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| Santa Maria del Mar near our apartment in Barcelona |
We took the train back to Barcelona where we had booked with
the same apartment company that we were so pleased with on our last visit here,
2 years ago. Janet and Steve arrived a
day later and stayed in the same building so we could continue the merrymaking.
We were fortunate to arrive (completely by accident) during
the festival called “La Merce,” Barcelona’s festival of festivals. There were all kinds of special events going
on all over the city and most were free!
Each night crowds would gather in Saint Jaume I Placa to view the light “Projections,”
a highlight of La Merce. To call the “Projections” a light show is like calling
Stonehenge a pile of rocks.
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| "Projections" light show at La Merce in Barcelona |
The front of a large government building on the square with windows,
columns, and abutments served as the light show projection screen; it was illuminated and
totally transformed from building status with unbelievably vivid colors and amazing animations to viewing screen extraordinaire. At times, the protrusions and features of the
building seemed to completely disappear.
The show began with a Charlie Chaplin type character dashing across the
building and appearing inside one window after another. Then a Barcelona street scene appeared with
pedestrians walking by and cars and bikes riding down the street. At one point, the entire building turned into
a giant kaleidoscope with multi-color prisms constantly forming and
reforming.
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| Amazing animations at the La Merce "Projections" |
We’ve seen light shows all around the world now, and Frank
is NOT a light show fan; in his mind they are dumb and a waste of time and his money. But he loved this remarkable show, and touted
it as a breakthrough study in light engineering using well-designed lighting
effects and optics for special effects. Frank
recalled a show he had seen on the military channel on TV about a year ago,
where the military is presently using effects such as what we saw in this light
show to make tanks, planes, and other military machinery become virtually “invisible”
just by projecting the right amount of color and light on the devices at the
right time. A tank traveling along the
horizon, for example, with a projection of the surrounding sky on its side,
would be hard to be seen by the enemy, rendering the tank invisible to the eye,
yet moving along in plain sight.
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La Merce fireworks as seen from our
apartment terrace |
We had an attic apartment on the very top of the building
with a marvelous rooftop terrace. Every
night at 10:00, we enjoyed a great view of the La Merce celebratory fireworks
on the nearby beach.
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| "Parade of the Giants" in Barcelona |
Other La Merce activities
included several parades. We saw a bit
of the “Parade of the Giants” with 15 to 20-foot “dolls” being carried through the
streets by a single human. Each giant
doll weighed about 200 lbs. and some poor guy (hidden underneath the doll’s
clothing) had to carry the full weight on his shoulders. Fun for the kids and all part of a tradition
over 150 years old.
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| At the La Merce wine festival |
A more appealing tradition was the La Merce wine festival
with dozens of winemakers gladly pouring their goods. We particularly enjoyed the cava (Spain’s name
for their champagne).
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| Lovin' the Cava at the La Merce wine festival |
The way the wine festival worked was, we bought a pack of
tickets and then presented a certain number of tickets to a vendor (depending
on the cost and quality of the wine). It
seemed pricy until we realized that these were not tastings, but full
glasses. Since we had unwittingly bought
24 tickets, we had to come back a second day!
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| The amateur "Castellers" |
Another fun La Merce event was watching the
“Castellers.” Castellers are another
unique Barcelona tradition where clubs compete to see who can build the tallest
human pyramid. The first groups began
with the strongest men (and some women) getting down on all fours and then
lighter members would climb up to form each new level going as high as 8 or 9
levels until a little flyweight kid would climb all the way to the top.
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| The Casteller Pros |
Later, the pros arrived and they would build their bottom
level standing up, almost like creating a tree trunk and having flying
buttresses against the trunk (or human pyramid) to reinforce the structure. These guys were absolutely amazing, sometimes
reaching 3 or 4 stories high. It was so
cool to watch the highest members scramble up the sides of the pyramid to reach
their upper spots. And it was really
scary to watch the little ones climb all the way to the top and punch the sky
with their fists! The pyramids we saw
were all successful; no collapses while we watched!
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| Serrated rock face of Montserrat |
Anne had always wanted to visit Montserrat, so we did a side
trip to see this mountain top monastery.
This is one of those places where getting there was half the fun.
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| Cable car to Montserrat |
We took the metro, a 1-½ hr. train, and then
the best part, a 35-man cable car up the side of the mountain. The mountains are made of stony boulders that
look serrated (hence the name – Mont “Serrat”), and riding the little yellow
cable car up the super sheer rock face was quite a thrill.
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| In the center of Montserrat |
A monastery has been nestled in this inhospitable place
since the 11th c., and today, a group of 80 monks still live up there. The small mountaintop village afforded great
views and was certainly atmospheric, but Anne was disappointed that she was
unable to see the famous Black Virgin – the lines in the basilica were so long
that she would have had to wait almost 2 hours to get in.
To celebrate our last night in Barcelona (and our last night
with our friends, the Sharps), we did what all good Barcelonans do; we went out
for tapas. What a fun way to finish off
our experience, eating around a table covered with small plates of delectable
goodies, shared by the foursome of old friends.
All washed down with a bottle of marvelous Spanish rioja!
More pics of Barcelona:
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Our new Barcelona buddy, Frank the butcher slicing up
a Barcelona specialty, Jabuga ham |
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| Serving up delectable Catalan hazelnuts and almonds |
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| More Castellers create a triple pyramid |
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| Castellers going for a height of 4 stories |
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| Love tapas and Spanish beer! |
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| Going for the cava/beer combo! |
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Some Barcelona residents don't get into the
spirit of the La Merce celebrations |
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| More fun at the wine festival |
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| Dizzying view on the way to Montserrat |
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A lone monk ponders existence here
at Montserrat |
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| Salut!!! |
