Final Barcelona Scenes

For lunch that day, between the Liceu and the Maritime Museum, we went back to Boqueria for a walking lunch on sticks...olives, fruit, shrimp, steak, nuts (no sticks), and then carried on back to the Maritime Museum, over and up the Paral-lel deciding not to climb to Parc Montjuic, and then just walking through whatever barrios (Turkey-town, one of them) we encountered, and back to Plaza Catalunya. While I was visiting El Corte Ingles' gourmet department, one more time, Vicki made the most important food discovery of our visit to Barcelona.

Just in case you ever need a map of the Boqueria

"Welcome to the Fish Department"

Expensif boeuf

Corny dogs, but with french fries substituted for corn

Back at the Maritime, 400th anniversary marker for The Naval

Chris Colon monument (colonoscopy?)

One stage of the cable car ride across the city

Montjuic

Returning from Montjuic

We are fast approaching a world cuisine; here
is part of it

Alas, the beautiful Sant Antoni market was closed for reno...
we'll catch it next time

Art Deco specimen

But mostly Art Nuvo

Cutting through the courtyard of the Biblioteca Catalunya

We wandered into this building with fairly incredible old
tiles but the guard said private property but let me snap just
one

Resting at a cafe back at the Boqueria, sipping a carajillo, and
watching a barnacle attempting to escape...

The discovery: we were in or near Barcelona 16 days and never
thought to see whether there was an Amorino...Vicki finally
found it, at the top of the Rambla (we usually cross over to that
side further down...)

Best ice cream in the world. Period. One more reason to return
to Barcelona (or Paris, or Madrid, or Florence, or even San
Francisco)

Barcelona's Maritime Museum

On our last day, I also visited Barcelona's Maritime Museum, at Drassanes, near the (duh...) harbor. The museum is built into the former shipyard site, a collection of huge buildings, dating to the 13th century. It was a shipyard from the 13th to 18th centuries, then a cannon foundry, and then presumably a variety of other things...military barracks, prison, high tech business incubator, etc. The buildings, even as renovated, are huge, and one doesn't doubt for a second that they were a ship-building site. Maybe whole fleets.

Evidently it was decided early on that Gothic
arches wouldn't do...

Helpful model...the site is still of this size although the port
was filled in here, enlarged elsewhere...

Helpful model of The Royal Galley, flagship of the Holy Rollers
at the battle of Lepanto ("the Naval," as Cervantes said; he was
wounded in the battle, losing use of his right arm), when the
Christians finally turned back the Turks in the Mediterranean;
1571; muy importante battle, since the Turks were on a roll,
having finally taken Constantinople and besieging Vienna,
threatening all the coasts...

Pride of the museum, a full-scale replica of The Royal Galley,
constructed in 1971, to commemorate the 400th anniversary
of the Naval

It's huge...occupies an entire hall, 62 meters from stem to stern;
shallow draft and not particularly fast; for use strictly on the
Mediterranean, and not the high seas; lightly armed, it attacked
by ramming and then boarding and then "cutlasses, me hearties!"

And in English, too; the museum has ample interpretive
signage; here, we learn that average life expectancy of a galley
slave, after reporting for duty, was two years; you were
shackled in, if a slave, and would stay there until you died; the
other really useful thing learned here was that galley ships
like The Royal Galley were incapable of surprise attack: the
downwind stench of the ship usually arrived hours before the
attack could be mounted

Poop deck, the VIP area; upwind...

Art Nouveau lighthouse lamp; the Modernistas
just loved the dioptric and catadioptric lenses

Thus

Typical family-owned Catalonian fishing boat, early 20th

A model of the frigate Barcelona, under construction

I studied this for a while, hoping to learn the differences between
sloops and yachts and frigates and ketches and such; then decided
maybe I'll stay on land

The Museum has halls and halls of other displays, models,
mostly maritime, not naval

Assorted accoutrements (not in English too)

Full scale model of oar from The Royal Galley

Where is Errol Flynn when you need him?

Wait! Errol! We're in Spain!

Interestingly, I thought, many of the pictorial displays were
housed in sea-going containers

The Museum has some interesting artwork here and there: here,
a large mobile in its whale position; when flipped, it
becomes a boat; Whale/Sailboat, Raul Martinez Beteta

And here, Bench Panca, by Jadran Stenico, with Vicki posing
for scale

Liceu, 2

Continuing our tour of the The Liceu, Barcelona's grand opera house, on La Rambla...and emphasizing its Modernista rooms...

The wainscoting was a knock-out...more to come

The real KO was this circular room filled with Ramon Casas
paintings, many centered on music and performance, nearly
all on women; gloriously preserved and displayed

Also stained glass

Drinking red wine, not absinthe, in Spain

Incredible stuff

Said to be the first painting of an automobile...with a female
driver, too!

Shooting into a Modernista elevator

Wowsers, as Vicki said