Historical Note
This was first written while we were still in Spain; we’re back in China now, so this is a back posting.
Day 15: Barcelona
Stupid head colds! Today, more than ever, we’re feeling the brunt of these stupid head colds which some inconsiderate prat brought onto the Brilliance after our last stop in Malta. My cold has progressed about half way, I’m just on the precipice of feeling better, but Toni is now worse for ware. The combination of a bad cold front and chilling winds has now driven us indoors for the remainder of our time in Barcelona.
To be fair, we did endure about six hours of touring this morning, but after lunch we returned to the hotel (3pm) and have been resting since. This isn’t a huge problem, since we’ve seen about all we set out to see. It has also given me time to continue writing up our journey.
A busy day at Segrada Familia
Despite our dubious health status, we decided to hit the streets for the last day on our holiday. Again, Barcelona provided outstanding weather (a little cloudy in the morning, but nice and sunny later on) and it was not too cold. Toni wanted to go and visit Gaudi’s Segrada Familia again (we visited last year) as it has been consecrated since then and has all the inside finished (pews etc). However, the queue for the church was the longest we’ve ever seen – stretching right around the church and one block across – so we had to skip it.
Our initial plan being scuttled, we fell back on our backup plan: go grab coffee. So, we jumped back on the metro to Jaume I and went back to the coffee shop from the previous day. Suitably chocofied/caffeinated, we set off on our next itinerary item: a walking tour of the old Barri Gotic area of downtown Barcelona. Given our location, we decided to walk the route in reverse.
Starting from Plaza Angel, we walked down Carrer de Jaume I westwards and hung a left on Carrer de la Cuidad. As it turns out, we’d actually been past here before the cruise, so we sort of skipped it, and moved on through the narrow streets of downtown Barcelona skirting a large church to arrive at our next destination; another large church.
Esglesia de Santa Maria del Pi inside and out
Esglesia de Santa Maria del Pi, a gothic church built between the 14th and 16th centuries stands above Placa de Sant Josep Oriol where we found a bunch of artists selling paintings, followed by fresh food and fruit stalls. After browsing the stalls (we really couldn’t buy anything due to flying out the next day) we walked into the church. It is an interesting building, somewhat unremarkable from the outside (except for the large gothic window on the front façade) but inside is something else.
Opposite the church in Placa de Sant Josep Oriol
One of the largest and highest ceilings we’ve seen all trip, and without the pomp and gilt of the more endowed churches; this church seemed to me to be more of a ‘working church’ if you get my meaning. There wasn’t any mass on while we were there, so I was able to take some photos. We didn’t linger too long, eager to continue our downtown romp.
Machine gun damage to Englesia de Sant Felip Neri
Returning to our path, our next stop was rather grim. Another church, but this time the interior was not the feature here – the façade of Englesia de Sant Felip Neri (from 1752) has been shattered by gun fire – possibly by machine guns. The square around the façade was not busy, a couple of people were milling around, but otherwise the atmosphere was in stark contrast to the busy metropolitan noises and sounds of downtown Barcelona.
Too many people! | The façade of the four cats
Moving on, we crossed an exceptionally busy area near Barcelona’s cathedral and walked north to a small restaurant called “the four cats” which had an interesting design. We then traced the outline of old palace walls before crossing yet another busy pedestrian road to a very quiet and almost hidden away square outside the Esglesia de Santa Anna, yes – another church.
In and around Esglesia de Santa Anna
This church is from the 12th century and was really quite astonishing. You’d never know it was there really, it’s really sort of hidden a ways off the main thoroughfares (if you can imagine a church hidden in downtown Barcelona). We entered and found a number of people worshipping in silence. We navigated the pews and observed a moment of silence before checking out the priory. There were tombs beneath slabs on the floor, and numerous alcoves dedicated to saints.
Esglesia de Santa Anna’s roof
The roof was built of wood and there wasn’t much in the way of gold or other traces of decoration, this was another excellent church for worship and one I really admired. It had an air of age to it, a slight drought and coldness – humbling and impressive at the same time. I shot a couple of photos before we exited back out into the tiny square, flooded by lovely sunlight.
The last stop on our walking tour was the site of some original Roman tombs dating back from around the time that the city was founded. Here, the city has built a museum which we decided to skip. The tombs were interesting, but hardly the highlight of our tour. They’d obviously been removed from their original spots but otherwise seemed in good condition.
Saint Antoni Markets
We then walked on foot to the location of a residence built by Gaudi (Palau Guell) just off La Rambla. However, our timing was bad, the place was closed for renovations! A little dispirited, we walked westerly with no specific destination. We found ourselves down around the market of saint Antoni where we browsed the new markets (the old markets from the 19th century were closed) until walking north back towards the location of our hotel.
Just on Grand via de les Corts Catalanes we ate a leisurely lunch before walking back to the hotel. That was about it for us, our colds having well and truly taken hold, we had no real choice but to call it a day and get some bed rest. Bidding a final adieu to Barcelona we hit our hotel and later walked around for a late dinner.
The next day we checked out around 10:30am and caught a cab to the airport. We checked in and had to wait about an hour or so for our connection to Amsterdam. We arrived in Amsterdam to 0’C temperatures, snow and ice. After a brief wait (about an hour or so) we boarded our flight to Shanghai and ten hours later we were catching the subway out to Hongqiao for an express train back to HangZhou.
Thus, our European adventure for 2010 came to an end..
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