BARCELONA

Yesterday, Kevin and I got up early and headed for Barcelona.  The plan was to go to the Central Market in Valencia.  Supposedly it is the largest market with fresh produce in Europe with more than 1,200 vendors.  They also have a mediterranean cuisine if you wish to stay and dine.  We got to Valencia and WOW!  what a mess!  So much traffic and so many people.  It was crazy!  The market is located inside a cathedral and we were able to drive by it.  It looked very inviting but the parking was non-existent.  So we went looking for a parking garage which took us around the block, taking us 12 – 15 minutes each time.  If you missed a turn, you had to go back around again.  Ugghh!  After two times around, Kevin said “Let’s bag it”.  His exact words 🙂  I felt it was a good call because otherwise somebody was probably going to get hurt in the crosswalk.

As with all our other seemingly bad experiences, again it seemed to work out for the best.  We had a dinner show scheduled for that night and we barely made it to our hotel in time to get to our show.  

We were pleasantly surprised that Barcelona was nothing like Valencia.  It is much more spread out, less populated and just altogether calmer.  It is also not like Madrid in that it doesn’t have the ornate architecture, that we have seen yet, it doesn’t seem to be quite as big and it has a different kind of people here. 

Barcelona is super charming!  

And it is small enough that it is easy to get around without a car and the people seem so down to earth.  The city is walking friendly in that it is layed out well and the sidewalks are extremely wide.  

Within the first hour of being here, we loved it!!

Although the public transportation here can get you just about anywhere, the concierge at the hotel encouraged us to walk instead.  So we walked to our dinner show (an hour each way) and thoroughly enjoyed it.  It’s the only way to see Barcelona and it’s true charm.

This girl with the white hair keeps showing up in all our pictures. I think she’s following us 🙂

Our dinner show was a traditional flamenco show.  And tapas!  Remember the tapas?  They were delicious and they just kept bringing them to the table.  We had a 6 course meal and never knew what was coming next.  A pleasant surprise.  I am trying to be adventurous and more open to trying new foods and tonight I had my first creme brulee.  It was tasty but kind of rich.

So flamenco dancing is kind of like a Spanish form of opera.  There are singers that kind of wail about their woes and emotions and the dancers carry the emotion into their dance.  But it’s not sad and mopey, it’s aggressive and angry as they dance with scowls on their faces and stomp their feet.  Like an opera, it sort of tells a story without actual words.  We thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience. 

This morning we had a walking tour of Picasso Barcelona with Luke, our tour guide.  We were planning to take the Metro as far as we could and then walk the remainder of the way.  So we bought tickets and ended up on the wrong train going in the opposite direction LOL!  My great navigation skills at work again 🙂  There were so many variables to knowing what route to take and where to transfer and change trains and everything was in Spanish.  So we decided to go back to the hotel and ask for help.  On the way, we saw that it was super easy to flag down a taxi so we gave it a try.  Good call!  We made it on time with no worries.

Luke is from South Africa, lived 2 years in London and has been in Barcelona for 10 years.  He is an artist and was super excited to share his knowledge of Barcelona and Pablo Picasso.

Pablo Picasso was born in Malaga which is on the southern coast of Spain, fairly close to where we were in Marbella.  He moved to Barcelona in 1894 when he was 13 and was/is truly loved here.  He was a talented artist by age 12 and at age 19 he was invited to Paris to show his artwork.  He led a very flambuoyant and scandalous life.  For political reasons he left Spain and moved to France where he continued his art. In addition to being a painter, he was also a sculptor and theater designer.   He died in 1973 at age 91.

This year, Barcelona is celebrating the 50 year anniversary of Pablo Picasso’s death.  What is  interesting is that Salvadore Dali was actually born in Barcelona, but because of his politics, they do not celebrate him.  

So, are you surprised that Pablo Picasso just died 50 years ago in 1973?  I was!  I asked Luke to clarify what he had said because I was sure he was mistaken.  I thought he was a painter from centuries ago.  And we were a little disappointed that our tour did not include the Picasso Museum to see his art.  Instead, it was more about his time in Barcelona and the city itself.

Kevin happened upon these two guys during our tour, Ernesto and Carlos. Carlos used to be an actor (so he said) and was imitating Charlie Chaplin today. Kev gave them 10 euros to take their picture so he can later paint them:)

 

“Life is so full of light, full of color, a flower, and opens in the center of your heart”