Passeig de Gracia

I have been in Barcelona for 5 days now. I like being in a place where I am comfortably and easily communicating with the people. The interesting thing about Barcelona that most don't know is that it is in the region of Spain called Catalunya. The first language of the people of Catalunya is Catalan, not Spanish. So here in Barcelona, all the street signs, atms, menus, etc are FIRST in Catalan. It's like a mixture of Spanish and French. But Spanish is understood and spoken if first spoken to. Because I was just here in March I thought I might find it difficult to see and do different things but it really hasn't been! Yes I have repeated a few but they have turned out to be different experiences completely! Repeats have been, Parc Guell, Montserrat, Mercat De La Boqueria, and La Rambla. But new on the list has been, Montjuic (mount of the Jews), Poble Espanya, Parc de la Ciutadella, Catedral de Barcelona, Eglésia de Santa Maria del Mar, and venturing around Barceloneta. 

The fountain in Parc de la Ciutadella

La Rambla in the evening, even McDonalds had seating on La Rambla.

Everyone's gotta use a bike.

Poble Espanya is a village-ish town on Monjuic that has little workshops, art galleries, cafes, restaurants, and stuff like that. It is the perfect display of Spanish architecture ranging from the 15th to 19th centuries. 


La Catedral de Barcelona is currently being preserved and worked on, but that was great because there was an elevator installed for construction only that allows tourists, a few at a time go to the roof of the cathedral which would be unwalkable without the temporary scaffolding. This is one of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen. The choir of the church is in the center of the nave with wooden seats so detailed that it rivals the detailed altar pieces in the radiating chapels lining the side aisles and apse. The cloister of the cathedral is stunningly Gothic in style. The flamboyant arches. Wow. A beautiful fountain and geese, white geese. 

The Mercat De La Boqueria is amazing every time you go. It's a massive produce market right of Las Ramblas that began in 1217. It was officially recognized in 1826 and a structure built for it 1835. It is crammed full of locals and tourists buying, tasting, dining, smelling, wishing and wondering. It's got everything you could imagine. Hug legs of ham starting at around 50 Euros and going to way over 100. Candies you've never seen, exotic fruits, skinned rabbits, little kebabs called pintxos (peen-choes), xorico (chorizo), nuts, spices, fresh sea food from the port, and during the warmer months fresh fruit juice everywhere, everything from a regular strawberry to coconut with cactus flower. yum. It's never a bore and always an adventure at La Boqueria. 

Duck Eggs

Fresh fruit juices

Montserrat is a beautiful mountain about an hour and a half outside Barcelona with a monastery, basilica, music school for boys, hiking trails to holy sites, and beautiful views of Catalunya and surrounding mountains, from the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean. The boys who attend the school are boys that study music both vocal and instrumental and sing twice per day everyday at the basilica. They sing at 13:00 (1pm) and at 19:10.  We attended the Vespers service at the Basilica. At 18:45 the bells let out huge rings and the monks and priest file into the choir and apse. They sang with the newly installed 4,000+ pipe organ in unison plainsong. Then at 19:10 the bells ring again and entering the church are the 30 or so boys from the school, dressed in the traditional cassock and surplice to sing with the monks. their voices were angelic. The boys sing the soprano and alto while the men sing tenor and bass. It was absolutely incredible. Their voices resonated like no other I've ever heard. If any of you out there make the trip to Montserrat, make it to the very less crowded Vespers service in the evening, not the 1pm mass because heaps of pilgrims and tourists will have left by the late evening. 

Today I am headed to some coastal towns, Tarragona and Sitges. Itinerary: Leave Barcelona, Paris, Mont Saint Michel, Brussels, Marseilles.