Barcelona – From Pyrenees to Pennines

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.

(Almost) One Word Sunday: Outside In

The outside world looks busily into Museo CosmoCaixa Barcelona.

For Debbie’s One Word Sunday.

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

Greetings from Barcelona!

… as Storm Harry strengthens its grip …

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.

Parc del Laberint d’Horta

Exactly two years ago, staying with Team Catalonia, I took myself off to Parc del Labirint d’Horta in the outskirts of Barcelona, and wrote about it here. I remember a balmy day, even though it was November, with tree-lined avenues casting shadows before me as I walked.

Oh, and there was a maze too. But I wrote about it in that post I’ve just mentioned.

For Becky’s NovemberShadows.

PS. I’ve just had a birthday card from WordPress. I’ve been blogging for sixteen years! Apparently. Thanks to all of you who’ve been ‘blogging pals’ for much of that time. You’re the ones who make it all such fun.

Gazing Upwards – Shadows

Gazing upwards, as you walk towards the Museu Blau in Barcelona, your eye is baffled by sky and concrete and shadow all jostling for attention.

Or do you prefer it in colour?

For Becky’s NovemberShadows.

Tick-Tock

This week, it’s my turn to host Leanne’s Monochrome Madness. I decided on Clocks and Timepieces. Easy, I thought. Well, up to a point. There are plenty of clocks in towns, in stations, on churches and on public buildings. But too often they’re bit samey-samey. So I’m starting with one that we came upon by chance on our last day in Alsace, in Munster’s Catholic Church. It’s a modern Horloge de la Création, installed at the behest of André Voegele from Strasbourg, who has made it his ambition to install unusual timepieces. This one is interesting alright. It tells the time: hour by hour, minute by minute. But it also counts the years down, month by month; the days of the week; and the phases of the moon. It’s topped by a splendid cockerel, whom I chopped off a bit in my header photo. So here he is. I’m sure he’s a reliable alarm clock. Cocks usually are.

As to the rest. I have an indifferent photo of a clock that hasn’t functioned since 2007 – the Swiss Glockenspiel Clock in London; a clock outside St. Pancras Station; one from a station waiting room in Keighley; an intriguing one spotted outside an apartment block in Barcelona; the centrepiece of Thirsk’s Market Square; and a clock which is not a clock, but helps to govern the workings of the one high up outside Masham’s Parish Church. Now. Can you tell which is which?

And finally. A clock which is a shadow of its former self. This alarm clock sat in a hedge on a country road which I often passed during Daily Exercise in Lockdown. It stayed there for months after Normal Sevice had been resumed. It was always 8 o’clock. Then one day it disappeared. Life has not been the same since. I offer it to Becky for NovemberShadows.