PPAC – From Pyrenees to Pennines

A Morning in El Masnou

El Masnou is the nearest town to Premià de Mar, and somewhat nearer to Barcelona. Probably because of this, it has a slightly grander recent past. In the 19th century, wealthy families looked from Barcelona to its wide sandy beaches and the hilly countryside beyond, and commissioned Modernista architects to build them a residence away from the bustle of the Big City. Over in Premià they just got on with fishing and a spot of market gardening as usual.

One day last week, during my Spanish stay which was emphatically NOT a holiday, but Granny as housekeeper, au-pair and what’s the next job? I nevertheless awarded myself a day off, and walked the 6.5 km. there along the seaside path.

I wanted to track down a few neo-classical and modernista buildings, and I did. but they were hard to photograph, being – often – in narrow streets.

Click on the images to reveal the captions.

I wanted to track down street art. It’s often assertively political here, defending Catalan independence, the rights of the dispossessed, and celebrating female pioneers of the last couple of centuries.

Click on the images to read the captions (on some of them).

Then there are the charming details every town must have: the mosaic of St. George, Catalonia’s patron saint (and also of England; Aragon; Georgia; Lithuania; Palestine; Portugal; Bulgaria; Ukraine; Malta; Ethiopia; Russia; Bosnia; Kosovo & Serbia. To name but a few). The little cats painted at pavement level. The gaping mouth letter box (but how to get a letter in?). The door knockers.

Then there are the ordinary streets, with ordinary houses. Or not so ordinary houses.

And my favourite. The house with the matching car parked outside. In this image, they don’t seem quite to match. Trust me, they did.

I left the town, walking through its industrial quarter. Even industry seems pleasant enough when every street is lined with jacaranda trees in flower.

After that, it was a drink in the quiet square I showed ten days ago, and a walk home inland through the market gardening area. A morning well spent.

PS. The featured photo of the busy port wasn’t taken last week, but on a greyer day last spring. My walk was on a strictly bright blue sky day.

For Natalie’s Public Art Challenge.

And Jo’s Monday Walk.

Lots of Postcards from Bishop’s Castle

Not on the main road to anywhere much, Bishop’s Castle (nowadays it no longer has a castle) may be somewhere to settle if you’re something of a creative type: an artist, a musician, a writer or a craftsperson. It’s an interesting town for a day trip – in our case because we were going to meet fellow blogger Tish Farrell, whose blog Writer on the Edge is one I know many of you read (And if not, why not?). We both enjoyed a morning with Tish and her husband before they waved us off to discover the town under our own steam.

I’m settling for a few postcards. Here’s the view from the Town Hall down the main street. If only they hadn’t been digging the entire length of the High Street up! No fun at all.

We pottered around quirky independent shops. Here’s our favourite – The Poetry Pharmacy.

The world’s first ever Poetry Pharmacy offering walk-in prescriptions, literary gifts, and books to address your every emotional ailment. Visit our beautiful Victorian shop in the small town of Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire, to browse the bookshop or pause in the Dispensary Café to be prescribed coffees, tisanes, sodas & sherbets to lift the spirits.

There was the House on Crutches Museum – sadly, closed that day: and so many charming buildings worth a second glance.

Or you could go looking for images of elephants, a reminder of two things. First, that Clive of India, whose family Coat of Arms included an elephant, once lived here. More memorably, during WWII, several circuses moved their animals out of the cities to Bishop’s Castle to avoid the air raids. A good few elephants were housed in local stables …

Perhaps my favourites were three houses at the bottom of the street. Terraced, and each painted a vibrant, different colour, the first was ‘zipped’ to the second, which was the ‘jigsawed’ to the third.

And that was pretty much it. A rewarding day that lived up to its promise. The featured photo shows almost the very first house we spotted on our way to find Tish. The first of many cheering sights.

A multi-tasking post.

For Natalie’s Photographing Public Art Challenge …

and Jo’s Monday Walk …

and Debbie’s Six Word Saturday.

Brick Lane is the Best Gallery

I was in London last week. And the highlight – apart from being with family of course – was a day mooching round Spitalfields with fellow blogger Sarah of Travel with Me fame. We’d planned to meet, and I’d appointed Sarah as Tour Guide. Good plan. She knows Brick Lane and the area well.

We started in Spitalfields Market, and immediately spotted Morph, well known to all British children and their parents of a certain age (1970s) through the TV series Take Hart. He and his acolytes are making guest appearances throughout central London this summer for the charity Whizz-Kidz.

Coffee next. You’ll never be short of a refreshment stop round here, though the one shown here wasn’t ours. We chose somewhere cosier.

Spitalfields was once the heart of the Huguenot community in London – Protestant refugees from persecution in 17th and 18th century Catholic France. They brought their skills as weavers with them, and formed a community here, which still has the houses from that era at its heart. For many, these houses have now become a desirable address.

We chanced upon the Town House Gallery here, and rather wished we’d stopped here for our coffee and cake. Another time.

Spitalfields has gone on being an area welcoming those seeking a fresh life away from persecution and poverty, more recently Bangaldeshi citizens who’ve now made their own mark on the area.

All the same, it was street art we’d come for, and that meant Brick Lane, and the streets round and about. Sarah’s already posted about our walk, and as so many of you already read her (and if you don’t already, you should – link above) I’ve tried to choose different images from those she shows: click on any one to enlarge.

You don’t even need a spare bit of wall:

We didn’t just have street art to keep us amused. There was filming going on. A documentary? A drama? We don’t know. Maybe we’ll find out one day.

Then under a railway bridge …

… a promising back street – a couple of street artists preparing the ground for a new work. I’m just going to show you the preparations in action. We popped back a couple of hours later to inspect progress, but were underwhelmed.

A lunch stop, then we retraced our steps. Don’t forget to look up! We were intrigued by the lines of broccoli we kept on coming across, above eye level, but they remained a mystery.

Should we instead have stopped here for lunch? We’d both have settled for Italian food. Or Korean. But that particular fusion?

Just a couple more images, of passers by oblivious to their surroundings. Which we certainly weren’t. A day full of interest. A day well spent. Thanks Sarah!

Oh, hang on. This bit’s for Jo. We found the all-important cake shop, but it wasn’t a coffee-stop too. We contented ourselves with gazing through the window, and I got an oddly surreal image of us both, with Sarah having another woman’s head superimposed on her own.

For Jo’s Monday Walk, and Natalie’s Photographing Public Art Challenge

Street Art in Thessaloniki

Well, Thessaloniki has a long and distinguished ancient history taking in Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman civilisations. And what do I show you first? Street art – and one graffito. From the sublime …

For Marsha’s Photographing Public Art Challenge

Trompe-l’œil in Knaresborough

Knaresborough is a characterful town just along the road from us. And one of its characterful features is that around any corner, you may find a house with a deceptive window or doorway. These are not real windows and doors, though they’re painted to look authentic enough. They’re trompe-l’œils. One day, I’ll produce a town trail of all of them. For now, here’s a taster from our visit on Saturday.