Barcelona, Bavaria, and Belfast: Back to Barcelona

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.

"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.

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.

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.

"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.

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).

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.

In the center of Montserrat

A monastery has been nestled in this inhospitable place since the 11^th 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!

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