Remember, remember,
this is now, and now,
and now.
Live it, feel it, cling to it,
I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.
– Sylvia Plath
There are few times in life where time seems to stop as you enter a place. As you enter this other dimension of living with all its strangers and curling rooftops and sunlit trees and park benches painted white, you think, yes, this is different. This is a different life and it’s beautiful.
My time in Barcelona can only be described as such, since I seemed to forget to care about the rest of the world while I was there. So much of the essence of it all felt as though I was inhaling clear air which left you light headed and forgetting your responsibilities for a while. This was enough to cement this wondrous city into my head and heart for a long time.
The train into the city wasn’t the most comfortable and lacked some clear windows due to the graffiti lavishly decorating the outside. It then went through various backyard areas where only walls could be seen with equal amounts of colourful, sprawling spray paint. However, once arriving into Barcelona-Sants Estácio, I emerged into a clean, white marbled, bustling station filled with the friendly, yet masked, faces of people waiting for trains; destinations from Madrid to Paris. The air conditioning also made for a nice welcome in contrast to the sweltering platforms below.
Then, a short trip on metro later, I walked up the stairs of the Vedaguer metro stop onto the most beautiful sun-dappled street, complete with high-storied, renaissance style blocks of flats and wide streets overshadowed by European Nettle and Privet trees. The wide, almost three lane, street gave this atmosphere as I set off walking to the Youth Hostel I’d booked for the night, of peace and beauty all at once. The trees offset the car traffic and the yellowy-green of the buildings gave everything this kind of olive hue in the sunlight that reminded me more of walking into the setting of a romance novel rather than a Spanish coastal city. The six, sometimes seven, storey buildings climbed high above into the blue sky and were accentuated by the beautifully curling and ornate balconies shuttered and draped in house plants and drying clothes.
The whole thing reminded me vaguely of Paris.
Some streets were even cobbled as I walked further towards the La Vila de Gracia District.
That evening around 8, as that’s when most people have dinner, wandering the streets of the Gracia area was completely enthralling. With it’s miniature streets, overhanging trees that obscure most balconies and metal cafe tables sprawling across squares. The light on an August night means that it’s mostly dark by around 9:30pm so the orange glow of streetlights on the well-dressed groups that traipse from wine bars to fluorescently-lit 24 hr supermercados is fun to observe while music from a lone accordion player drifts into candellit restaurants.
We ate in a older restaurant that more closely resembled a wine cellar, with high ceiling, wooden bar counter and wooden-chaired tables backed by a feature wall of wine barrel lids dating back to the early 20th century. It was beautiful. We ate bravas, honeyed artichokes, calamari and russian salad and finished the evening off with a walk down streets lit by twilight where street lamps had stopped working and people laughed while walking past ice cream parlours open late and electric scooters whizzed away into the night. Past large leafy squares where fountains splashed away and loud groups of laughing people made their way underground again, since the underground runs late into the night, the atmosphere of Barcelona at night in incomperable. It’s all orange light, cheery faces, overhanging greenery and warmth.
It’s one of the few cities I’ve felt safe walking around at night in.
The next morning was spent searching for breakfast in the same, narrow street area before finding a stunning French bakery that served an array of croissants, loaves decorating the back wall, braided challah and an army of Viennoiserie lining the front counter so much so that its almost too much to choose from. But I’d go back any day just for the fresh bread and the smell on walking through the door.
The streets that morning were warm and as sun-dappled as ever with the exception of a quiet that can only be found at this time of year during the Assumption of Mary. This incapacitates the city for a few days and instead paves the way for colourfully decorated avenues, music and street parties from morning to night. It was on this particular religious holiday that I happened to be in Barcelona and I had the privilege of walking through some of the most stunning street artwork I have ever witnessed.
Special themes decorated some of the narrower roads with rainbows, rainclouds, comets, solar systems, stars and devils heads. Loud music from small orchestras was danced to on intersections and people smiled more as we walked through the middle of it all.
The next part of the day though, we spent finding cold water after a morning of exploring in the heat and preparing for the possible highlight of my time in this city so far.
The Basílica de la Sagrada Família. Antoni Gaudí’s most famous project.
On emerging from the metro station of the same name I walked up, turned around and there it was, in all of its tall, colourful glory.
The structure is all the more impressive up close as I wandered to the south-western side and observed the impressive Passion façade with it’s bare, bone-like appearance and the enormous columns that support it with the immense spires towering up into the blue above. They somehow capture both elegance and oddity in their art-nouveau iconic style with bulbous and curved flair. Not a single straight line could be seen. It was all rocky sinews, colourful blue and white bulbous domes and curvascious windows in every wall. The amount of detail was breathtaking and that was even without having seen the Nativity façade yet. This façade, built between 1894 and 1930 at the time that Gaudí was still alive, in perhaps the most impressive as the entire thing is so intricate you can’t possibly believe it’s made out of stone. With statues and figures moulded to life-like perfection and the tendrils of flowers and window frames moulded as though water were flowing from every corner, the entire side of the Basílica is stunning and serves as the entrance to this breathtaking work of historical art.
There is truly nothing on earth like the Sagrada Família and I finally had the privilege of visiting it’s incredible exterior on a sunny August day with it’s architecture still in tact even after nearly 140 years of construction. I can only hope that I’m alive to see it’s completion.
The rest of the day was spent at the beach on Barcelona’s stunning Passeig Marítim de la Barceloneta which acts as a lengthy promenade linking a white sandy beach front to the Olympic Park area of the city. It sports wide avenues and huge buildings with stunning artworks of architecture texturing the beachfront if you look back.
And in 32 degree heat, being at the beach isn’t so bad.
Barcelona, as a place, is unlike any other city. Despite it’s similarities in architecture to Paris and Italy with it’s renaissance curling balconies and baroque-style blocks of flats to the extensive european metro system and french boulangeries. It’s narrow, leafy streets filled with vintage re-sellers, local artist craft shops, tattoo nooks and late-night gelato joints, make it unique.
The people are also a huge selling-point as I don’t think I ever saw one unhappy face the whole time I was there. The friendly and welcoming, “bon dia!” and “moltes gràcies” on entering anywhere is unmissable and there is no shame to those who cannot speak Catalan or Spanish because everyone tries to help in one way or another. Although, it’s not too hard to pick up either and gives you a sense of pride when you can finally understand a little more than ‘thank you’ and ‘good day’.
Another must-see, if you can spare the time, is the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc which sits at the foot of the stunning National Museum of Art. With outside escalators that take you up the multiple levels to the top where the museum stands as tall as any royal palace, it’s well worth the trip at night, past all the cascading waterfall fountains on the way up to the most incredible view of the whole city. At night, it’s truly the best city view in the world. To the right sits the Sagrada Família all lit up as a break in the skyline and to the left, the mountains rise up in glorious waves away to the west.
Never again will I forget my time in Barcelona, not only because of the stunning architecture or the people or the food, but simply because once they all combine you could honestly forget about life all together and live forever in this dream-state of a city without a care.
Maybe it’s staring out into the trees from your own romantic balcony contemplating whether to go swimming in the ocean. Or buy bread and walk the streets until you find another one of Gaudí’s masterpieces on a random street corner.
Just like that.
For Wanderers and Wonderers 