Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar

Posted on June 15, 2023 by admin

Scenes from a Barcelona grocery store.

Wasn’t a very big one. One of the many 24/7 jobs in the Eixample district.

I like that brand name, Fiesta Brava. Best to translate, Wild Party? Could be. Of course, the store had much more than sangria and boxed wine. Prices might be comparable, but I’d say the few we visited were a cut above U.S. convenience stores in selection.

I’ve read that sangria is considered a drink for tourists, but I have to wonder. I expect it’s mostly Catalans visiting these grocery stores and availing themselves of those rows of sangria bottles.

This is the entry at enciclopedia.cat about one Berenguer de Montagut, machine (Google) translated from Catalan.

Master of works

He worked preferentially in Manresa, where the New Bridge project is attributed to him (1318?); in 1322 he directed the works of the Carmelite convent and from 1328 he was master major of the seat. In Barcelona he contracted, with R. Despuig, the project of the church of Santa Maria del Mar (1329). Later, with Pere Baró, he began the construction of the sanctuary of Santa Maria de Lledó.

I find it astonishing that even the name of the man who – designed – oversaw construction – both, probably – of such an edifice as the basilica Santa Maria del Mar – is known at all. But apparently it is. Still, he didn’t do it alone.

“The neighbourhood’s inhabitants poured all their efforts into building… Santa Maria del Mar, successfully completing it in only 55 years,” says a surprisingly well-written item on the basilica, published in English by a Barceló Hotel Group, of all entities, which also notes that Santa Maria del Mar has been featured in recent novels, and a Netflix series.

“Although this monumental work was overseen by Berenguer de Montagut and Ramon Despuig, the real credit must go to the residents of La Ribera [the surrounding neighborhood] and, in particular, the bastaixos — in other words, those who carried on their own backs the stone from which the basilica was built. The stone had been brought from the royal quarry, located on the Hill of Montjuïc and transported by boat to the vicinity of the church.”

That’s the entrance, but for tourists (as opposed to parishioners), it was the exit. We entered from behind the sanctuary.

But soon enough, the vault appears overhead.

Looking back into the nave.

The chapels aren’t closed off.

The basilica has stood since the 14th century. It abides. Considering the vicissitudes of Barcelonan history, quite a feat. Another line from EB (1929) on Barcelona, on the political violence of the modern period: “ [E]specially serious were the uprisings of 1835, when 11 convents were destroyed, and of the “tragic week” in 1909, when over 60 churches and religious buildings disappeared from the city’s architectural heritage.”

And of course, 1929 Barcelona was completely unaware of other things to come, and soon.

Translated from the basilica’s web site: “One of the most important defeats [sic, incidents] took place at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, when the basilica burned down [sic, was seriously damaged] after a group of anarchists caused a fire there. Part of the baroque altar, some of the stained glass, numerous elements of furniture and an important part of the archives disappeared under the flames.”

Also worth mentioning: the 14th century was one of the prosperous periods in the city’s history, as a port doing well on trade from around the Mediterranean. Just the sort of place to set your historical fiction.

A look at the floor.

If I went to a modern headstone maker and asked for this design, would he or she do it? I wonder, but I’m also certain I’d never actually do that.

El Born & Parc de la Ciutadella

Posted on June 14, 2023 by admin

The first lines of the search results for the El Born district of Barcelona, sampled this morning:

El Born is sandwiched between Via Laietana and Barceloneta and is served by the metro stops Barceloneta and Jaume 1 which are on the same line. Las Ramblas and…

El Born brings to Greenpoint and NYC a taste of tapas y platillos from Spain and has a focus in Barcelona, where the owners are from.

A local’s guide to El Born district of Barcelona. The 26 best hotels, museums, bars, restaurants, shops and guided tours of El Borne for 2023.

Located in between the Gothic Quarter and the Ciutadella Park, El Born is one of Barcelona’s trendiest and most popular neighborhoods.

Once home to Barcelona’s affluent merchants, noblemen, and artisans, El Born is now one of the hippest, liveliest, and most creative…

That last line is from a site called “travel away” (no caps), which looks like an Afar knockoff, and the headline is “A Curated Guide to El Born, Barcelona.” Of course it’s curated. You must visit that perfect tapas place that serves unique craft sangria, or you’ll come down with a bad case of FOMO. (We had tasty tapas and swell sangria during our Catalonia holiday, but not in El Born.)

Anyway, you can’t just wander around to see what you can see, can you?

Of course you can. I wasn’t hip enough to know that El Born is trendy, but we were intrigued by our surroundings as we ambled along the mostly pedestrian thoroughfare Passeig del Born, where we acquired a drink and snacks to eat on a bench.

