Category: Catalonia

You’ve ‘done’ Barcelona.  Now what? (Part Two)

Nobody could accuse Barcelona of being a spot of ‘rus in urbe‘.  Oh, it’s tremendously good at public open space to relax in and at tree lined streets.  But shady expanses of groves and avenues of trees, of busy little streams and placid ponds?  Not so much. 

Except for one place, quite unique in the city.  The Parc del Laberint d’Horta (Labyrinth Park of Horta) has been here since 1791, when the Desvalls family had it built as a Neoclassical park, and one featuring a maze – hence the park’s name – and any number of classical statues of Greek deities.  In the mid 19th century a more free-flowing Romantic woodland park was added.  And in the 1960s it became a public park, hidden from the view of many of the city’s inhabitants, let alone tourists.  It costs the very odd sum of 2.23 Euros to get in, except on Wednesdays and Sundays when it’s free: or if your an old fogey like me, it’s always free.

Come with me for a stroll.  When we feel up to it, we’ll attempt the maze.  They say it’s harder than it looks.

We’ll begin with a rather hearty climb among woodland glades interspersed with pretty reflective pools.

Soon, we realise we must have skirted the very heart of the garden, now lying below us.

Oh look. There are balustrades, and statuary, and pavilions and … that must be the maze in the centre? Let’s go along and look.

A final look at the maze from above, before we plunge in.  Black and white white might make it easier to sort out. You’d sooner not try it? Your choice.

Oh, this won’t take long.  Look, I can see through the branches easily.  In fact I can see the centre from here …

Oh hang on.  I want to go left, and I can’t.  OK, right, left and left again.  Hmm. I seem to be near the beginning again.  Right, let’s take this slowly …

And I did.  Eventually, I met Eros in the centre and sat with him for a while.

Getting out was worse than getting in.  I kept on fetching up with Eros again, or finding myself up yet another blind alley.  But I made it out eventually, and decided that I really would have liked your company as I thrashed helplessly around. 

I’d nearly explored the whole site, but went for a final stroll, encountering various characters, identity unsolved, on the way.

At this point, I could have gone home.  Instead, I walked into the Horta district, roughly a kilometre away: a well-established community where ordinary citizens live and work, and where there is no possible reason for a tourist to venture. Except I’d had a tip-off.  I should have my lunch at Quimet d’Horta.  This unique bar has been serving the locals its signature dish for almost 100 years.  An omelette sandwich.  A bit weird? I thought so.  But I was wrong.  A cheesy, herby omelette enveloped into half a crisp-crusted baguette, and helped down by a clara turned out to be just the thing I needed.  And as I was eating at the ridiculously early hour of 1 o’clock, I had the place almost to myself.

This is a multi-tasking post.  First of all, it’s part of my Barcelona series.  Then it’s for Amy’s Lens-Artist Challenge #288: Unique.  And then, despite the fact that no cake was consumed in the expedition, it’s for Jo’s Monday Walk.

You’ve ‘Done’ Barcelona. Now what? (Part One)

Here you are in Barcelona. You’ve strolled down Las Ramblas, and fought your way through the scrum in La Boqueria market. You’ve queued to get round La Sagrada Familia: and in fact visited every other creation you can think of by Antoni Gaudí . At my insistence, you’ve visited the Hospital de Sant Pau (here and here). You’ve got a bad case of Museum Foot, and you’re fed up with the crowds.

Perhaps I could make a few suggestions? One’s yet another museum, but it’s only been opened a for a short while and you may have the place almost to yourself. It’s the Museu de l’Art Prohibit. Here’s the story:

During the ARCO 2018 edition, collector Tatxo Benet acquired an artwork by artist Santiago Sierra, titled Presos Políticos en la España Contemporánea (Political Prisoners in Contemporary Spain). Shortly thereafter … the gallery that sold the piece removed it from its stand. The mere labelling of ‘political prisoners’ triggered its CENSORSHIP…

This incident laid the groundwork for conceiving a distinctive collection. Five years later, the accumulation of works subjected to CENSORSHIP, CANCELLATION or DIVERSE FORMS OF ATTACK has given rise to the Museu de l’Art Prohibit. 

