An old technique came into play yesterday when I found myself wandering around the Gothic part of Barcelona and having very little idea of where I was. I am very much a city boy and feel much more affinity for streets and buildings than for the much vaunted grandeur of Nature with a capital N.
Each new capital I visited on holiday would see me at some point happily wandering about with no idea whatsoever where I was. Eventually you would come across something which was familiar from the guide book – or not. At that point the ability to speak English gave access to the locals who were usually able to speak some form of it as the local lingua franca. That includes cities in the United States where, I have to admit that European foreigners’ grasp of spoken English was sometimes rather more understandable than some of the cities in the states that I visited!
Yesterday was my opera day and, given the absurd traffic jams that can be found each day on the Ronda Littoral I left giving myself almost three hours to travel the 18 km to the city. The traffic, though heavy was moving and I found myself in the city with a couple of hours to wait before the start of the performance.
A couple of hours allows you to do a number of things: have a menu del dia; visit gadget shops; pay your respects to El Corte Inglés; watch foreigners walk up and down the Ramblas; have coffee virtually anywhere or sit in the café of the Liceu and read my e-book reader.
I decided to find the small circular battery necessary to run my ipod remote. The first camera shop I entered (usually a safe source of these timid little power sources) elicited a whole string of instructions for finding the ‘right’ shop. Which I foolishly followed. And found no shop at the given address.
I was now well off the Ramblas and into the maze of narrow streets which constitute the Gothic Quarter of the city. And they were filled with small shops of the sort which have usually been driven away from city centres in Britain by the power and ubiquity of the chains which make so many of our cities seem so distressingly similar.
As I walked on I ‘sort of’ knew where I was and (albeit unexpectedly) when I recognized Santa Maria del Mar I went in. This is by far my favourite church in Barcelona. Its stripped interior (courtesy of fully justified iconoclasm as punishment for the Church supporting the Nationalists during the Civil War) and fantastic sense of space with soaring columns and large windows is exhilarating. The gruesome cell-like side chapels which blight so many Roman churches are here little more than spacious niches whose shallow sides soon give way to an open clerestory.
The apse has a colonnade of open columns reaching to the roof through which the ambulatory is clearly visible. To my mind this church looks like something which could have been designed by Peter Brooke – it has his ‘nothing up my sleeve’ approach to dramatic effects. What you see is what you get: a space which impresses because it is so ‘open’ in more than one sense of the word!
Back out into the street and still plenty of time for wandering and straying. An art shop here, a gadget shop there. Yes, I finally did find somewhere to buy the batteries. And then the highlight of my peregrinations.
Book shops always keep me happy, but this one had a selection of art books in the window which virtually forced me to go in. The interior comprises floor to high ceiling bookshelves and piles of books everywhere. The counter gave narrow access to the rest of the shop and sitting at the counter, almost lost behind drifts of books was a kindly looking old man who smiled a welcome. I was encouraged to enquire about books on Catalan art.
A younger man who I had taken to be a customer looking at shelves of books next to the counter turned out to be the owner’s son and both of them set about finding books for me to peruse.
My time there was an absolute delight with fresh books being offered for my inspection while the Old Man kept up an informed discussion about Catalan artists and bringing other books by artists that he simply liked and thought I might be interested by.
His son disappeared and eventually returned with a weighty tome which described Catalan art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its price was also hefty at €100 but it was obviously the definitive book for the subject. They made sympathetic sounds about the price and produced other monographs on individual Catalan artists at more moderate prices, including an excellent book reasonably priced on Fortuny which only the inconvenience of dragging it around in the Liceu prevented my purchasing.
Eventually I left the shop, the Llibreria Sant Jordi located at Carrer Ferran, 41, having purchased nothing but having been treated properly by a couple of booksellers who knew and cared about their stock. A delight of a place!
That wallowing in delight had however taken up a considerable amount of time and I had a brisk walk to get to the Liceu on time. A brisk walk made even more brisk by the fact that I resolutely started off in the wrong direction and found myself further away from my destination than was good given the limited minutes available until the start of the performance.
I swallowed my pride and asked for directions and eventually reached the Liceu with minutes to spare. My the time I took my seat I was dripping with sweat in spite of the cold and had to fan myself with the programme to regain my composure.
I am glad to say that as the overture started soon after I took my seat I was able to tut-tut with the others as a few stragglers were even later than I – and the only reason that they were allowed to get to their seats was that they were at the end of rows.
So there I was, sweating gently, beginning to breathe normally and regretting the fact that I had not had time to go to the loo. Behind me an old man started his low level grumbling cough which he kept up throughout the whole of the performance. The man directly in front of me was obviously someone of my height because he partially obstructed my view of the stage. A series of instances guaranteed to lessen the appropriate critical artistic faculties necessary to appreciate fully an opera.
