We’re back in England after our three weeks with the Spanish branch of the family. Identikit weather, in Spain, travelling back through France and here in the UK. Wet. Rather cold.
As my last two photos of the month show. Here we are driving through France …
That’s a shot from my phone. My camera tells a similar story. Our last afternoon in France was in Caen, where it was largely … raining. As the sun set, the rain went briefly away, so here’s sundown over a street busy with its late-in-the-day market.
Premià de Dalt is Premià de Mar’s slightly posher sister, just up the hill from here. It has an older town centre, with a church dating from the 10th century, and tantalising views of the sea far below. And a population of only 10,000.
I went to explore by myself on Friday. Malcolm wasn’t feeling so good, and that very night, Emily and I were due to fall victim to a thoroughly nasty sickness bug. It’s been that sort of holiday. Weather (i), transport limitations (ii) and ill- health (iii) have all been conspiring against us. (i) is about to hit again, (ii) are still with us, and (iii) is still afflicting Malcolm.
One of my discoveries was the town’s library. I was impressed. It’s situated by a local park, and there’s a large balcony with tables and chairs so you can read or study there in the fresh air.
It’s well-stocked.
Here are the books available if you’re studying English:
… or just reading in English. There were about 100 books to choose from – the old classics and up-to-the-minute reading choices.
I couldn’t take photos of the study area or the children’s library without expressly seeking permission from those using the spaces. So here’s a display from the chidren’s area.
The feel is very different from a British community library. When I’m ‘on duty’ in our local one, we talk about our tasks together in normal speaking voices, chat with friends who come to exchange their books, and take little notice as the children in the Junior Library enjoy a noisy morning music session or listen to stories on certain mornings of the week. Here in Spain are notices encouraging silence, in the way I remember from my childhood. I’m happy with both.
But in case it all sounds a bit serious to you. Here’s the fellow who welcomes you into the library, then shepherds you out.
Meanwhile, on her way home from work, Emily had popped into their local library to get books for the children.
Who knew that Winnie the Witch would be called Brunhilda in Catalan? Or that she would be so popular for so long? My children, all parents themselves, enjoyed her books decades ago.
I’ll hold over my own reading choices. They’ll keep.
Castell de Santa Florentina has its roots as a 11th century fortified farmhouse, built on the ruins of a Roman villa to defend the area of Canet de Mar against pirates. It evolved into a proper castle-that-looks-like-a -castle-with-turrets in the 14th century.
And that’s how it pretty much stayed until the end of the 19th century, when noted Catalan modernist architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, who was related to the then owner Ramon de Montaner, came and put his own stamp on the building, employing a team of like-minded craftsmen and sculptors. We Brits would probably recognise the style as being somewhat pre-Raphaelite: a rather romanticised Gothic vibe.
We went there yesterday. It was a bit unexpected. The route to the castle was an overgrown, muddy and pot-holed track to which our poor car strongly objected. The gate to the castle grounds was unprepossessing, firmly locked, and we and our two fellow would-be visitors wondered whether the place would open in time for our booked visit – or at all. It did: and our initial doubts were soon replaced as we wandered round this glorious building with its stained glass, ornate ironwork, fine ceilings and sculptures, harmoniously blending with the existing Gothic structure.
It’s beyond me to give you a structured and informative tour. Why don’t you just enjoy some of the details that we spotted and lingered over in the time we spent there?
Arc de Triomf is slap-bang in Tourist Central in Barcelona. It is nevertheless a part of the city I enjoy, because it’s spacious enough never to feel crowded, and is near one of the city’s green lungs, Parc de la Ciutadella with its tropical garden the Umbracle, and its winter garden – the Hivernacle.
Parakeets sit around waiting to be fed, and street entertainers ply their trade. The other day, it was a man floating bevies of bubbles into the skies.
One of our duties here in Spain is The School Run – or maybe just part of it. Leave the house and turn right, and there’s school, under ten minutes away. Leave the house and turn left, and there’s nursery, just over 10 minutes away. So in the afternoon it’s school (finishes 4.30), then nursery (finishes 5.00 o’clock). As we wander home from nursery, the sun is setting, and these are our views.
Answer? When it’s a museum – more or less about itself. That’s Born Market in Barcelona. Built in 1876 as Barcelona’s first large-scale cast-iron building, it was a local market, then a wholesale fruit and vegetable market which closed in 1971. But what to do with this fine structure? The problem more or less solved itself when in 2001, more than 60 houses dating from the 1700s were found below ground level. Painstakingly uncovered, they reveal the life of this busy neighbourhood, where tripe-sellers and violin makers, leather-tanners and glass blowers, and food producers of every kind jostled together in this bustling, flourishing part of the fast-growing city. Their story, this city’s story is now told here in El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria.
Here are two photos-of-photos showing the market in its heyday.
And here are a few shots of the building as it looks now: a quiet and spacious place to pass away an interesting hour or two away from bustling Barcelona, just beyond its doors.
In the last image above, you can see at floor level the excavated city beneath. Here are some of the everyday objects the archaeologists found: plates, chocolate cups and glassware, all made locally.
From dawn to dusk in France, then below-freezing dawn in France to sunny noon in Catalonia.
All taken from a moving car, so no prize-winning shots here. The featured photo is of the Pic du Canigou, the Pyrennean mountain which divides France from Spain.
The British Sovereignhas an Official Birthday in order to conduct the Trooping the Colour at a suitable time of year. Our family: or at least the London and Spanish branches and us, had an Official Christmas at a suitable time in December: and we went to West Sussex together. Here was the winter seaside. A couple of these shots are natural monochromes because – well – the weather was naturally monochrome.
And that herring gull I showed the other day seemed to attract a few fans – as a bit of an anti-hero, I guess. So here he is again, on sentry duty.
Here’s a window to cheer on a Monday morning. You’ll find it in Chichester Cathedral, and it’s designed by Marc Chagall the Jewish Modernist painter, who enjoyed working with stained glass too. You’ll find his windows in churches in France, Germany, England and the USA, as well as in Jewish settings. Essentially, this window illustates Psalm 150, a hymn of praise to God suggesting He be praised – noisily – with every instrument to be found, as well as by singing and dancing. That’s what this window illustrates.
Chichester Cathedral came with surprises. This quintessentially English place of worship was built, as so many English cathedrals were, between the 11th and 14th centuries. So it was unexpected to find so many works of art from recent years there: a startlingly bright tapestry designed by John Piper; ‘Noli me tangere’ by Graham Sutherland; murals by Hans Feibusch, exiled from Nazi Germany in 1933; the ‘Reconciliation Tapestry’ designed by German artist Ursula Benker-Schirmer and woven partly in Germany, partly in England tells the story of Saint Richard and is a symbol of reconciliation between Britain and Germany after WWII.
Chichester CathedralJohn PiperHans FeibuschThe Reconciliation TapestryGraham Sutherland: ‘Noli me tangere.’
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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