Welcome to Barcelona!

Today we arrived to beautiful sunshine and blue skies in lovely Barcelona, Spain.  Having settled into our apartment, we jumped into a cab and headed to the old city…the gothic quarter.

Barcelona has their own version of Paris’ Champs Elysees called La Rambla.  With it’s wide, tree-lined boulevard, it is a beautiful place to stroll and take in all of the hustle and bustle with street vendors and cafes.  At one end of the road you find the beautiful Barcelona port with a fantastic statue of Christopher Columbus.

Always looking forward…

Leader and great risk-taker

Did Columbus set out from this very port?

And we had the opportunity to spend some quality time with Galileo Galilei!  We discovered that he’s the strong, silent type…didn’t really share any of his scientific secrets, but did allow the girls to look through his telescope!

Making our way up to the gothic quarter, one of the first things we noticed was a countdown board:

The Countdown is on…

The Catlan flag of independence

Another referendum!  First Scotland, now Spain!  Here in Spain, the Catalans – who make up a large portion of the population along the eastern coast from the French border down to south of Valencia – want to separate from Spain.  Spain had declared the referendum to be non-constitutional, so the outcome of the vote is non-binding.

We moved on and joined a free walking tour right out of the heard of the old city.  The first new thing we learned was about these plates which can be seen outside some shops in the city:

If a shop has been in business for more than 50 years at the same location, the city of Barcelona issues and installs one of these plates on the sidewalk right outside the shop.  It’s a sign of good business!  The business above has been in that location for almost 90 years!

There is also lots of art on the streets, all over the city.  The following installation was really interesting to me.

When I first looked at it I thought it might be the wire from a Champagne cork, or perhaps some fence wire that was wound together.  It actually represents the Castell, which is a human pyramid often completed during festivals in Catalonia.  At the very top of the Castell there is often a child…as young as 6 years of age!

Here is a video with a number of Castells at a competition.  It’s really quite something to see!

On our walk we also learned about Santa Eularia, who is one of the patron saints of Barcelona.  She was a 13-year old girl who lived in Barcelona around 303 AD.  She was a Christian who was talking about Christianity, which did not sit well with the Romans at that time.  She was arrested and told to recant her Christian beliefs, which she did not.  The Romans then placed her in a barrel with knives sticking into it, put a lid on the barrel and rolled her down the street.  Eularia kept praying the entire time, and when the lid was taken off the barrel she was virtually untouched by the knives.  The Romans then proceed with 11 other tortures before finally decapitating her.  It is said that a white dove flew from her neck to heaven.

Another interesting story comes from the time of the Plague.  In Barcelona the death rate of the plague was about 60%.  For the most part the Jews were untouched during the plague, due to their good hygiene – washing hands before eating and taking regular baths.  However, at the time people did not recognize that it was hygiene and instead believed that the Jews were evil and were thus being saved from the plague.  The Jews were forced to flee Barcelona, their homes, synagogues, and cemeteries were destroyed and the rock reused elsewhere in the city.  You can find rocks with Jewish script engraved within it all over the city…including the side of this church.

On a lighter note, we learned about some of the key figures in Barcelona’s history.  You’ll see dragon’s all over the city in different locations to mark the connection to St. George.  We learned about one of Catalonia’s original founders, “Wilfred the Hairy”.  We saw Cows and Unicorns flying around churches!  We saw old Roman walls.

A portion of the original Roman wall

Unicorns?

Cows?

St. George fighting the dragon on the right…

Wilfred the Hairy on the left

What is a trip to Barcelona without seeing a Gaudi?  Well, we saw the ultimate Gaudi – the Sagrada Familia – still under construction.  Even so, it was phenomenal to see in person…more on that in an upcoming post!

Last but not least, proof that the Catalans have a sense of humour.  Enter the Caganer…a small figurine dressed in traditional Catalan attire, and well…squatting…  This comes out at Christmas time and is included in each house somewhere within the Nativity scene that the family puts out.  There are also lots of celebrities who have been made into Caganers…from The Queen, to President Obama, Elvis, Messi (Spanish soccer player), Dali, Mick Jagger, Madonna…

Perhaps not a tradition back home, but something different to share for sure!

Barcelona has so much to offer that we simply could not put it all into one single blog post.  Hopefully you were able to get a bit of a taste for the city, a good overview for some of the posts we have planned for the coming days.