And my review can wait for another time!
Each new capital I visited on holiday would see me at some point happily wandering about with no idea whatsoever where I was. Eventually you would come across something which was familiar from the guide book – or not. At that point the ability to speak English gave access to the locals who were usually able to speak some form of it as the local lingua franca. That includes cities in the United States where, I have to admit that European foreigners’ grasp of spoken English was sometimes rather more understandable than some of the cities in the states that I visited!
Yesterday was my opera day and, given the absurd traffic jams that can be found each day on the Ronda Littoral I left giving myself almost three hours to travel the 18 km to the city. The traffic, though heavy was moving and I found myself in the city with a couple of hours to wait before the start of the performance.
A couple of hours allows you to do a number of things: have a menu del dia; visit gadget shops; pay your respects to El Corte Inglés; watch foreigners walk up and down the Ramblas; have coffee virtually anywhere or sit in the café of the Liceu and read my e-book reader.
I decided to find the small circular battery necessary to run my ipod remote. The first camera shop I entered (usually a safe source of these timid little power sources) elicited a whole string of instructions for finding the ‘right’ shop. Which I foolishly followed. And found no shop at the given address.
I was now well off the Ramblas and into the maze of narrow streets which constitute the Gothic Quarter of the city. And they were filled with small shops of the sort which have usually been driven away from city centres in Britain by the power and ubiquity of the chains which make so many of our cities seem so distressingly similar.
As I walked on I ‘sort of’ knew where I was and (albeit unexpectedly) when I recognized Santa Maria del Mar I went in. This is by far my favourite church in Barcelona. Its stripped interior (courtesy of fully justified iconoclasm as punishment for the Church supporting the Nationalists during the Civil War) and fantastic sense of space with soaring columns and large windows is exhilarating. The gruesome cell-like side chapels which blight so many Roman churches are here little more than spacious niches whose shallow sides soon give way to an open clerestory.
The apse has a colonnade of open columns reaching to the roof through which the ambulatory is clearly visible. To my mind this church looks like something which could have been designed by Peter Brooke – it has his ‘nothing up my sleeve’ approach to dramatic effects. What you see is what you get: a space which impresses because it is so ‘open’ in more than one sense of the word!
Back out into the street and still plenty of time for wandering and straying. An art shop here, a gadget shop there. Yes, I finally did find somewhere to buy the batteries. And then the highlight of my peregrinations.
Book shops always keep me happy, but this one had a selection of art books in the window which virtually forced me to go in. The interior comprises floor to high ceiling bookshelves and piles of books everywhere. The counter gave narrow access to the rest of the shop and sitting at the counter, almost lost behind drifts of books was a kindly looking old man who smiled a welcome. I was encouraged to enquire about books on Catalan art.
A younger man who I had taken to be a customer looking at shelves of books next to the counter turned out to be the owner’s son and both of them set about finding books for me to peruse.
My time there was an absolute delight with fresh books being offered for my inspection while the Old Man kept up an informed discussion about Catalan artists and bringing other books by artists that he simply liked and thought I might be interested by.
His son disappeared and eventually returned with a weighty tome which described Catalan art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its price was also hefty at €100 but it was obviously the definitive book for the subject. They made sympathetic sounds about the price and produced other monographs on individual Catalan artists at more moderate prices, including an excellent book reasonably priced on Fortuny which only the inconvenience of dragging it around in the Liceu prevented my purchasing.
Eventually I left the shop, the Llibreria Sant Jordi located at Carrer Ferran, 41, having purchased nothing but having been treated properly by a couple of booksellers who knew and cared about their stock. A delight of a place!
That wallowing in delight had however taken up a considerable amount of time and I had a brisk walk to get to the Liceu on time. A brisk walk made even more brisk by the fact that I resolutely started off in the wrong direction and found myself further away from my destination than was good given the limited minutes available until the start of the performance.
I swallowed my pride and asked for directions and eventually reached the Liceu with minutes to spare. My the time I took my seat I was dripping with sweat in spite of the cold and had to fan myself with the programme to regain my composure.
I am glad to say that as the overture started soon after I took my seat I was able to tut-tut with the others as a few stragglers were even later than I – and the only reason that they were allowed to get to their seats was that they were at the end of rows.
So there I was, sweating gently, beginning to breathe normally and regretting the fact that I had not had time to go to the loo. Behind me an old man started his low level grumbling cough which he kept up throughout the whole of the performance. The man directly in front of me was obviously someone of my height because he partially obstructed my view of the stage. A series of instances guaranteed to lessen the appropriate critical artistic faculties necessary to appreciate fully an opera.
And my review can wait for another time!
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