The Manifesto: Museu de l’Art Prohibit

Here, you’ll find work by the likes of Goya , Picasso, Banksy, as well as names less familiar to me like Amina Benbouchta and Charro Corrales. The works shown here have fallen foul of political, religious or sexual censors. It’s powerful stuff and I urge you to go and make your own mind up.

It’s not just repressive or totalitarian regimes that practice censorship. It’s not just the Catholic church or hardline Muslims who do so either. I was quite surprised to find that I too was practising self-censorship when deciding which images to share on a public platform. In the end, I went with these.

This MacDonald’s refuser really liked this one:

Yoshua Okon, 2014: Freedom Fries, Naturaleza Morta. A London gallery refused to accept this work in an exhibition of Mexican art, because of its ‘political nature’.

There was this:

David Cerny 2006: Shark. Saddam Hussein in a shark tank 2005. A Belgian town demanded its removal as being offensive to Muslims and off-putting to tourists.

Natalia LL: Consumer Art 1972-75. Following Natalia’s first works in this series, Poles posted posters of themselves eating bananas as a protest against government censorship. One of a large series .

It’s housed in an elegant Modernist building, the Casa Garriga Nogués. These windows give you a taste of it.

These windows are the work of Antoni Rigalt, who was also the creator of the windows at the Palacio de la Música Catalana.

I found the whole thing thought-provoking and was glad to have spent a couple of hours there. I wondered whether I’d been wise to go to the women’s toilets though. The featured photo shows what confronted me as I walked in.

Next week we’ll stay in Barcelona, but I’ll take you somewhere restful and restorative: that’s so long as you don’t get lost. And you will…

Monday Portrait: Pushy Pigeon

Pigeons of different varieties are apparently found on every continent on earth except Antarctica. I’m not surprised. I’ve yet to visit a country where I’ve seen none. This particular specimen was opportunistically hanging round the outside tables of a a café down at the port in Premià de Mar on Thursday. There were croissant crumbs to be had …

For IJ Khanewala’s Bird of the Week XXXIX

Thursday Doors visits Caldes d’Estrac

I had only one reason to visit Caldes d’Estrac. Not because back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries it was noted for its thermal baths. Those glory days are largely gone: and in any case I live near the spa town of Harrogate. I went because of its art gallery, Fundacio Palau Fabre, largely dedicated to Picasso. More about that another day.

This is a small town with big hills. I toiled up, then skittered down slope after slope as I explored. But it had doors to pause by. Most of my shots are in my camera, and not to be seen till I go home. (Tomorrow. How shall I survive? It’s 14 whole degrees colder back in England) So here’s just one that took my fancy.

This is my first offering to Dan’s Thursday Doors for a very long time. But I thought this distressed door deserved its fifteen minutes of fame. Or 5 anyway.

La Sardana Sunday

La Sardana is the traditional dance of Catalonia. It’s been around in one way or another since the 1600s, but really came into its own in the 19th century. Back in the fascist era, Franco did his best to ban it, as he tried to ban all forms of regionalism, or worse, independence. He suppressed the distinct languages within Spain: Catalan, Basque, Galician, with the result that they have now sprung back stronger than before.

Anyway, la Sardana. It’s a circle dance, with men and women, neighbours, friends, strangers joining hands, moving slowly in a circle following the fairly complex foot moves of the leader. When the circle starts getting too big, a second circle starts, then a third ..

On Sunday morning, we took ourselves down into town to watch the mini-Sardana festival. We immediately noticed that I fitted the age-profile the best. Every single dancer was over 60. Anaïs’ friend’s granny immediately wanted to put that right, and appointed herself Anaïs’ personal Dance Mistress. With not much success.

A few younger citizens took themselves off to practice in a quiet corner …

And after a slow start, the event got going. Not having a single dance gene in my body, I wasn’t tempted to get involved, despite being The Right Age. But it’s rather sad that this seems to be the general view among the young. Would Franco get his wish after all, and see the Sardana vanish a hundred years after he tried to banish it?

