In Barcelona: day 3

November 16, 2024

We’re coming home in less than a week! Day by day we find ourselves increasingly caught up in thinking about what comes next - our long return task list, what we’re doing this winter, what we’re doing next year. It’s not the same for Team Anderson as it is for all you lucky folks who have homes to return to and just need to think about catching up with the yard work or cleaning up the mess the house-sitter left for you to deal with. We need to do at least some degree of planning. Are we going to Tucson again? For how long this time? And will it be a front line yet for the coming Second Civil War? Life as a vagabond is tough, I’m telling you.

One part of that is starting to peek ahead at the weather forecast in Portland, which currently looks unappealing but unsurprising: an unbroken series of wet, grey, chilly days are in the forecast for as far out as we can see. It won’t be like here in sunny Catalonia that’s for sure, where we’ve unexpectedly gotten brilliant weather instead of the four days of rain when we booked ourselves here instead of Girona. Knowing what we know now, Girona would have worked out just fine.

My plan for today is pretty much like yesterday - an efficient bike west across town to the Llobregat delta, planning to check out some of the paths I missed the first time. I make one last minute adjustment to my route though to swing by Barcelona’s version of the Arc de Triomf. I’ve never seen it and it’s only a few blocks off route and shouldn’t take long to swing by and take a quick look. On the way I pass through Parc de l'Estació del Nord just because it’s a green space right on route.

We have no complaints about the weather, and we aren’t too thrilled to be heading back to rainy Portland next week, if you want to know the truth.

I really like this art work in Parc de l'Estació del Nord: Fallen Sky, by Beverly Pepper.

I’m surprised and impressed by the scale of the Arc de Triomf when I come to it. It was built as the gateway for the 1988 Universal Exhibition, and since I’m standing on the wrong side for the best shot I at least have to bike through and take a shot from the other side with the sun at my back.

Both sides are interesting, but this is definitely better.

Next to the arch is one of two Statues of Progress, this one representing progress in industry and commerce. Elsewhere in the large park there’s apparently a second one representing progress in agriculture and the sea.

Once I go through the gate though I’m stuck and don’t make it out of the park for at least the next half hour, blowing away my thought of going out to the Llobregat delta again. I bike down the long path you see in the first view of the arch to its opposite end, thinking to get a longer view of it; and once I’m there I’m arriving precisely as the gate to the large, sprawling Parc de la Ciutadella swings open. Fortuitous timing, so of course I go in and look around.

I’m surprised among other things to find two significant ponds here. One is a boating pond, with geese swimming on it and tiers of rowboats at one end with cormorants perched on their gunnels sunning their wings.

This park is proving to be a decent birding spot. I guess I don’t need to bike out to the delta after all.

So that’s one large pond. There’s a second one though, with a great, fantastic structure of some sort wrapped around one end. I’ll later learn that this is the Cascada Fountain, completed in 1888 and believed to be roughly patterned after the Trevi Fountain in Rome. It’s a wonder to look at. Atop of it is a gilded Apollo in a chariot led by four horses; beneath him is the Birth of Venus, standing in a giant clamshell; and circling the small pool in front are fearsome, menacing winged beasts of some sort - griffons?

While I’m admiring the fountain my attention is diverted by movement on top of one of these fierce beasts. Zooming in I see it’s a moorhen pecking at the creature ‘s enormous curved beak. Then the moorhen flies off and shortly after a heron takes his place. And then that leaves and finally an egret swoops in.

The Cascada Foutain. Among other interesting facts, Gaudi is believed to have collaborated on its construction in one of his earliest projects, designing the hydraulics while he was a graduate student.

Apollo’s chariot. I’m sorry I didn’t know what I was seeing here or I would have tried for a side view that showed the charioteer.

Leaving Ciutadella Park. The huge pack of runners was just arriving when I did and departing now.

So the Llobregat Delta is definitely not happening. I lower my sights and decide to just randomly wander through the city, collecting footage for a video to show you what cycling is like here. Now that I look at what I came back with though I’m pretty disappointed. I shot all of my footage in the morning when the streets were fairly quiet, but ran down the battery before heading home when conditions were much more interesting. So use your imagine and roughly triple the number of folks and vehicles cluttering up the lanes.

Sound track: Grandfather’s Waltz, by Stan Getz and Bill Evans

After a bit of that I look at the map and see that Rachael is only a few blocks away on her walk up to Montjuic so I head over her direction to see if I can catch her on the video.

And I succeed, as you see. So let’s segue here to look at how her day went. She followed a route I came up with to her specifications that goes by Gaudi’s famous villas, up to Montjuic, and then back down and home through Parc Ciutedella and the giant arch. When we got back later we were both surprised to see that neither one of us took any photos from the top of Montjuic today, so you’re stuck with what you saw two days ago.

Casa Batlló again, in case you’ve forgotten since two days ago.

Casa Amatiler. It’s nice when places come labeled like this to help you out.

Casa Lleó Morera. Steve Grampy has filled us in with a lot of interesting detail, so read the comments if you want to know more.

A look across at the other side of Passeig de Gràcia.

On Montjuic: the cactus garden, Jardins de Mossèn Costa i Llobera (named for a Mallorcan Poet) contain cactuses from around the world. I wish I’d seen this. One review I read cited a NYT article that ranked it among the top ten gardens in the world.

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So after Rachael moves on I continue with my random ramble, biking down part of the Ramblas until it’s obvious bikes don’t belong there, make my way back to the Sant Marti Market, and then climb up Montjuic again. I find a different way up this time, past the Olympic Stadium, and finally top out at Montjuic Castle. I’ve seen that Rachael is here too, but on a trail down below me. I lean over, call down to her at her a few times, and eventually she looks up in the right direction.

A quiet morning on the Ramblas. It won’t look this calm when I pass by again an hour or so later.

There’s some sort of chef demonstration or competition underway outside the Sant Marti Market.

The Olympic Stadium, built with the intent to host a counter-fascist Olympic Games in 1936, but cancelled after the Spanish Civil War broke out. I wonder if it’s too late to host one in 2028? It’s feeling like the world might need one.

We get a little better view of Montjuic Castle with the sun up.

And then that’s basically it. I leave Rachael, reminding her not to be late for lunch, coast off the hill, and then find a last few noteworthy sights as I slowly make my way through the busy, throbbing heart of the city. I suspect I could make many passes through this place and keep uncovering something new, but after three days in such a large city were both ready to move on.

In the Plaça de Catalunya, a monument to Francesc Macià, one of the founders of the Catalonian state.

On the Plaça de Catalunya, ignoring the signs to please not feed the pigeons.

In the Plaza de Tetuán, the Monument to Dr. Robert. Bartomeu Robert, born in Mexico and a doctor for most of his professional life turned to politics at the end and became the mayor of Barcelona and an early Catalonian nationalist.

Skating before the monument to Dr. Robert. The skater is just learning and face planted just after this shot was shot taken. No harm, no tears, and she was up and rolling again after a brief conference with dad.

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Today's ride: 16 miles (26 km)
Total: 4,837 miles (7,784 km)

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Bob KoreisJust catching up on yard work? I'm looking forward to the day when I follow in your footsteps, sell the house, and become a vagabond. At least where I lived a few years ago I was surrounded by evergreens. Now living with cottonwoods I've become empathetic to the pain of Sisyphus.
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1 month ago

Scott AndersonTo Bob KoreisI’m not fooled. I’m sure you secretly love it. As Camus said, “ One must imagine Sisyphus happy”.
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1 month ago