¡Barcelona!

I've had a great couple days out wandering around downtown Barcelona. There's a massive traditional festival happening this week called Mercè, so some of what I've come across has been part of that. Here's a pictorial tour for y'all, starting with tonight and working backwards.

On my way home this street parade was happening right by my metro stop, so I waited for a couple hours to see things go past. 

There was lots of drumming...

...and traditional Catalan songs being played on these mini-oboe type instruments, like old fashioned pied piper, dancing-in-the-village-square-in-the-old-days music (stay tuned for yesterday's photo's, because I saw that very thing too)

Many espadrilles were being worn, and scarfs tied around midriffs

It's blurry but I like this one. That's a pig they're chasing. Pigs were common.

Dragons breathing roses were common too. This one's crown matches the street lamps.

There were many giant people puppets in the parade, I'm guessing representing traditional regions or just traditions of Catalonia. These were the surrealist Gaudi ones.

Fuzzy rooster - but look! his espadrilles are in focus.

So that was tonight at metro stop Liceu. Earlier in the day, I wandered the old narrow streets of El Gotic and El Born.

Part of a demolition site near Plaça de la Llana

Graffiti near the crazy Palau de la Música (which I was unable to photograph well enough to put here)

Looking up in the very gothic Santa Maria del Mar

And then there was yesterday.

Maybe the most photographed spot in Barcelona - in the beautiful Gotic area

Looking up - see those crazy gargoyle saints? Barcelona has by far the best gargoyles.

The wall on that street - more gargoyles and mini faces. Hard to photograph...

Further down the street. I've seen a few walls around town with this sort of decoration.

Around the corner and I found the back of the cathedral...

A close up of the wall in the above shot, soooo pretty.
I will be making a flickr album of Barcelona patina & graffiti like I did for Italy soon.

One of many little motifs on those cathedral walls.

That was what I saw on my way to the Picasso Museum (which is free on Sundays after 3pm). The best thing about that visit was seeing a room full of his deconstructed Las Meninas paintings, after the famous Velázquez painting (which is in Madrid so I shall probably not see it this time).

And then on my way home I found dancing in the square.

It started with just a couple of circles, and then after a few songs, the square had transformed into many circles of dancing, and circles within circles. The style reminded me of the little to-and-fro wobble of the chameleon's walk! Probably just me who sees that... I think Catalan's have been doing this dance in this square for a long time.

And then later I went with the housemates to see the amazing light show on La Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece (which is now predicted to be complete in 2026).

This is my crappy shot...

...and this one I found online here, with loads of other amazing shots. This was so Barcelona to me, the crazy colour & patterns, combined with the crazy architecture. A whole sensory overload of crazy.

I haven't gone inside La Sagrada Familia yet, but it's on my list. Tomorrow though, it's Montserrat, for some nature and gregorian chants.

Buenos noches!

Saturday night at the movies

Homemade popcorn in the vending machine at Cinema Verdi

I'm in Barcelona now, and my airbnb household & I have been a bit sick with colds. After resting at home all day Saturday, and craving a little normalcy - a night at the movies - I ventured outdoors down the convivial Carrer de Verdi (the street I'm staying on in the sweet neighbourhood of Gracia) to get some empanadas and go to see the new Woody Allen film: To Rome with Love. Susanna, my host, recommended the popcorn, and above you can see how I found it - for only 1.00 Euro, modestly-sized homemade bags of popcorn, without the usual yellow chemical coating: basically, excellent.

After four months travelling now, my brain is tired from not knowing yet trying to communicate in foreign languages. I got here from Paris and after a week have finally managed to stop saying 'oui' and switch to 'si'. It was the same when I got to Paris of course - I was saying 'si' instead of 'oui' after July in Italy. Half of Saturday's movie was spoken in Italian, being set in Rome and with half a cast of locals, and the subtitles were Spanish, so I cobbled together the gist from the combo of hearing Italian & reading Spanish (what little I can recognise), but of course I missed all the jokes. I'll have to watch it again when I get home. Watching the film was like undertaking the same kind of work I'm doing each day in the real world here: codebreaking! So my night at the movies wasn't quite the normalcy I was after. But still glad I went. I got to see Rome again at least...