Postcards from Arenys de Mar

Here I am in Spain on Granny Duty. Today, I’m not needed till 5.00, when I collect Anaïs from nursery. So I took myself off to Arenys de Mar, just up the coast from here. Once upon a time, it was an important ship-building town, and remnants still exist in the form of repairing and restyling yachts and other craft. And it’s still a fishing town, so off I went to the fishing port, where I had long since missed the daily fish auction. Oddly, this starts high and the bidding goes lower till it sticks. I can’t quite get my head round that.

The fishing port, the yachts, and the town

The boats here are small family-run craft. Industrial fishing it ain’t. So fishermen were out and about doing running repairs to their boats, and sitting down checking their nets and mending them. It all seemed time-honored and traditional.

Mending the nets

Who knew that fishing nets could all look so different?

Next time I go, I’ll be in time for the auction. Maybe.

Time to Celebrate

This week’s Lens-Artists Challenge, set by Donna, asks us to look at Time. So … I’ve decided to focus on traditions: traditions about celebration – long enjoyed, long maintained, and still meaningful in the communities where they take place.

Transhumance for instance.  It’s that time of year when in the Pyrénées (and in other mountain regions too), near where we lived in France, the cattle and sheep are moved from the lush summer pastures in the mountains down to their winter quarters down on their lowland(ish) farms .  They stay there till spring, and then they’re taken up again.  And each time, it’s the excuse for a party. Here are some scenes from Seix a few years ago, of the upward part of the year.

Patriotic cows are led to town
Cattle trudge patiently down the road …
Sheep come too
It seems strange to ride a plaster pony when there are so many real ones around
Dancing – always dancing
More dancers
Traditional clogs
Shepherds from the Landes on their traditional look-outs – their stilts.
Traditional géants

They were dancing in Seix. We dance to celebrate wherever we live – always have. Here are Morris Dancers in England, traditional dancers in Catalonia (and more of them in the featured photo) and dancing for the big Harvest celebration of Chuseok in South Korea.

What next? How about Shrove Tuesday, the day when it’s the last excuse to have a bit of fun before the privations of Lent? The day when eggs and butter and other indulgences get used up in the making of pancakes, some of which end up in a race. Participants run the course, pan in hand, tossing their pancakes as they run towards the finishing line. It’s part of every Shrove Tuesday, as it has been for hundreds of years here in Ripon, and in towns and villages throughout the land.

Restaurant and café cooks take time out and celebrate a race well-won.
Schools vie with each other for the prize.

Street entertainers have engaged out attention as long as there have been streets. Jugglers, Punch and Judy shows … anything goes.

Juggler in Ripon
Punch … but no Judy.

Anyway, let’s finish off with a dance, the Sardana, dear to Catalonians for … well, centuries. It’s easy enough – join in the circle and just copy the person opposite you. Come on – you don’t even need a partner!

Friends and strangers enjoy the Sardana in a Catalan square.

Out in the Streets of El Masnou

Take a trip northwards along the coast out of Barcelona, and you’ll enter a different world. You’ll trade Tourist Central for pleasant, ordinary towns where people can just get on with life. You’ll only hear Catalan and Spanish in the streets, and souvenir shops or restaurants with tourist menus and helpful pictures and translations into several languages are unknown.

The town just before our daughter-and-family’s is El Masnou, and we recently enjoyed a stroll around after a long lazy lunch there. Old and new, high-rise and low rise all live together in a congenial hotch-potch. There’s a harbour, as shown in the feature photo, and pleasant squares with Modernista villas once built for sea-captains.

And of course there’s street art … such as a series of images of women, whom I ought to recognise, but don’t …

… and any number of images with an axe to grind …

Or not ..

And then just a couple of others, near a disused factory, with a building site beyond …

… before finishing up in a square outside the church shown above, looking out at the Mediterranean, with Barcelona on the skyline at the right. And with an image of the winter, summer, autumn and winter painted on one of the walls.

Actually, I’m cheating. The photo at the bottom was taken on a January day when the sun was absent.

For John’s Lens-Artists Challenge #249

and Natalie’s Photographing Public Art