The Ham Nomads

25 Feb 2015. <ES> Barcelona, Catalunya —

Barcelona Day One. We walked down to the El Masnou station — slightly more than the 400 metres we had been told, but not by far. Went to the ticket office and, on advice, bought a 10-trip Renfe ticket to get into the city, and a 10-trip metro ticket to get us around once we got there. The Renfe ticket cost only 50% more than a day return — really good value! And the Metro ticket was similarly good value. The trains go through every 15 minutes, and it's only about 20 minutes into Plaça de Catalunya, the main square. The Renfe station there links with most of the metro lines, so it's a great starting point.

But today our aim was simply to walk the length of Las Ramblas, the famous pedestrian street that runs from Plaça de Catalunya down to Mirador de Colom, the Columbus memorial at the entry to the port, and then beyond as La Rambla del Mar takes you over to an entertainment precinct in the port area. This is a wonderful walk, a real tourist trap with little stalls all the way.

On the way down, we made two detours. The first was into Mercat de la Boqueria. This market is the most alive of any we have seen. Busy, busy, busy — and the range of foods in there is magnificent. We explored every nook and cranny, finding delights every way we turned. Don't know how many of the customers were locals, and how many were tourists, but we suspect a generous mix of both!

After some time in the market, we went down a little further, to Carrer Nou de la Rambla, a side street where you find Palau Güell. This is one of Antoni Gaudí's magnificently eccentric buildings. Eusebio Güell, one of the richest men in Europe, was Gaudí's long-term patron and friend — he had seen Gaudí's display for the glovemaker Comella at the Paris World's Fair of 1878, and the rest is history.

We had visited Palau Güell before, on our last trip, but it was all but closed for renovations, with only the basement being open to the public. This time we were able to explore the entire amazing structure, from basement to rooftop.

With Gaudí, you can't afford to ignore the rooftops! He had a thing about rooftops, having seen so many rooftops cluttered with chimneys and machinery, with absolutely no thought to artistic design. Gaudí's chimneys are so idiosyncratic, each an artistic work in its own right. But not only is every element of a Gaudí work artistic, it also has a well-thought-out functional role. His attics, for example, were not only used for back-room household functions — laundry for example — but also functioned to help control the air temperature within the whole house. He said that the attic is the hat for the house, and the rooftop the umbrella.

We had a wonderful time in Palau Güell, and then resumed our walk down to the end of Las Ramblas, past the Mirador de Colom and out on La Rambla del Mar. We had a coffee out there, to rest out feet and get a caffeine boost for the walk back up Las Ramblas, back to the station at Plaça de Catalunya.

One intriguing thing about Barcelona — it is most strongly Catalan! Most of the advertising and signage is in Catalan, not Spanish. Often both languages are present, but if there is only one, it is invariably Catalan. Overhearing conversations on the train, they are usually in Catalan, not Spanish. We saw last time the Catalan flag, la Senyera (four horizontal red bars on a yellow field), flying all through Catalunya, but now we see a lot of a new flag — the Catalan flag with a white star set into a blue triangle based on the hoist — l'Estelada — this is specifically a call for Catalan independence from Spain!

We finally took the train back to El Masnou, where we could relax in the van, think about today's adventure and plan tomorrow's.

Distance driven — today, nil; to date, 14,402 miles ( 23,178 km )