The soda in question. All the way from Hamburg. We’d never heard of it, so we gave it a go. Now I can’t remember what it tasted like, so it must have been neither that good or particularly bad.

At one end of the passeig is a large plaza featuring an imposing cast-iron structure.

That’s El Born Centre de Cultura i Memoria. The main part of the inside was free to walk into; just follow the rules.

The El Born Centre was once a large public market (Mercat del Born), and the first cast-iron structure of its kind in Barcelona, dating from 1876.

I was inspired to take a few black-and-whites.

I should have take more of those in Barcelona, which has a lot of good contour for monochrome. Ah, well. The iron framework over our heads wasn’t the only thing to see at El Born Centre. Beneath the ground-floor walkways is an archaeological site with a connection to Barcelona’s bloody past.

A neighborhood once existed here, as it becomes clear staring down on the ragged wall stubs and stones. In 1714, after the Principality of Catalonia capitulated to Bourbon forces toward the end of the War of Spanish Succession, the victors leveled the neighborhood to build the Ciutadella (citadel) and its security esplanade, presumably to help keep the Catalans in line. Well over a century later, after the hubbub in ’68 (1868, that is) the city assumed control of the site and eventually built the market on a relatively small part of it.

Much later, the ruins were uncovered, and archaeological investigations proceed. Sources tell me the ruins of 60 houses in 11 separate blocks can be found in El Born’s archaeological site.

We exited from the opposite end of El Born Centre that we entered, and from there a short street leads to the sizable Parc de la Ciutadella (Citadel Park), which is the use 19th-century Barcelona had for most the former military facility. Good choice. It’s a grand place for a stroll. Or just to hang out.

A water feature. Reminded me a little of Chapultepec Park in Mexico City.

Plus an assortment of monumental structures. Such as the Catalonian parliament building.

A thing called Castell dels tres Dragones, which seemed to be closed for repairs. Later (as in, today) I learned that Lluís Domènech i Montaner designed it. We’ll come back to him. He did something much more amazing that we saw later.

A Catalan gazebo. Note the difference in detail from Castilian gazebos. Catalans are reportedly fiercely proud of their gazebo heritage.

We were too tired to climb these stairs, but we did admire the work from some distance.

That’s the Ciudadela Park Cascade, which as far as I can tell doesn’t honor anything specific, but was built in the late 19th century to celebrate Barcelona’s revival. And in time for the Universal Exhibition of Barcelona in 1888, which is yet another place to visit once that time machine is up and running (and 1929, too).

The park, like Jackson Park in Chicago and Hemisfair is San Antonio, owes much of its modern shape to a long-ago world’s fair.

Barri Gòtic Ramble: Carrers (Streets)

Posted on June 13, 2023 by admin

The Fourteenth Edition of Encyclopædia Britannica (1929) includes the following information (p. 103) in its Barcelona entry, about what is now known as the Barri Gòtic, the Gothic Quarter, which EB refers to simply as Ciudad.

“The Ciudad is the old Barcelona, built around the Roman Barcino… In the interior of the Ciudad are the architectural treasures left to Barcelona – the Plaza del Rey; the Gothic cathedral…; the church of Santa Maria del Mar and many public buildings…

“The narrow, irregular streets of the old quarter were broken through in the 19th century by the Calle de Fernando VII and its continuations, and more recently by the Via Layetana and other avenues; it seems probable that the mediæval ground-plan, so long conserved, will soon be unrecognizable.”

I’m glad to report that urban renewal didn’t completely erase the old quarter over the last century.

Could be that the Depression and then the civil war put a halt to further big changes in the urban landscape, and by the 1950s, the quarter was run down and less desirable, and the city was expanding outward anyway. Then the neighborhood got spiffed up, though retaining its irregularities, in time for the 1992 Olympics.

Via Layetana is still called that, but Calle de Fernando VII is known as Carrer de Ferran in our time, since no doubt naming things for Spanish kings is a no-go in modern Catalonia.

These days, affluent Catalans roam the narrow streets of Ciudad, supporting an array of small shops, boutiques, restaurants, bars, and other businesses. The many tourists support those businesses, too, but also the likes of the Museu Picasso (as we did), Museu Moco, Museu Frederic Marès, Museu d’Historia de Barcelona, and the Museu de la Xocolata.

Most of the time, we walked around just to see what we could see. This kind of pre-car streetscape is pretty thin on the ground in North America (with a few exceptions), so it was a good ramble in the mediæval ground-plan.

Fun things in the shop windows.

A fair amount of graffiti, or rather street paintings.

I don’t think I’d ever seen a beggar in the pose that you see in illustrations. He didn’t move a bit.

I gave him a euro for his trouble.

