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The Plaça Catalunya is the terminus of the airport bus and the arrival point of many visitors to Barcelona. From here it is possible to stroll down the series of avenues known as Las Ramblas to the Columbus monument and the sea. If, that is, you do not get distracted by the bird market, the flower market, the artists or the living statues along the way, as we did.

There was quite an epidemic of living statues in the city, from grey, traditional statues, to clowns, robots, mummies and a green painted pixie (or alien). There have to be better ways to earn a living than painting yourself white and standing still all day, but it must be quite lucrative for so many of them to do it. In addition to the living sculptures, Barcelona is also adorned by modern sculptures; the result of a public sculpture programme to brighten up the city for the 1992 Olympics.

Our first port of call in a city famed for its art and architecture was, naturally, the zoo. Barcelona zoo is famous for its albino gorilla, known as Snowflake, but we were more interested in the pair of rare hyacinth macaws. For those who are concerned about the morality of zoos, I can only observe that Barcelona zoo appears to be well run, and to have conservation, rather than spectacle, as its main priority.

Having visited the zoo, we turned to the artistic delights of Barcelona. The Museu Picasso is one of those museums that guidebooks tell you is worth visiting, even if you are not interested in the art, simply for the building alone. There is a certain justification for this, for the museum is situated in two fifteenth-century palaces in Barcelona’s Gothic quarter. Unsurprisingly, since the artist lived in Barcelona between the ages of 14 and 23, the collection is strongest on his early years. However, for me the most interesting part was the series of paintings based on interpretations of Velázquez’s Las Meninas, which become increasingly abstract, so that it becomes quite difficult to spot the dog, let alone the children.

Before coming to Barcelona I had heard a lot about La Sagrada Familia, the huge unfinished church designed by Gaudí. This is not to be confused with the Cathedral, in the old town, which is gothic, dating mostly from the 13th and 14th centuries. Its principal curiosity is the gaggle of geese that live quite happily in its cloister. There is also a carving of Wilfred the Hairy on one of its portals.

Wilfred the Hairy (Guifré el Pelós) unified Catalonia in the Dark Ages, a sort of Catalan Alfred the Great. He was Count of Barcelona in the ninth century, and was fittingly a contemporary, and nominally a subject, of the Carolingian emperor Charles the Bald. Disappointingly, some historians now question whether or not he actually was hairy, or whether his soubriquet became misinterpreted over time (rather like the argument about whether Ethelred was unready or not).

Unfortunately, there are few traces of the hirsute one to be found in modern Barcelona and his tomb is in the church of Santa Maria del Ripoll in the north of Catalonia. A suitably hairy portrayal of Wilfred can be seen on one of the portals of the Cathedral, killing a dragon. Unlike St George, who also adorns the portal, Wilfred needs no armour to protect him.

In the square outside the cathedral we saw a procession of schoolchildren in fancy dress and yet more living statues. I felt rather sorry for the Egyptian mummy. He was supposed to be fully encased in gold lycra, but he had trouble doing it up properly at the back, so that there was a clear view of his vest and shorts. I really wanted to go and tuck him in, but fortunately managed to resist the temptation.

We spent the next day visiting some of the famous buildings designed by Gaudí, starting with the Park Guëll. This was not designed to be a park, but an upmarket housing development, for which Gaudí was commissioned to provide the infrastructure, which included entrance lodges, a marketplace and square, and a mosaic lizard fountain. In the event, only two of the building plots were developed, and the site became a park. One of the houses is now a Gaudí museum.

On Saturday and Sundays, between 10am - 2.00pm, there is an ‘art exhibition’ or gathering of artists displaying their wares. For those like us who collect pictures as souvenirs of our travels, this could prove costly. It is also not entirely practical to purchase a large watercolour painting on a somewhat rainy day.

Casa Milà, also known as La Pedrera (the stone quarry), is an apartment building with a distinctive, curvy, organic-looking façade. It is possible to go in and see one of the apartments furnished in the contemporary style and to go up to the roof terrace to have a close up view of the weirdly shaped chimney pots. The final Gaudí site we visited was the (in)famous Sagrada Familia. This was unfinished at the time of Gaudí’s death, although work is now taking place to complete it.

Our first view was of the newer façade, depicting the Passion, which looked fairly normal. Having passed through the building, we came upon Gaudí’s original façade, depicting the Nativity. This, according to my husband, resembled “the gaping maw of hell”, though I am not sure how he was able to recognise it. It is certainly unusual. The decoration is very organic and flowing in appearance. As well as the figures of the Holy family, there are all sorts of creatures, even a turkey, and at the top there is something which looked to me like a Christmas tree with doves on it.

The Park Guëll, with its strange buildings and vistas, had reminded me slightly of Portmeirion. The following day we visited the Poble Espanyol - an artificial ‘village’ created for the Universal Exhibition of 1929, containing examples of architecture from each region of Spain. This was even more like Portmeirion.

Now the buildings house souvenir shops, exhibitions and cafes, including an exhibition of fans, with an alarming commentary: “Foamy specimen and of manual prestige, the fate, whatever ends be in its use in feminine presdigitation, still conserves its suprahistorical charm of fascinating manufacture...”. The central square is often used for performances and concerts. We left hurriedly as a country and western group started to perform.

The Poble Espanyol is on the Montjuïc hill, and it is a relatively short walk from here to the Olympic area. Here we saw the stadium, already looking rather sad and neglected, and the very space-age looking Palau d’Esports Sant Jordi. Further down the road was the Fundació Miró, founded by the artist Joan Miró, as a centre for study and experimentation in contemporary art. Although I am a bit sceptical about some modern art, especially of the unmade bed variety, I found this interesting, particularly the mercury fountain. My husband, who is even more sceptical than I, declared that one or two of the exhibits were ‘a load of old nonsense’, but even he was fascinated by the brightly-coloured sculptures on the terrace, which were figures made from unusual objects.

To return from Montjuïc to the city centre, there is a choice of funicular or a cable car, which takes you down to the harbour. The cable car delivered us to the vicinity of the harbour fish restaurants just in time for a leisurely Sunday lunch of suqets de pescadoi (fish stew) followed by a caramel fruit dessert.

There is a huge choice of food in Barcelona. Seafood paella, chicken paella, mixed seafood and chicken paella, vegetarian paella and black paella made with squid ink are widely available. In addition, there are a huge range of tapas, and local specialities, such as the aforementioned suqets de pescadoi and bullabesa, a fish soup. The most ubiquitous dessert is crema catalana, a type of crème brulée, closely followed by what was described as ‘heavenly pudding’, a sort of sweet terrine, with a caramel topping. The fruit version of this is particularly delicious.

For those interested in shopping, Barcelona has a wide range of shops different from those in the UK; they still have a C&A, for example. There are also a Marks and Spencer and a Habitat on the Plaça Catalunya, as well as several department stores, lots of fashion boutiques, art shops and galleries and some excellent chocolate shops. Getting around Barcelona is easy. There is a comprehensive metro system as well as the local buses, and the city is relatively compact so that many of the things to see are within walking distance of each other and the hotels.

I would thoroughly recommend Barcelona for a short break, but one word of warning: it seems to be an extremely popular venue for student visits. All the colleges in my area seemed to be having field trips there at the time of our visit.

First published in VISA issue 41(summer 2001)

More photos of Barcelona
Another view of this city