After Gaudi Day yesterday we set off to conquer the museums of Barcelona today.
But not before breakfast at our favourite bakery which serves ridiculously cheap (but great!) coffee and every sort of pastry and crunchy bread rolls . We are on a mission to discover the best. So far I think it's the long white crusty roll with some jamon (ham) and quesa (cheese). Ewan has voted in favour of the pastry with 'crema', otherwise known as custard. The two friendly girls who have been there every morning have the coffee sorted: Ewan has a double shot which I think would send me crazy! It's nice to have some bit of a routine when you're travelling and this very inexpensive breakfast is ours.
First stop in our day of museums was some 'culcha' at the Picasso Museum, which seemed to have expanded since the last time I was here. Picasso certainly had the genes to be a great artist and we found ourselves marvelling at the quality of the portraits he painted at 13 years: I'd be happy to be able to paint anything that was vaguely recognisable as a portrait at my advanced age! At 13 the best I could do was spend my time doing lovely lettering for my Monkees souvenir book!
You will be thrilled to hear that the audio guide rated a 9 out of 10: my only complaint was that they expect everyone to have the perfect eyesight of a child and the numbers were so small next to the artwork that even younger people had to get close and squint.
As for the artwork it was remarkable: you could see his style influenced by many other artists and art movements over the years, and even some displays of his ceramics.
Then it was off for some history at the MUHBA - they love an acronym here! This museum is about the history of Barcelona so I expected the usual display cases filled with bits of pottery dug up from somewhere and some nice models and AV displays. Instead we started the tour in the basement right under the Gothic Quarter we visited yesterday. It was an underground archaelogical site of the Roman buildings and streets from many centuries ago. Walkways, some with glass floors to allow a better view, allowed us to see the wine making vats, the drainage channels, the baths, the church and even the huge earthenware pots for making fish sauce ( not the vietnamese kind but a similarly smelly sauce made from fermented fish heads, intestines and roe). It was very well displayed and the audio guide was in sequence: what more could a tourist ask for?!
After all of the excitement we needed some sustenance so we found a focacciera with delicious spinach pie and a huge coffee for me to boost my energy levels. It was good to sit down and rest our weary legs for a while too.
Next on our list was the Frederick Mares Museum described as having 'interesting collectables', Much to our surprise it was indeed collections of very specific items which he obviously loved. He was a sculptor but must have had family money or sponsors to help him collect all of these pieces. The collections were varied and quite overwhelming.
Much to Ewan's horror one of the items he collected were statues of the Madonna and Child and there were more than a hundred of them. After an overload of Madonna and Child paintings in Italy now we were faced with hundreds of them ranging from the serene and beautiful to the ugly and weird. It was an interesting coincidence that today was the day I gave birth to my gorgeous Lauren exactly 30 years ago but I'm not sure I looked quite as serene as some of these calm mothers.
The next collection consisted of wooden life size statues of Jesus on the cross and, let me tell you, it's a bit daunting to enter a room with rows of them all looking equally bloody and sad. Very odd! The rest of the collections incuded tiny votive metal statues, some bishop statues and a miscellaneous collection of anything he found interesting! By this stage we were defintely on Museum overload and had to leave before we saw every single piece.
As we emerged we found ourselves in the old Jewish Quarter consisting of narrow laneways that twisted and turned, centred around a huge old synagogue. The area is known for its tiny specialist shops, and although many were closed for siesta, the ones that we saw had some beautiful handcrafted jewellery, shoes and textiles. I was hoping to find the perfect wallet after losing mine the day before. Ewan had kindly offered to buy one for me to cheer me up but I couldn't quite find one. Of course Ewan has to pay for everything now as I have no credit cards at all!!! Oh well.
Continuing the theme of the day one member of the team expressed a desire to see the maritime museum and the other acquiessed, so it was off to the metro for a short ride down the Ramblas - there is only so many times you want to walk in those crowds! One member took in the sights offered by the museum, the other decided to wait in the shade outside, with obvious consequences!
With part of the team re-invorated we went to a Desigual store and bought a wallet for me to use whilst I'm away, and then, exhausted, we headed for home and some quiet time.
That could have been the end of the excitement for the day but NO! I decided to go to the Laundromat. I don't think I have been in any laundromat overseas where I have not had to stand in the middle of it and ask in a loud voice: "Does anyone speak English?" at some point in the proceedings, and today was no exception!! I caused great concern to a couple of lovely gay guys because I put in twice as much money for the dryer as they thought I needed and they had to tell me very seriously that my clothes would "frizzle" up ( using dramatic hand gestures) if I allowed them to dry that long! To avert a national catastrophe I had to keep checking the clothes every few minutes ) and actually they did need the amount of time I had paid for. A little old lady sitting on the bench next to me with a HUGE bucket of clothes sighed deeply every time our eyes met as if to say what a trial it was. Then there were the young singles eyeing each other off.....honestly trips to the laundromat are so entertaining - I was almost sad to leave.
We had some Asian food for dinner: just for a change from tapas. We leave Barcelona tomorrow to go north towards the mountains.
Your cleanly dressed and well informed correspondent
Dianne
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