Barri Gòtic Ramble: Plaçes (Plazas)

Posted on June 12, 2023 by admin

One of the few places I saw the flag of the Kingdom of Spain in Spain last month: the Palau de la Generalitat, seat of the Catalan government.

I suppose one of the details of the deal establishing Catalonian autonomy has the flag of Spain at this particular center spot, an acknowledgment, however small, that Catalonia is still part of Spain. We spotted the flags not long after leaving Barcelona Cathedral. Our unspoken goal: wander around the Barri Gòtic, to and through its plazas.

The Palau de la Generalitat, which had a long construction period from the 15th to the 17th centuries, fronts Plaça Sant Jaume; across the way directly is Barcelona City Hall.

One of the residential buildings facing the plaça displays its conviction that Catalonia should be independent, in the form of an Catalonian independence flag, the Estelada. We saw a scattering of the flags around the city.

The lively Plaça de Santa Maria, the open space in front of Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar. As we wandered by, a troupe of dancers danced, so we stayed a while.

Plaça del Rei.

An important (main?) branch of the Barcelona City History Museum (MUHBA) has an entrance on the plaza. I’ve read that Roman ruins are in its lower level, but no go. The lower level was closed for unspecified reasons. Instead we spent time on the first (ground) floor, where you can see La Capilla de Santa Maria del Palacio Real Mayor, a royal chapel ordered built by James II of Aragon (Jaume).

Plus an assortment of smaller artifacts from Old Barcelona.

I saw this Barri Gòtic plaza on the map, and I knew I had to see it.

An unpretentious square, with little to indicate who it is named for.

I was beginning to think there was nothing to honor the man, but I was wrong.

No statue or the like, which I suspect the honoree would have found faintly ridiculous. Well done, Barcelona.

Barcelona Cathedral

Posted on June 11, 2023 by admin

We were up and out early on our last day in Dublin, which was capped by downing Guinnesses, and we flew out that evening for a somewhat late arrival around midnight at El Prat Airport, Barcelona. Our energy reserves were low, riding one of the yellow-and-black cabs – the only legal colors – along the highway, looking out to indistinct nighttime streetscapes.

Some blocks from our hotel, we left the highway and crossed into the district known as Eixample, literally Expansion. That’s what it was, for late 19th-century Barcelona. The neighborhood features a regular street grid with buildings on all four sides of every block, a mix of residential and retail, with some offices as well.

We perked right up. At taxi speed, and at the midnight hour, details are fuzzy. The big signs and the bright lights and scattering of pedestrians on the sidewalks stood out. We passed a small grocery, brightly lit. A cafe. A small restaurant. A number of closed businesses, either for the night or for good. Another small grocery, just as bright. A closed bakery. A closed boutique with small lights illuminating mannikins. A bar with a few patrons out on tables on the sidewalk. A restaurant with a takeout business. Another grocery store.

What do you know, Catalonians were working on that whole walkability thing all the way back in the 19th century, especially one Ildefons Cerdà, the pioneering urban planner who designed neighborhood.

The next morning, May 18, we were fairly eager to take to the streets of Eixample, and wider Barcelona, and walk, and figure out the subways. By mid-morning found ourselves in the Barri Gòtic, the city’s oldest neighborhood. Put another way, the original location of the city, with many streets owing their origins to Roman thoroughfares, and many buildings owing their origins to a 14th- and 15th-century flowering of prosperity in the up-and-down history of Barcelona.

You can’t wander through the Barri Gòtic without encountering Barcelona Cathedral from one direction or another. We approached from the back.

Formally, the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia. A Christian site since the 4th century at least, and site of a Roman temple before that. Completed in 1420 after more than a century under construction.

Niches.

Details.

In the crypt beneath the high altar is alabaster sarcophagus of St. Eulalia, patroness of the cathedral and co-patroness of Barcelona. Martyred in the early 4th century, according to tradition.

Maintenance never ends.

The cathedral naturally counts as Gothic, but Gothic Revival as well. The Gothic-style exterior was a 19th- and early 20th-century addition, replacing a spare exterior that was the style for Catalan churches when the cathedral was originally built.

Part of the admission (€9) included a ride in a small elevator to a landing and a small metal staircase leading to a short series of walkways on the roof of the cathedral.

Thus included in the admission are expansive views of Barcelona.

Ordinary visitors don’t exit by at the place they came in, but rather through a door that leads to a cloister ringed with chapels that are behind iron bars, as they are in the cathedral itself.

The chapel next to the gift shop. They were on their way to visit St. Rita, patroness of abused and battered women.

I don’t remember which chapel this plaque fronted. It was the only memorial I saw in Barcelona to civil war dead, though I didn’t go out of my way looking for them. In this case clerics.

Not the only momento mori around. Burials in the floor.

A reminder of mortality before you step out of the cathedral grounds into the city streets. In case you needed one.

Irish Stew

Posted on June 1, 2023 by admin

A pause in posting till June 11 or so, when I’ll pick up with my own homage to Catalonia. I found it not nearly as dangerous as Orwell, and I’m glad. Got a few things to do between now and then, in the fine early summertime of June.

I didn’t make an effort to see the Georgian townhouse doors so famed in tourist literature about Dublin, though I was curious enough to find out that, indeed, official tourism efforts about 50 years ago got the ball rolling on making people notice them.

Before that, the doors almost vanished, according to Irish Culture and Customs, as Ireland had its own period of Eisenhowerization, for its own reasons: “From the 1950s onwards, Georgian Dublin came under concerted attack by the Irish Government’s development policies. Whole swathes of 18th-century houses were demolished, notably in Fitzwilliam Street and St Stephen’s Green, to make way for utilitarian office blocks and government departments.

“Much of this development was encouraged by Ireland’s dominant nationalist ideology of that era, which wanted to wipe away all physical reminders of Ireland’s colonial past… However, thanks to a concerted effort by historians, architects, preservationists and the Irish Tourist Board, the architectural carnage came to a halt.”

I had another idea for a Dublin poster while walking around: Manhole Covers of Dublin.

Even including non-manhole ironwork.

Aer Lingus provided our four flights on the recent trip: Chicago to Dublin to Barcelona and back again in reverse order, the last two legs on the same day. The airline’s use of Irish greens on the planes and in the planes, down to the wardrobe of its employees, is distinctive. One peculiarity, at least for the two intra-Europe flights: no boarding announcements of any kind. You were waiting around, and all at once around check-in time a line formed, which you joined, and Aer Lingus employees started checking people in.

I wouldn’t have minded hearing a few more announcements, so I could enjoy a bit more Irish English in its wonderful and varied lilt. A favorite: one of the flight attendants on the Barcelona-to-Dublin run looked, and sounded, like an older version of the main character of Derry Girls.

“Sorry, ya hav’ to put th’ wee bag under th’ seat in front o’ youse.”

Does Aer Lingus employ workers from Northern Ireland? Then again, my grasp of the nuances of Irish English is pretty weak, so more than likely the flight attendant wasn’t from Derry at all.

Shannon Airport, at least the parts we saw, which was a fair amount, is long on duty-free shopping, or shopping period, and well stocked with bars and coffee shops. As for actual places to eat, not so much. The Burger King on the second level before entering U.S. preclearance was popular, I suspect, not because travelers love Whoppers so much, but because there were so few other choices. El Prat Airport (Barcelona) had Shannon beat hands down in this regard.

I’d imagined that Aer Lingus (“air fleet” in Gaelic) was still a government-owned entity, but I’m not up on things. The carrier was privatized some years ago, and now is owned by the generically named International Airlines Group, which also owns British Airways, Iberia, BMI and Vueling.

On the ground in Dublin, one way to get around is Luas (“speed”), the light rail system, in operation only since 2004. Perhaps because of its original marshy setting, Dublin has no subways.

We acquired day passes for that purpose, a deal at €5.80 if you do much riding at all, and we did. We rode one line north as far as it went, just to see where it went — to a bland transit center, is where.

There’s no machine to check the ticket when you get on. It’s one of those random check systems, and until our second-to-last ride, no one ever checked. But then a couple of uniformed Luas employees showed up at one stop with their handheld scanners, did some checks (not quite everyone in the car), and then got off at the next stop.

Some Dublin street scenes.

The cast iron Ha’Penny Bridge, built in 1816, whose name echoes a long-ago toll, and which tends to make its way onto postcards and other tourist items. Naturally we crossed it for views of the River Liffey.

Not all of the river in town is quite so picturesque. Near Phoenix Park.

The city once had a wall. Not much is left of it.

A little graffiti. I could have taken many more images.

Signs.

The last image I took in Ireland, of a last snack at the airport. Good crisps. Not the only snack food we found in Ireland. Our very first day, I saw a Yorkie Bar for sale and bought it immediately.

O’Donnells of Tipperary. We didn’t go to Tipperary. It’s a long way. Except not really. Nowhere is very far in Ireland, about eight of which could fit in Texas (the entire island, not just the Republic). Unless you have to walk.

I saw a highway sign denoting the road to Belfast as we headed for the Dublin airport, and I asked our driver how long it would take, on a good traffic day and not counting the border crossing, to reach Belfast. About an hour and a half, he said. San Antonio to Austin, I thought, except there’s never a good day for traffic on I-35.

Been There, Seen That

By Dees Stribling

Monthly Archives: June 2023