Exploring the old Gothic Quarter

Day 2     Barcelona       Saturday, July 26, 2014
 

Janet and I walked all over the old town (Barri Gòtic, or Gothic Quarter) seeing numerous city highlights. Just to the east was this Arch of Triumph, built as the entrance gate for the 1888 Barcelona World's Fair. Earlier in the Barri Gòtic we visited the Barcelona Cathedral (the REAL cathedral, which seats a bishop), the remnants of the old Roman walls and aqueduct, the Picasso Museum, an archeological site in the El Born section, and many others. But the most exciting point in the day was when we happened upon this:

A Basque restaurant! I had read about this in the guide book, but had no idea where it was. They sold tapas, which are small servings of ... anything they can create.

They had about 30 choices, and you just pick as many as you want during your time there. Each one cost 1.95€, which was about $3.40. When you're done they count the number of wooden toothpick skewers on your plate, and multiply it by 1.95€. Here's Janet, and my plate is there too. We loved it for lunch.

Getting back to the start of the day, we awoke so late that we didn't get going until 12:30 pm.The flat is so perfectly located that we needed to walk only about 500 meters and we were in the old city, originally Roman and surrounded by walls. The streets were narrow and charming:

We saw children's flamenco dresses in shops and bought one for Rylee. We used the tour book to read about the various sites where we were, and learned about the special history of Barcelona. It is located in a section of northeastern Spain called Catalonia, which in previous times was its own country. They have their own language, although they of course speak Spanish too. They actually would like to separate from Spain to again become their own country, much as the Basques in northwestern Spain would like. There is a separate Catalon government that declared they plan to separate this year - 2014. We shall see. But suffice to say, Barcelona is special for having the Catalon heritage and active language and culture.

Janet and I eventually we made it to the Barcelona Cathedral.

It was magnificent inside and out, dating from the 14th century. Janet did not go inside because your shoulders were supposed to be covered and she was wearing a sleeveless blouse. There were many vendors selling shawls at the entrance, but she didn't care enough to purchase one. (She got to go inside the next day when we returned with our friends.)

My favorite part was the choir (one side of it in this photo), whose seats had above them the original coats-of-arms of the knights of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

A side chapel contains a cross from a ship that fought at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Legend states that during the battle, the cross suddenly and miraculously shifted to the right to avoid being hit by a cannonball, a miraculous sign from God that the Ottomans would be defeated. (Two days later, we visited the Maritime Museum and they had a fabulous replica of a ship that fought at that battle. See the photos for July 28.)

This is a remnant of the Roman aqueduct. There were several portions of the original Roman wall in the Gothic Quarter. The cathedral is behind the building in this photo.

Another site nearby was Plaҫa del Rei, the King's palace:

It is believed that on the steps fanning out from the corner of the square behind Janet is where King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella greeted Columbus when he arrived home from his first voyage to the New World. Underneath the square and the buildings they are excavating old city structures dating back 2000 yrs.

We then walked a short distance to the Picasso Museum. It focuses on his early work in which his style is "normal", which we liked more than his later famous style. It was as we departed that we happened to pass by the Basque restaurant for lunch. After that we wandered using our tour book as a guide. Something we hadn't read about was a large archeological excavation, under a huge enclosed building, that was the city prior to the siege of 1714 (on 9/11, and to this day they annually celebrate on Sept 11 the National Day of Catalonia).

There were explanation signs inside explaining this siege, which came at the end of the War of Spanish Succession. The forces of Spain's Philip V retook the city that had been under the power of Archduke Charles of Austria during the previous 12 yrs. Once the "outsiders" were defeated, it marked a 200-yr period of government that mirrored the centralization of the various monarchies in Europe. With the War of the Spanish Succession completed, Spain evolved from a de facto unified kingdom to a truly legal centralized one.

On our way back into the old city, we walked past the Castle of Three Dragons:

This impressive building was originally the restaurant for the 1888 World's Fair, but is now their Zoological Museum. We got to visit the Church of Santa Maria del Mar, built in the 14th century, with its spectacular stained glass windows. Then we scurried to the nearest subway stop since Janet's ankles were getting pretty sore by now.

After a rest back home, we decided to take the funicular and cable cars up to Montjuïc Castle for a tour and views overlooking the harbor. From the map, it looked like the funicular departed right by our flat. We kept walking up up up the hill waiting to find the station, but alas, it never came. About halfway up, a man said we could take a path to walk to the top, but when we tried to follow his directions we must have gone the wrong way. So, instead of making it easy on Janet's foot by taking a funicular, there we were walking up a steep, rocky hill to the mountain. Eventually we reached the funicular station, but they said the cable cars were about to close for the night, so we just took the funicular back down. Guess where the station was? In "our" subway station where we'd been several times! We had just never noticed the signs, but there they were in big plain sight. 

We decided to walk in a local neighborhood and look for a home-spun restaurant. In a plaza where there was a stage and performers getting ready, we decided to eat there so we could be entertained. Well, it's a funny story: It took forever for the performers to get ready, and more and more of them kept showing up. After we ordered our paella (again!) and were halfway done, they FINALLY started playing and we realized it was a ukelele group of 13! Well, one guitar, but 12 ukeleles?? 

There they all are. Their performance was pretty "average" (to be kind). And of all those people, they couldn't find a good singer -- he was "below average".

A short distance farther was our actual goal for the evening - to see the Magic Fountain display set to music - ala the Bellagio Hotel in Vegas (though not nearly as elaborate). It seemed that everyone in Barcelona had the same idea we did, as crowds overwhelmed the site. But somehow we were able to get pretty close, and it was great - except when the wind gusts blew water on us.

I had to steal this photo from the Internet because my still came out blurry, although I did get a super video of it. In the video it's funny to see everyone's cameras held high to get either a still or video too. The fountain was built in 1929, and the music was added in 1980.

We took the subway back to our flat, but right outside there was a street party so we partook for a while before going to bed. It was much better than the ukelele concert!