Barcelona - such a beautiful horizon
Barcelona was proud of its Olympics - and rightly so. They're the first I properly remember, and not just for the Freddie Mercury track which rather irritatingly sticks in your head once you've heard it a few times. These were the games where Sally Gunnell flew to victory in the 200m hurdles only to be faced with a Sports reporter's banal question "Are you glad you've won?" (er, no, actually, my favourite metal's actually bronze so I was hoping for third.) They were also the games that rejuvenated its crumbling, crime-prone waterfront (according to our guidebook, anyway), and, by extension, its battered spirit, and put Barcelona firmly on the map.
I like Barcelona a lot. I like it all the more because, since its first free elections in 1976, it's always had a socialist government. For Barcelona is, for some reason to my surprise, a very socialist city. Its infrastructure is faultless - it costs a mere E1.75 for a single journey on the Metro (against London's £4) and a huge digital display counts down the time until the next train second by second, and when it appears on the platform as the display triumphantly counts 5 - 4 - 3 -2 -1 it is sparklingly clean. The city seems to work well for the people who live there - the streets are kept clean and well provided with street lights, post boxes and bins (though we fear we may have posted our postcards into a bin by accident.) In contrast, though there is an awful lot on offer for tourists, a large proportion of it seemed to be out of order when we were there. We tried to go up in a cable car, but were told we couldn't because the lift was broken; determined to get a view of some sort we opted to climb the monument (a huge statue of Columbus) instead, but were told we couldn't, because the lift was broken. Worryingly, on asking if we could climb the stairs, we were told there weren't any, which made me hope that the lift didn't break while people were actually at the top.
Feeling a little desperate, and being pissed on by rain of an intensity that makes the North West look like the Sahara, we got the Metro and Funicular (which incidentally is integrated into the normal public transport network - I LOVE this city!) to the top of Montjuic to have a nosey round the Olympic Stadium, which is accessible to the public and, like a lot of things in Barcelona, entirely free, in the hope that you will buy a luminous pink plastic Sagrada Familia in its compulsory gift shop on your way out. (Paul - you'd better appreciate that one - possibly the best yet at a mere E1.90 and surely worth every penny!)
But by far the most enjoyable and intriguing tourist attraction in Barcelona is one that didn't seem to feature in any guide books, and into which we stumbled to escape the persistent downpour. The Olympics Museum in Barcelona is basically a collection of all the pieces of random memorabilia that didn't make it to the official Olympics Museum in Lausanne, proudly displayed alongside detailed descriptions written entirely by Marxists. Next to pairs of trainers signed by the likes of Linford Christie huge boards triumphantly declare that the re-introduction of the Olympics in 1892 was a result of the "Workers' Struggle" - now that the Workers (always written with a capital W) were enjoying better diets, living conditions and something approaching leisure time, sport was no longer "the preserve of the ruling classes". To further illustrate this a few exhibits along there was, inexplicably, a picture of Leeds United and underneath the explanation "football started out as a game played exclusively by the ruling classes, but has since become the sport most intrinsically linked with the Workers." There follows a not insubstantial detour into the history of Barca, Barcelona's revered Catalan side. Nowhere does it even attempt to claim that this bears any relevence to the Olympics, but that doesn't seem to matter. In another part of the museum, one of the best-kept displays is one entitled "The History of Catalan Sport", which features extensive information and photographic acompaniment on the delights of Petanque, which I don't recall ever having featured in the Olympics.
Among the many displays are some interesting exhibits including the sets of medals from each Games (I didn't realise each games had its own unique medal designs, and I would agree with the creators of the museum that the Catalan - not Spanish - designed medals of '92 are among the most impressive) and a seemingly random collection of Olympic torches, including (though the display doesn't mention it) the 2008 torch which was almost wrestled out of Connie Huq's hands.
A little way down the hill from the museum is the Fundacio Joan Miro - a gallery dedicated to an artist who honed the art of ripping the piss long before Tracy Emin got up one morning and decided she couldn't be arsed to tidy her bedroom. Most of the exhibits on the ground floor apparently symbolise Womanhood, that is to say, they all include shapes that look a bit like vaginas and those that don't are basically large phalluses. On the first floor there are some very beautiful pictures that would definitely not make it through to the Turner Prize, a whole room of paintings that look like to bored doodlings of someone who is supposed to be taking the minutes for the Points Based System Working Group and the ultimate piece, about which the person on the pre-recorded guided tour is a little too enthusiastic: three big white canvasses each bearing.... a wobbly line. Apparently it took Miro many years and much heartache to get the wobly lines just right (see how they don't touch the edge of the canvas? That's dead significant, is that. Nobody's quite sure why it's significant, but definitely is significant.) Slightly unconvincingly, the voice on my headset (which is so precious to the Foundation that I had to leave my passport at the desk before I could have one) stresses ot me that the art in front of me is not simply the wobbly lines, but the fact that Miro "contemplated" them for many years after their conception.
