Category: Barcelona

… And Just for You, I’ve Chosen Blue

This week, for the Lens-Artists Photo Challenge, Ritva asks us to Pick A Colour.

I ruminated on red, pondered about purple, almost opted for orange, nearly yielded to yellow, gleaned several greens, prevaricated over pink, but in the end, went for ….

Well, obviously you have to have sky … even if day is long past and evening’s getting on for being midnight blue …

And water’s a must too. Nothing idyllic here. Just industrial sprawl near Rotterdam.

And let’s keep up our less-than-picturesque watery scenes, on the River Thames….

… before nipping off to the fishing town of Arenys de Mar in Catalonia. That’s better. Mended nets hung out to dry.

Let’s stay in Catalonia, but head to Barcelona and some street art …

We’ve got ourselves about a bit. Maybe we need another car wash. That’s where we began, and it’s shown in the featured photo.

Shadowed

A quick look at shadows, the enigmatic feelings of mystery they can sometimes produce.

The featured photo shows the early morning sun, somewhere near here. No mystery perhaps. More a feeling of unknown promise in the day ahead. And below, this quiet photo from Laberint d’Horta in Barcelona reminds me of a morning I spent there discovering , hidden amongst the trees, apparently ancient statuary.

Two urban photos: one from the once gritty underside of Leeds, suggesting its dirty and industrial past, the other from a up-to-the-minute quarter of Barcelona. I like the hard-to-decipher shadows on the textured overhanging roof.

And lastly, another from canal-side Leeds. Someone should write a story about this young woman sitting contemplatively beneath the shadows of the trees.

For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness …

… and for John, the week’s Lens-Artists Challenge host. He’s chosen ‘Shadowed’.

A Capybara in Cosmo-Caixa

Here he is. The world’s largest rodent. The capybara. He lives in Barcelona’s Cosmo-Caixa Science Museum, in the Bosc Inundat (Flooded Forest) . This, along with other South American species, is part of a huge simulated Amazon rainforest ecosystem, with animals, birds and fish. 

Monday Portrait

Park-Dwelling Parakeets

The parakeets that live round and about Ciutadella Park in Barcelona are opportunists. They know that all they have to do is hang around tourists, looking winsome, and the next meal will appear. If they’re lucky, maybe specially purchased nuts and seeds from equally opportunist street vendors. Otherwise, croissant crumbs and biscuits. They don’t seem fussy.

For Monday Portrait.

It’s All About the Bubbles

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.

For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness

When is a Market not a Market?

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.

An unexpected addition to Sarah’s Market Challenge for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness.