Barcelona: Ancient and Modern at Once

Barcelona is a super cool city. It doesn't have a "flair" like Andalucia does, but it's got something else that's special. I was worried after my trip to Madrid that I'd be going to just another European city, but I didn't get that feeling nearly as much as I did in Barcelona.

The first thing you'll notice about Barcelona, both from the air, and from planning your trip, is the modern, unique block structure of the city. Like many cities constructed with modern ideas of urban planning, the modern area of Barcelona is made up of square blocks. But what makes it striking, and unique when compared to other cities with extensive block networks like New York or Chicago is that the corners of each block are cut off, leaving a little diamond at each intersection, and making the city feel more open. On the inside of every block is a courtyard, whose purpose is to let light into the middle rooms as well. Therefore, these blocks don't need to be more skinny than long, such as in New York, since there's enough light from every room. And I'll touch on the idea of light later on in the post, when talking about some of Gaudí's houses, but just keep in mind, the idea of livability, the idea of light, of ergonomic, comfortable living is baked into the concept of a modern Barcelona.

Marta, the grandmother of one of Emily's friends, Ona, picked me up at the airport early in the morning. After saying hi, our first spot to see was the panoramic view from Miramar on Montjuïc. There are two mountains that corner Barcelona in, Tibidabo and Montjuïc. I can't remember exactly what Marta was saying about the mountain, but I believe there used to be some sort of Jewish presence in this region. Barcelona's Jewish population was completely eradicated even before the inquisition, and now, only the name remains. Nowadays, Montjuïc has remained as the site of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Therefore, we were able to see some facilities from the games, and also, of course, the view out to the sea and into the city. Marta was pointing out some buildings and things that we'd later visit, and it was really peaceful, getting that nice sea breeze from the Mediterranean.

We then drove downtown, passing through the parallel and perpendicular streets, and seeing the famous Gaudí façades on a few of the buildings, including his two most famous on Passieg de Gràcia (what I seem to understand as Barcelona's Champs Elysées). Notice in this picture how the corner is broken to allow for more spacious intersections along this wide avenue. Anyways, more on Gaudí later. We also saw Hospital Sant Pau, another modern building, before taking our next stop at the Sagrada Família. We didn't go inside, but Ona and I took a lap of it from the outside. Of course, I've seen pictures of the Sagrada Família, but I never had paid much attention to the detail on its façade until now. And what I kept on thinking was that there was a sort of "melted crayon" aesthetic in much of Barcelona's (and notably Gaudí's) architecture. That it looks like thick wax, which is often but now always colorful, melted down under the heat of the sun, melting unevenly around the building, thick in some places, runny in others, and never forming even right angles. It's a very unique aesthetic, and it's part of what I call that "thing" about Barcelona.

Anyways, it was very cool to see the Sagrada Família. Of course, it's just another basilica, I can check it off from the list of one's I've seen after four (almost) contiguous summers in Europe and plenty of trips throughout the years, but there is something different about this. Even if it is just a basilica, it represents the city, its willingness to blend hyper-modernity with the ancient, its "thing."

We continued on to El Masnou, where Marta lives. It's a beach town outside of Barcelona, well-connected to the city by the R1 commuter train line that runs down the coast to each major suburb and into major areas in the city, such as Plaça Catalunya and the Arc de Triomf. There, I met their very cute dog, Rif, and though it took him until the second day to get used to me, I enjoyed seeing him run around and bark at me. I set stuff down in their house, which is very nice and in a traditional European style (a lot more than houses in Andalucia), and we went out to the patio to eat. From the patio, you can see the old neighborhood of El Masnou, steep and hilly, leading down to the coast. We enjoyed a breakfast of tomato bread, literally bread soaked in tomato, with different varieties of Iberian Ham (Ibèric, in Catalan), salmon, and cheese. It was a classic Mediterranean breakfast, but very enjoyable nonetheless.

Typical Street in the Ciutat Vella

We then headed back into town, via the train, to go and sightsee from the ground! This involved walking around mostly the Ciutat Vella, which is the old quarter of Barcelona. In this quarter, the streets are not square; they come from all angles, they're mostly one-way, and there is certainly not room for parking. Much like Santa Cruz in Seville, or any medina in a Moroccan city. Except these buildings were ironically gothic, not Arab, after all. They were all stone with wrought iron lamp posts and railing in front of the lower windows. I was amazed at the scope of this neighborhood, seeing as it takes up a large portion of the city. We toured a church, which included going up on top, and we saw the house in which Marta was born! By this point, Marta was explaining everything to me in Spanish, because if Barcelona is known for one thing, it's petty crime against tourists. So, on top of the extra level of authenticness I got from hearing everything explained in Spanish, hearing us walk down the streets speaking Spanish, and Catalan between Ona and Marta, definitely kept suspicion low on us, even when we were in the more touristy areas of the city.

Hearing Marta and Ona speak Catalan, or Català, was funny. Because I thought I could pick some out, but it was significantly less than I expected. They claim that French would help me significantly were I to ever learn Catalan, and I certainly saw that in many cognates (for example, small is petit, not pequenyo), but hearing it spoken, it was very difficult to understand much. I'm sure that after time and exposure, my ears would grow accustomed to it, just as they have to Andalucian Spanish, but it was not immediately recognizable.

Text, of course, is a lot easier to understand. There are many cognates with both Spanish and French, and really what hides these most is the spelling. Catalan's spelling has an aesthetic that is authentic to northern Spain. It looks not too dissimilar to Basque or Gallego, in the way that they all use x's liberally to indicate some sort of sound close to a "sh." Català has also many more accents than Spanish, including the grave accent (à), the diaeresis (ï), and the cedille, ç. Note, the diaeresis does exist, but is used very infrequently in modern Spanish in the digraph gü, to represent the distinction of a soft pronunciation close to a w from a hard g followed by a u, as in lingüística, pronounced like ling-wistica, not linwistica. In Catalan, however, it is used to indicate the separation of vowel sounds to contrast them from a dipthong, as in French. They do not have an ñ, and use ny instead. This seems to be the only time that the letter y is ever used, but I'd have to get further confirmation on that. In terms of aesthetics, it's quite funny. You can have words ending with a ç, which does not happen in French. For example, enllaç, which I believe means connection, at least in terms of metro lines... Also, many verbs end in -eu, which reminds me of Romanian, and often where Spanish words have an a, Catalan words will have an e that is still pronounced like an a. Take, for example, tape, pronounced like, and translated to Spanish tapa.

And I've saved the best feature of Catalan for last. Something super unique, something that caught me off guard the first I saw it, and something I still find hard to believe is just "normal" to Catalan speakers: the l·l digraph. Catalan, like Spanish, has the ll letter, representing a sound somewhere between a j and a y depending on the region, speaker, and context. But Catalan also has a doubled l, which usually comes from having a syllable ending in an l and the next one starting with one. Try it out yourself with "usually" and "syllable"! So to distinguish between the geminated l and the ll, they add a dot between the two for a l. So, Avinguda Paral·lel is Parallel Avenue, not Parayel Avenue. Neat, eh? It, along with all the other Catalan accents and special letters are conveniently found on an average Spanish keyboard, with this middle dot in particular being what you get with a shift + 3.

So I digressed a bit. Still walking through the Ciutat Vella (not vel·la!), we saw the place where several Catalan republicans were shot during the civil war, which is now a typical stone wall of the Ciutat Vella riddled with holes. Again, Catalonia has had a long history of being culturally unique from Spain. They have their own language, and cuisine. Bull fighting is outlawed for being animal cruelty, and they lose money to the federal system, whereas regions like Andalucia gain money because of it. So though Spain is so fragmented, so diverse culturally between its many states, that’s why areas like Catalonia area actively seeking independence.

We then headed into the modern part of the city, the part with those funny squircle blocks, and walked down La Rambla, which is a grand avenue with large walking space in between the two lanes on either side. On La Rambla were restaurants and shops. It definitely was touristy, but it was cool to see nonetheless.

On the other side of La Rambla, we got into a taxi to take us to Parc Güell, Gaudí’s architecture park. There, there were several buildings in his iconic, “melty crayon” style, as well as many places to sit down and relax. It was full of tourists, and especially in the most famous spot, by the spire, it was very crowded, but Ona and I were able to explore the more remote parts of the park while Marta rested. In the park, there are no right angles. But that’s to be expected of Gaudí. But what is more classic, more evoking of his style, is that there are no circles either. Everything is an oval, a catenary, lop-sided or uneven. There is no symmetry to be found anywhere, and that makes the entire place very visually interesting. He mixes styles; mixing what seems to be a tradition of Catalan tilework with the stone of the Ciutat Vella, for example. It’s a very interesting place, and I am very glad we were able to spend some good time there.

We took the metro back to El Masnou, where we had dinner at a Chiringuito, a little hut on the beach. There was a group of adults getting drunk on the beach by us, and Marta was completely amused by them, constantly making funny comments and the like. Ona and I found it really funny.

