We ventured into Barcelona's Metro system for a trip to the park complex at Montjuic, at the southwest corner of the city. The subway is modern and efficient (though of course my sample size is very small).
From the Metro we transferred to a cable car which runs up the side of Montjuic (it's actually part of the subway system), and then to a telephérique which carried us all the way up to the fortress at the top of the mountain. That wasn't cheap, but we did get great views of the city.
The fortress of Montjuic is an 18th-century star fort, built to defend the harbor below — and command the city. The Bourbon kings knew that Barcelona wasn't exactly a hotbed of support for their rule, and watched it like prison wardens. There was an even bigger fortress right down in the city itself, which was leveled in the 19th century and became the modern Ciutadella park.
But Montjuic obviously remained an active fort until well into the 20th century. It has some World War I-era cannon commanding the harbor, and some World War II-era guns to control the sea approaches. I don't know if any of the fort's weapons ever fired a shot in anger.
The fort does provide a wonderful view of the modern harbor section below. Barcelona's a big port, and looks quite busy. There were half a dozen ships anchored off shore, presumably waiting to get in. I could see a large container terminal, grain elevators, a huge oil terminal, a cruise ship terminal, and a busy dock where scrap metal was being unloaded. Again, Barcelona's a large industrial city, not just a tourist town.
After walking all over the fort we made our way through the botanical gardens which stretch along the northeast side of Montjuic. I'm not much of a botanist, but I could spot a few familiar plants, including a stand of Magnolia grandiflora, presumably imported from America. I wondered if the forebears of those trees were brought over back when Spain controlled Florida and Louisiana. From what I've read, the Spanish empire-builders were very interested in finding useful plants from their new domains, and planted some of the first botanical gardens in Europe.
By this point we were all feeling hungry and a little footsore. Just past the Joan Miro Institute (which we didn't go into) the park map showed a little knife-and-fork icon, so I figured we might as well stop at some crummy snack bar and pay way too much for sandwiches and bottled water.
Instead we found La Font Del Gat, a charming little restaurant with a nice 15-Euro prix fixe lunch which was one of the best meals we had in Barcelona. I had "cherry gazpaxo" (which I think meant cherry tomato gazpaxo as I tasted no fruit) and grilled cod. Robert had rabbit. I don't recall what the ladies had.
Much later, feeling very refreshed, we got on our feet again and went to the National Museum of Catalan Art nearby. It's a vast old Beaux-Arts pile built for Barcelona's World's Fair back in 1929. (I believe the theme of the fair was: "Disaster's Just Around The Corner!")
We also saw our first cat! Now we know why the restaurant bears its name.
The Museum was a lot bigger, and a lot more interesting, than I'd expected. Quite frankly, I had more or less assumed it would be a mostly lame display of local crafts and whatnot, with perhaps a few paintings by obscure local artists. Nope. The old Kingdom of Aragon and the County of Barcelona before it were major cultural wellsprings all through the Middle Ages, and that didn't change when they merged with Castile. Barcelona's museum has a fantastic collection of church interiors from before the Muslim conquest, then a lot of far more elaborate altarpieces from the days of the Reconquista. (Interesting note: the older stuff all puts Jesus as Redeemer front and center, while the High Medieval altars are all Mary with infant Jesus.)
The Renaissance and Baroque era collections are a little thinner (all the good stuff was going off to Madrid, I expect), but then there's a superb assortment of Impressionist and Modernist artwork from Barcelona's time as an art center in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. I was particularly taken by some of the works by the Masreira clan, a family of artists and jewelers in Barcelona during that period. Surprisingly, their firm is still around, and I may put that on the list for a future visit.
Completely arted-out, we hiked back to our flat, rested and showered, then had Basque tapas for dinner at a restaurant called "Euskal Etxea." The system worked like this: one takes as many dishes as one likes from a long display along the bar. Each tapa (tapo? tap?) has a decorative toothpick in it. When you're done eating and drinking, you present your toothpicks to the cashier and pay about 2 Euros for each.
As a way to encourage wild over-indulgence, it rivals Japanese conveyor-belt sushi restaurants. After all, each one is pretty cheap. You can always have one more. Just one. Maybe another . . . I am at a loss to explain why restaurants in America which call themselves "Tapas bars" don't follow the same system. I'm pretty sure we have toothpicks over here. I've seen them.
We killed a bottle of Rioja with our tapas, topped off with gelato, and then the ladies went upstairs while Robert and I lingered in the square. I had a glass of sangria at the bar below our window while he tried to get acquainted with some of the neighborhood kids. We called it a night around 11, just as the locals were starting to go out.
A Good Day. Cats sighted: 2 (near La Font Del Gat).
Tomorrow: Gaudi!
I blew off one session of talks and went up to the Miro Institute yesterday. It had a historical retrospective of his career, much like the Picasso museum, but also contained the ABSOLUTELY AMAZING "mercury fountain" by Alexander Calder.
Posted by: DianeAKElly | 07/12/2013 at 05:41 PM