Exploring the Pyrenees, Part IV:In Barcelona

Detmar’s selfie of us on the bus
(see near bottom below)

By James T. Carney

From Berga we were all driven to the Barcelona airport, where Detmar and I took leave of our traveling companions and headed downtown to spend the rest of the day and the next two days touring Barcelona, which probably has the world’s biggest collection of pickpockets and thieves in Europe. In one restaurant, we witnessed a woman who had gone to the restroom return to her table only to discover that her purse had been stolen.

    Barcelona is the second biggest city in Spain as well as the capital of Catalonia and the headquarters of the Catalan movement for independence. Like many regionalist movements, the Catalan movement seems to be inspired by historic rather than current wrongs.

    One also suspects that a motivating factor for secession may be economic. Like Slovenia in its breakaway from what was Yugoslavia, Catalonia is the most prosperous part of Spain and probably contributes more to the central government than it receives back. Like the various nationality groups in Yugoslavia who saw Serbia as dominating the country, Catalans see Castile – by the far the biggest entity in Spain – dominating the country, a fact that causes a fair amount of resentment, particularly because the Castilians have lorded it over other Spanish peoples for centuries. Throughout our trip, we saw dozens of Catalan flags rather than Spanish flags and many street signs protesting the Spanish government.
    The problem that the Catalans face is somewhat the same as that of the Québécois; in both places (unlike Slovenia, which was inhabited almost solely by Slovenes) the original inhabitants are only a small majority, and in many sections of the area are a minority. Non-Catalans living in Catalonia are obviously not in favor of secession. The intermingling of populations makes separation infeasible in both Catalonia and Quebec. Indeed, it is highly questionable whether a majority of the residents of either area would vote for “independence.”

Basílica Família Sagrada behind us
(photo by a kind stranger)

Barcelona is dominated by the works of the great 20th Century architect Antoni Gaudi (Antoni Gaudí i Cornet, 1852 – 1926), who is known as the greatest exponent of Catalan Modernism and may be credited with the invention of art nouveau in architecture, and whose unfinished Basilica of the Sagrada Familia (due to be finally finished in 2026) is, despite its name, a cathedral of the 20th Century. Detmar and I spent several hours there.

Interior Basílica Família Sagrada

Exterior Basílica Família Sagrada

    Almost as interesting as the Basilica are some of the houses Gaudi designed.

Casa Milà, popularly known as
La Pedrera, or “The stone quarry,” behind me

Casa Batlló

On our first day in Barcelona, Detmar and I walked the length of La Rambla, which is the main drag in Barcelona, open only to pedestrians and lined with restaurants and shops. We spent a couple of hours in one of the outdoor venues drinking Sangria and watching people go by.

Detmar kindly recorded one of us watching

    The next day we took a tour bus around the city; it was a stop-and-get-off tour, but Detmar and I stayed on for the whole ride, because we wanted to get a feel for the entire city.

One of the most interesting things we saw on the final day, in addition to the Basilica, was the so-called Spanish Village on Mt. Montjuïc. This village was created in 1929 as part of the great International Exposition that year. It contained reproductions of various types of architecture from the various regions of Spain. I recognized the architectural forms from Andalusia, which I had toured in 1971, as well as from the old kingdom of Aragon, of which Catalonia had been one of the three parts.
    In retrospect, I wished that we had scheduled at least another day in Barcelona, because there was so much to see. But I had to head to the airport at 3:00 the next morning to catch my flight to Istanbul to catch my connecting flight to Boston. I think that I will choose a less circuitous route for my next trip.

Copyright © 2019 by James T. Carney