The next morning, after sleeping in a little bit, I headed back downtown, myself alone this time, to continue to explore. But before that, Rif did finally warm up to me :) My first stop

was back downtown to continue to experience the modernity of Barcelona: the MOCO (modern contemporary museum). Again, this museum exhibits what’s so unique about Barcelona—it’s fusion of the ancient and the contemporary. It’s in this wonderful stone building in the Ciutat Vella, but when you step inside, it’s strongly air conditioned. The floors are sleek, the doors, glass. The lighting is bright and pure LED white, without even the slightest fluorescent yellow tinge. It’s squeaky clean, and the colors of all the art pops against the bright white walls. And yet, it works, but it works mostly because that’s how Barcelona is. The art in there is great, and I would highly recommend a visit. I’ll share a few of my favorites below…

Jesus and His Homeboys

I walked from there to the Petit Palaù de la Música Catalana, Barcelona’s famous concert hall. I had actually never heard of the place, but I have no idea why now that I’ve been. When I walked in, I learned there was a tour starting in French in two minutes, so I joined that tour. Kind of unrealted, but I did get to see, really for the first time, the Frenchs’ sense of humor. I feel like being an American in Paris, I was always spared this side of them, but they were laughing at a lot of our tour guide’s jokes! Anyways, we watched a video, cameoing many famous musicians, like Zubin Mehta, and featuring clips of Mahler’s 9th and 4th, which made me smile and chuckle a little. It was just about the construction of the building, and the context it was in. Namely, it was constructed at a time when Catalan culture, as independent from Spanish culture, was being celebrated. The hall was created for the performance of both Catalan and traditional classical music, and that’s shown in the sculptures in the concert hall (more on that to come). The current lobby and ticket office, which are decorated with so many colors, media, textures, and patterns, used to be outside, and people would simply be driven up (or maybe in their horse and buggies) and walk up the grand staircase to the concert hall. In the concert hall itself, there is an abundance of light and color. The Palau was constructed so that there should be different lightings at different times of day, however all should provide some sort of natural aid to the performance. The concert hall should be well illuminated even without stage lighting, which is in direct contrast to nearly every concert hall I can think of. On the ceiling are many carved roses.

There are two important dates for Barcelonans. First would be September 11, a day which marks a significant loss against Spain, and the other, Sant Jordi, a festival of Barcelona’s patron Saint, celebrated by giving roses to one another. Now, on the ceiling of the Palau’s concert hall, there are (approximately) as many roses as there are seats, essentially showing that every day, everyone can celebrate Catalonia. That any showgoer, Spanish, Catalan, or foreign, can get a rose and participate in a true Barcelona-unique experience.

More of the architecture of the Palau: there is a sculpture on the left side of a Catalan composer under a tree native to the region, and to the right, Beethoven under the Valkyries, showing that both Catalan and traditional classical music can be, and both are celebrated here.

At the top is a wonderful stained-glass window that shines a mosaic of bright colors through the concert hall, and the pillars are adorned with Catalan tilework akin to that seen in Parc Güell. The whole concert hall is beautiful, and like nothing that I’ve ever seen in a concert hall before. Usually they’re dark, the focus being on framing the orchestra. This, however, is focused on putting the orchestra in a space as beautiful as their music.

When we were touring, there was a youth orchestra rehearsing Mendelssohn’s 4th, so it was very cool to hear the acoustics in action. Sound travels really far, and it’s easy to pick out each instrument and each part. In general, very well designed for both function and beauty.

I continued to walk around La Rambla and Plaça Catalunya, stopping at the FC Barcelona store on the way. I ended up at the two Gaudí houses, La Pedrera and Casa Batlló, and I toured La Pedrera. Interestingly enough, the inside was less “melty crayon” than I was excepting; it looked a lot more normal than you’d imagine just from seeing the outside. But still, on the inside, none of the walls form right angles, and those you think might are actually rounded at the corners. Everything’s a little wavy, and the doorknobs are molded to the shape of a hand. The house is still lived in by about three tenants, and the rest serves as headquarters for the “non-profit” organization fueling the tourism of La Pedrera.

My last stop before leaving the city was to stop by where Haylie lived last year, in the Ciutat Vella, and I was able to FaceTime her for a few minutes and grab a shawarma from her go-to place right outside the residence. It was cool to see somewhere that meant to much to her, even without her there in person! I really enjoyed Barcelona, and I’m excited for my next time there! It’s a very spunky city with lots to do, a unique vibe, and a great modern history. And many thanks to Marta, Ona, and their family for hosting me :) Adéu!