The AVE and Barcelona

We take the high speed train to Barcelona to visit for a couple of days. The train ride is amazing. Try to imagine going 250 miles an hour without hearing the train’s engine. We see the speed going up and up in big digital red numbers and the landscape rushing by faster and faster but the ride still stays quiet. We climb up a mountain and go through tunnels and it still feels more like flying than being on the ground. It was just a three hour trip, Madrid to Barcelona. I’m so enchanted by the speed train, I barely notice the landscapes whirling by.

Arriving in Barcelona we take a cab into the Ramblas, the oldest section of the city. We check into our hotel and then take a walk to find just the right restaurant for having almuerzo. The buildings we pass by have terraces and hanging plants and I can imagine women from Goya’s paintings hanging out of the windows. We see museums, theaters, and lots of kiosks of vendors selling every kind of wears along the main boulevard. We finally land at a restaurant that turns out to be right around the corner from our hotel. 

After lunch we take a long walk from the Placa de Catalunya down to the Port Vell where a Monument of Colom points to the Mar Meditarraneo from the top of a very high column. At the tip of the peer is a mall called The Maremagnum which has large reflective windows so you can view the sea looking out and looking inland. It ‘s a clear and windy day and we climb up to the fifth floor to a bar with a wonderful view of the sea and sit sipping Jerez.

On the way back, we pass numerous posing human statues, one of a huge bronze angel smiles at me as I approach it. I can’t tell if it is a man or a women inside the costume but as he/she motions to me to come closer, I can’t resist. That smile gets even larger and more gracious as I come up. Closer, I see it is a man. He motions to Román to snap a picture of the two of us together. It’s one of my favorite pictures from our trip.

I’d been warned to watch out for pick pockets. The old city is especially known for seasoned thieves to roam and spot naive tourists. I wear my purple raincoat with zippered pockets so I’ll hear my pockets opening if anyone tries to steal from me. I carry a small camera that slips into my zipped up pocket. After all these precautions absolutely nothing happens and we don’t see any thieves what-so-ever along our way.

As we walk back up the boulevard, we see many books about Gaudi on sale and we buy one small one so we can decide which of his buildings to see in the morning. A group of French students see us with our camera and asks us to take a shot of them posing together. They have a nice variety of raincoats, yellows and blues and greens that make the photo lively not to mention they all act silly.

Madrid, Day 1, an afternoon with Paul Klee

When we arrived at our friends' apartment in Madrid the first unusual thing was trying to get our luggage into a slim little elevator built to hold 4 people, no more than mid-sized, smashed together like sardines. We had to go up in twos plus bags so we regrouped upstairs in front of the apartment. I loved the apartment which contained two balconies overlooking a narrow European street scene and a tower with an orange ball at it's top a couple of blocks down. I admired the art hanging on the walls, a watercolor with turquoise and rust variations of colors and some handsome abstract prints. They gave us a quick tour of the apartment, served us cafés con leche to ensure that we wouldn't fall asleep until our newly acquired bed time, seven hour later than we were used to, and then ushered us out of the apartment.

"Want to go see an art exhibit just of works by Paul Klee?" She pronounced it Klee as in Kleenex while I had always called him Klee as in Clay. I have just confirmed that I was the one pronouncing it correctly which, to be honest, is unusual for me. I was delighted. Many moons ago, I had worked in an art gallery that boasted several works by Klee so I was especially familiar with his childlike spirit and flare for rare combinations of colors.

The walk to the exhibit was full of sidewalk cafés and black tiled sidewalks. Most of the streets were narrow and had an intimate feel to them until we arrived at a very large thoroughfare with walk lights that chirped like birds when it was time to cross. Two days ago I heard the chirp of the same kind of bird near my house in St. Paul and the sound instantly transported me back to that first afternoon. I love it when sounds bring back images.

De vuelta...

Hace mucho tiempo que no he escrito en este blog...

En los próximos días escribiré sobre nuestro viaje a España esta primavera.

Por ahora, sólo esto para recordar cómo funciona.