We liked how light and incredibly forward thinking it was compared to sometimes depressing old churches, it truly feels like being in a Scifi. Gaudí based his architecture on nature and it is interesting to spot local trees trunks in parks that look exactly like those elegant crazy elongaged pillars splitting in branches to hold the 18 (yes 18!) towers.
It's not just the Sagrada Familia, it’s all the other huge churches and funky buildings dotted everywhere in the city, with twiddly art, just looking at sculptures can be a lot of fun. The Spanish vibe gives those old building life with professional opera singers belting out songs in alleys next to skilled flamenco guitarists or jazz musicians.
We lucked out on guitarists when we went to see a Flamenco show in a very small bar, with a singer, a Cajón player and a male dancer for a mere 7 Euros. “Duende” is a Spanish word which sorts of means having soul, a heightened state of emotion, expression, and heart. Something you definitely feel when you listen to Flamenco and watch it. So much power and strong emotions, we both loved it!
Spanish, Catalan languages and plumbers
I was taught Spanish in high school but it is so close to French thanks to common Latin roots that it takes very little effort to guess pretty much everything. For speaking, it’s really difficult not to be lazy and just chance adding ‘o’s and ‘a’s at the end of French words, pronounce ‘s’s ‘th’s, speak/laugh/complain all at the same time louder and with lots of hand and arm flapping. On top of this, Barcelona is a bit sensitive about the whole language thing due to independence related reasons similar to the Basques, and prefer the use of Catalan, which happens to be even closer to French (in fact, Catalan language originated from vulgar latin in the Pyrenees Mountains between France and Spain and is still spoken in Pyrénées-Orientales in France). Turns out the lazy approach works a treat in the street or to order food but isn’t so great when you’re trying to explain boiler issues to a Spanish plumber.
Still, between Cuong’s Pimmsleur crash course, my Francospanish gloop and Google, we manage pretty well: a plumber came once, the boiler failed again, another two came back to change the whole thing which we gave us a bit of a scare as it sounded like the whole ceiling was collapsing on the floor at some point, but the boiler didn't explode and we finally got hot water. Which was nice but not so essential given that we still have sunny weather above 15C and that treated ourselves to a Roman bath spa experience to suitably celebrate our 9 years of couple happiness anniversary in hot waters.
Walks, Sevillanas and YogaBody
We took long walks in the park with Didi, local cute green chatty paroquets and compelling statues. We moved a but with lunch yoga and used Youtube tutorials to learn to dance Sevillanas (which led to a few battles over which videos to watch because Cuong and I don’t learn the same way, his memory relies on counts and mine on melody).
But we took a one month pause from the gym. This month was quite busy workwise. Cuong started his AI course, worked hard and aced his first test and I had to juggle finance and cocoa monitoring reports. Also, we just couldn’t face going up and down those stairs four times a day. We did manage to go to a nightclub once to move a bit, the music was good but getting the locals to dance before Midnight was a near impossible task. Just as they finally decided to wake up, we headed home to sleep. Locals are NOT early birds and we are not night owls.
We dropped by the YogaBody studio where I took my Yoga teacher training just before Covid hit in 2020. This brought back lots of happy memories of this intense but super fun group experience with people from all over the world of completely different background and ages. I particularly enjoyed going back to our favourite coffee shop hangout where I was finally able to eat my pancake and salad without the stress of putting together a sequence for the afternoon training and sheer exhaustion from the 12 hour a day yoga and course.
Big cities
Overall Barcelona is a fantastic buzzy city if you like big cities and city beaches with lots and lots of people skating, walking about and exercising. Gràcia is a bohemian area full of coffee shops which is a bit calmer. Badalona, only 30 minutes from the Old Town, has a softer vibe and pleasant beach. Still, you feel the urban vibe, which can be a bit oppressive. We managed to escape to Sitges for a few hours at the Weekend, a much smaller town stretching along 17 beaches, which was so much more chilled. We'll see what happens when we go South in Spain, but Sitges so far beat Andarnos as a lovely yet lively place to enjoy the sea and sun! I must be getting old, in my 20s Barcelona would have been my favourite by far.
Here's a small gallery of the areas we walked in Barcelona, the dragon was for the Lunar New year. On the other hand, I'm not quite sure why there is a mammoth in the park, but there is a mammoth in the park nevertheless... 🤔
Right. Enough for now. Off to València this Thursday for February. I have to say I’m a bit relieved that the next flat is on the 1st floor!
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