Contemplated my arse.
One of the main problems I have when going abroad, unadventurous English person that I am, is the food - both identifying it and daring to it eat, as well as figuring out how to actually order it. Our Hotel - the rather nice Catalonia Corsega, which is on the southern edges of the villagey Gracia district comfortingly far away from the tourist traps of the Ramblas yet a mere 10-minute walk from the gloriously wonderful Casa Mila (La Pedrera) - takes guests' suggestions and criticisms very seriously, and as a consequence offer an "English Breakfast", because British people were disappointed at being expected to eat what the Catalans eat while in Catalonia. The result is as though someone English has described an English breakfast in detail to a bemused Catalan chef who has never actually seen one, but has tried to faithfully reproduce what he has been told about. What he reproduced was fat-dripping Serrano-style ham burnt to a cinder, "sausages" which looked like the rubbery mini-frankfurters you get out of a tin, also burnt to a cinder, some very watery-looking scrambled egg and a valiant attempt to recreate baked beans in a country where you can't simply by them in a tin. It remains untouched, and we feast on an array of meats, cheese and chocolate-filled pastries and lots and lots of gritty, strong coffee.
There are elements of genuine local cuisine though that are just a step too far. It seems to me that all "local delicacies" consist of bits of animal intestine you would never otherwise dream of eating, and I sometimes suspect it is a ruse of guidebook-writers to cajole people from Wolverhampton into eating a sheep's stomach lining or (in the case of Catalonia) marinaded pigs trotters. Deliberately choosing restaurants that didn't have faded 80s-esque photographs of the delights on offer, we did run the risk of inadvertantly landing ourselves with a duck's colon or horse's bladder, but fortunately the ended up with huge pieces of steak cooked to perfection, cheese croquettes to die for, and lots and lots of pastry-based items involving lashings of dark chocolate.
But the highlight of the trip for my mother? We sat next to Delia Smith on the train, and listened to a frankly disappointing conversation she had with her husband regarding the layout of their couchette. On my return my mother had one question: not what was the best part of Barcelona? Or, did you visit the Sagrada Familia? No, "What did Delia Smith have to eat?"
Veal, since you ask.
I like Barcelona a lot. I like it all the more because, since its first free elections in 1976, it's always had a socialist government. For Barcelona is, for some reason to my surprise, a very socialist city. Its infrastructure is faultless - it costs a mere E1.75 for a single journey on the Metro (against London's £4) and a huge digital display counts down the time until the next train second by second, and when it appears on the platform as the display triumphantly counts 5 - 4 - 3 -2 -1 it is sparklingly clean. The city seems to work well for the people who live there - the streets are kept clean and well provided with street lights, post boxes and bins (though we fear we may have posted our postcards into a bin by accident.) In contrast, though there is an awful lot on offer for tourists, a large proportion of it seemed to be out of order when we were there. We tried to go up in a cable car, but were told we couldn't because the lift was broken; determined to get a view of some sort we opted to climb the monument (a huge statue of Columbus) instead, but were told we couldn't, because the lift was broken. Worryingly, on asking if we could climb the stairs, we were told there weren't any, which made me hope that the lift didn't break while people were actually at the top.
Feeling a little desperate, and being pissed on by rain of an intensity that makes the North West look like the Sahara, we got the Metro and Funicular (which incidentally is integrated into the normal public transport network - I LOVE this city!) to the top of Montjuic to have a nosey round the Olympic Stadium, which is accessible to the public and, like a lot of things in Barcelona, entirely free, in the hope that you will buy a luminous pink plastic Sagrada Familia in its compulsory gift shop on your way out. (Paul - you'd better appreciate that one - possibly the best yet at a mere E1.90 and surely worth every penny!)
