Passing Premià de Mar’s Museum of Textile Printing the other day, this is what I saw. Two benches: three people. Three readers: two on their phones, one with a good old fashioned book. Only the young woman, I think, was waiting for the museum to open.
Maybe you’d prefer it in colour?
For Jude’s Bench Challenge.
Catalans eat a lot of fish. So here in Premià, a local fishmonger has provided a bench for those times when the queue is long and irksome.
For Jude’s Bench Challenge
Bench Challenge Anniversary
I am going to give up any pretence of regular blogging for a while. Maybe a scheduled post or so, maybe the odd Virtual Postcard. Daughter-in-Spain never asks for help, but for most of this week and next, she needs some. So I’m off to Catalonia. I’ll leave you with two benches. One 5 minutes walk away in our local Beatswell Woods: the other just down on the beach near Daughter’s house. Very different. But both have their charms.
For Jude’s Bench Challenge. And I think I know which one Jude will go for.
Our last day in Catalonia. Malcolm and I took ourselves off to the Museu de Ciències Naturals de Barcelona, commonly known as the Museu Blau. It’s in a really new part of town, Diagonal Mar. As the name suggests, it’s a thoughly geometric sort of area. Look.
And many of the museum’s contents are pretty geometric too. These fossils for instance …
… or shells …
… or butterflies & moths …
… or arachnids.
It’s a pretty fine museum. In an interesting area. And not on the tourist circuit. Yet. Recommended.
There’s nothing even a tiny bit geometric in an unctous dark and temptingly tasty Spanish hot chocolate. Luckily the bar where we had one yesterday was able to deliver.
One of my favourite building complexes in the whole world is that of the original Hospital Sant Pau in Barcelona. It sits alongside its more modern successor, a centre of excellence for modern medicine. In its day, when it was first built in the early years of the twentieth century, before the days of the kind of universal health services we now take for granted, it was a wonder. It cared for all comers, and recognised that part of any treatment was access to beautiful spaces, to fresh air and access to nature. And it shows.
I’ve written about it here, and here. So let’s just look at some of its wonders as part of GeometricJanuary.
Alella is a well-heeled little town in the hills, about half way between here and Barcelona. It sits comfortably in productive wine country, and in the 19th century, wealthy landowners – often the aristocracy – either bought plots on which to build, or else knocked down and rebuilt or extended existing properties they already owned. Malcolm and I went to have a look today. A few are still in private ownership, but most have passed into other uses, such as clinics or residential accommodation for those with various disabilities. Come and stroll round town with us – no history lessons – just enjoy the varied, always geometrical and often quirky buildings we found, and plan to research later.
This was the most extravagant of all, and the one we saw first.
We saw ordinary streets too. Like this one …
…and a church, Sant Feliu, in a pleasant square.
… and some geometric plant life …
What town is complete without a sense of humour? The first image isn’t geometrical at all, but I’ll include it anyway. And the second is a road sign that was once geometrical until the tree it was placed on started to grow over it, and the Town Wag took matters in hand.
We liked you a lot, Alella. We’ll be back.
I am looking for an excuse to share images of yesterday evening’s sunset, down on the beach at Premià. And I found it in the views of Barcelona, some 20 km away. Its skyline features suitably geometric buildings, so here’s my square for today.
And here are a few more – unsquared – views, so I can share them with Hammad, of Weekend Sky fame.
It’s not often that we’re down on the beach in January, as the sun is setting. We should do it more often.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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