Pretty in pink

At Versailles: detail of feathered helicopter installation by artist Joana Vasconcelos, so Marie-Antoinette.

I'm back in Paris today after a couple weeks in London, and this post I began on my first visit, of which a highlight was visiting the blinged-out palaces at Versailles & Fontainebleau. I got to do this for free! thanks to the lovely people who used to volunteer with me at Birds Australia, who gave me a Paris museum pass as a parting gift. (thank you Keith, Jane, Suzy, Anne, Isobel, Betty & Jen!)

So before I get stuck into Paris part two, I'll recount some of Paris part one...which was a bit all about Marie-Antoinette.

Here she is

Basically I went to Versailles because I love the pretty pastel world of Sofia Coppola's film Marie Antoinette. The decadent patisserie treats which feature in many scenes were supplied by this shop called Laduree - of course this was one of my first stops in Paris:

Pastel treats!

The day before I went out to Versailles I used my museum pass to visit some other places, including the Conciergerie, a former royal palace which was also a prison and the place where Marie-Antoinette spent her last days in a royal-style cell, complete with wallpaper (while the lower-class prisoners who could not afford the fee to be prisoned in comfort slept on a thin layer of hay).

Conceirgerie arches

And I learned there that she was executed by guillotine at Place de la Concorde. So that evening I realised that square was on my way home, so I stopped to have a look and imagine it back in those days.

Strange marble cameo thing at Place de la Concorde - which reminded me of a something similar I saw in Bangkok (pics on Flickr soon). This one's at the base of one of the 8 statues of women representing the major cities of France, which surround the Place. Paris to me feels like a feminine city, whereas Rome in contrast was definitely masculine.

And while there, I realised I could see the Eiffel tower from the square. Earlier that day I was at the wonderful Museum of Decorative Arts and saw an excellent Louis Vuitton / Marc Jacobs exhibition (as well as some amazing jewellery which I photographed for Camilla, which I'll put on Flickr soon), and there were voice recordings of Mr Jacobs talking about his work & inspirations, and I heard him talking about how he likes sparkly things. Ever since he was little, he's liked things that sparkle. He said for example he likes how the Eiffel tower lights up on the hour with sparkling lights - which I didn't know that it did - I think because I went to Paris without a guidebook - so I figured that as it was just about to turn 11pm I should wait to see it sparkle:

Appropriately impressionistic photo thanks to the iPhone zoom function! I've seen a lot of impressionist paintings here. There were people having a deluxe late-night picnic on a houseboat below where I was standing on the bridge here.

And then the next morning I went out to Versailles and saw Marie-Antoinette's former universe up close.

Graffiti at the end of the hall of mirrors

Marie-Antoinette's bedroom, every square inch embellished.

One of the many pretty pastel walls

One of the many pretty rooms. I love that chandelier, it was the only crystal-free one I saw.

Louis XVI

Graffiti on the velvet walls

Pink marble floor in 'Grand Trianon' - another mini palace on the estate for high-class guests

 

Grand Trianon pink columns & garden

In the gardens of Marie-Antoinette's estate

Bust with graffiti outside Marie-Antoinette's former dairy

A bonus of my visit to Versailles was learning that each year an artist is invited to create installations throughout the palace and the grounds. So it was cool to discover some modern art on my way around the palace as I was bobbed along by the sea of humanity (just did the maths and if 3 million people visit it each year, and it's closed one day each week, that makes an average of 9584 visitors per day, however with this being peak tourist season it would probably be more than that right now).

Here's some of the art that I liked best:

Marble lions in couture crochet in a room that was all about marble.

One of the 'valkyries' in the Battle Gallery. In Norse mythology, a valkyrie is one of a host of female figures who decide who dies and wins in battle. I loved these and they made perfect sense in this space.

detail of the golden one, just perfect in this golden space.

I like what the curator has written about the artist here, and you can see better pics on that site too.

This was made from a whole lot of plastic cutlery, and I now know that the shape is based on traditional Portugese jewelery, after visiting the jewelery rooms at the V&A in London, and seeing a miniature silver version of this exact shape. It was an a-ha moment.

On the train to London I watched Marie Antoinette again.

I still love it.