But by far the most enjoyable and intriguing tourist attraction in Barcelona is one that didn't seem to feature in any guide books, and into which we stumbled to escape the persistent downpour. The Olympics Museum in Barcelona is basically a collection of all the pieces of random memorabilia that didn't make it to the official Olympics Museum in Lausanne, proudly displayed alongside detailed descriptions written entirely by Marxists. Next to pairs of trainers signed by the likes of Linford Christie huge boards triumphantly declare that the re-introduction of the Olympics in 1892 was a result of the "Workers' Struggle" - now that the Workers (always written with a capital W) were enjoying better diets, living conditions and something approaching leisure time, sport was no longer "the preserve of the ruling classes". To further illustrate this a few exhibits along there was, inexplicably, a picture of Leeds United and underneath the explanation "football started out as a game played exclusively by the ruling classes, but has since become the sport most intrinsically linked with the Workers." There follows a not insubstantial detour into the history of Barca, Barcelona's revered Catalan side. Nowhere does it even attempt to claim that this bears any relevence to the Olympics, but that doesn't seem to matter. In another part of the museum, one of the best-kept displays is one entitled "The History of Catalan Sport", which features extensive information and photographic acompaniment on the delights of Petanque, which I don't recall ever having featured in the Olympics.
Among the many displays are some interesting exhibits including the sets of medals from each Games (I didn't realise each games had its own unique medal designs, and I would agree with the creators of the museum that the Catalan - not Spanish - designed medals of '92 are among the most impressive) and a seemingly random collection of Olympic torches, including (though the display doesn't mention it) the 2008 torch which was almost wrestled out of Connie Huq's hands.
A little way down the hill from the museum is the Fundacio Joan Miro - a gallery dedicated to an artist who honed the art of ripping the piss long before Tracy Emin got up one morning and decided she couldn't be arsed to tidy her bedroom. Most of the exhibits on the ground floor apparently symbolise Womanhood, that is to say, they all include shapes that look a bit like vaginas and those that don't are basically large phalluses. On the first floor there are some very beautiful pictures that would definitely not make it through to the Turner Prize, a whole room of paintings that look like to bored doodlings of someone who is supposed to be taking the minutes for the Points Based System Working Group and the ultimate piece, about which the person on the pre-recorded guided tour is a little too enthusiastic: three big white canvasses each bearing.... a wobbly line. Apparently it took Miro many years and much heartache to get the wobly lines just right (see how they don't touch the edge of the canvas? That's dead significant, is that. Nobody's quite sure why it's significant, but definitely is significant.) Slightly unconvincingly, the voice on my headset (which is so precious to the Foundation that I had to leave my passport at the desk before I could have one) stresses ot me that the art in front of me is not simply the wobbly lines, but the fact that Miro "contemplated" them for many years after their conception.
Contemplated my arse.
One of the main problems I have when going abroad, unadventurous English person that I am, is the food - both identifying it and daring to it eat, as well as figuring out how to actually order it. Our Hotel - the rather nice Catalonia Corsega, which is on the southern edges of the villagey Gracia district comfortingly far away from the tourist traps of the Ramblas yet a mere 10-minute walk from the gloriously wonderful Casa Mila (La Pedrera) - takes guests' suggestions and criticisms very seriously, and as a consequence offer an "English Breakfast", because British people were disappointed at being expected to eat what the Catalans eat while in Catalonia. The result is as though someone English has described an English breakfast in detail to a bemused Catalan chef who has never actually seen one, but has tried to faithfully reproduce what he has been told about. What he reproduced was fat-dripping Serrano-style ham burnt to a cinder, "sausages" which looked like the rubbery mini-frankfurters you get out of a tin, also burnt to a cinder, some very watery-looking scrambled egg and a valiant attempt to recreate baked beans in a country where you can't simply by them in a tin. It remains untouched, and we feast on an array of meats, cheese and chocolate-filled pastries and lots and lots of gritty, strong coffee.
There are elements of genuine local cuisine though that are just a step too far. It seems to me that all "local delicacies" consist of bits of animal intestine you would never otherwise dream of eating, and I sometimes suspect it is a ruse of guidebook-writers to cajole people from Wolverhampton into eating a sheep's stomach lining or (in the case of Catalonia) marinaded pigs trotters. Deliberately choosing restaurants that didn't have faded 80s-esque photographs of the delights on offer, we did run the risk of inadvertantly landing ourselves with a duck's colon or horse's bladder, but fortunately the ended up with huge pieces of steak cooked to perfection, cheese croquettes to die for, and lots and lots of pastry-based items involving lashings of dark chocolate.
But the highlight of the trip for my mother? We sat next to Delia Smith on the train, and listened to a frankly disappointing conversation she had with her husband regarding the layout of their couchette. On my return my mother had one question: not what was the best part of Barcelona? Or, did you visit the Sagrada Familia? No, "What did Delia Smith have to eat?"
Veal, since you ask.
posted by RLS at 8:32 pm
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