Caganers Shoppe

Just down an alley from SM del Mar was a caganers shop. Caganers are those adorable little pooping figurines, mostly celebrities, so popular in this part of Spain. I have written of them before, seeing them here and there, but never before have we encountered an entire shop devoted to them. Apparently the caganer thing began as a farmer pooping in, I mean, fertilizing, his field, and was mandatory--for good luck--in the nativity scenes which also are a thing in Spain. Think of them as Christmas ornaments. If you think I'm making this up, have a look at https://caganer.com/en/info/the-caganer-s-history-12 for much more useful information. Personally, I think all American nativity scenes, especially the "living" ones, should include a caganer. For good luck.

Entire sets!

But wait! There's more...it's a chain...here's the shop next to the
Palau de la Musica...

SM Del Mar

We got off the Easter Sunday BusTouristica at the harbor, thinking we'd have lunch and then do the city's history museum and then walk back home. The museum was closing at 2:30, so we postponed that visit until later during our stay and walked back home via the Ribera and Bari Gotic neighborhoods. We got only a few steps from the museum before encountering old friend St. Mary of the Sea, a 14th century parish church, famous for having been built in one long go, funded by the little people, a basilica-shape (not cruciform), height and width exactly the same, and with the longest span between its columns of any European Gothic. Also pretty stark, but a landmark and always impressive. Vicki highly recommends Falcones' novel Cathedral of the Sea, set here. 

Facade

Helpful model; note Divine Illumination Machine

In the gift shoppe

In the apse, looking up

Wider view

Interesting floor tombstones as one ambulates around; primitive,

reflecting a parish, peoples' church

Aargh!

Nave view, Easter Sunday afternoon, 2023

Barcelona By BusTouristic

On Holy Saturday, aka Easter Even, we continued powering through the jet lag, sleep deprivation, etc., undertaking rides on the Barcelona BusTouristic, a hop-on/hop-off affair that takes you past some of the city's major sights. We are too old for hopping, and with nearly 3 weeks here and the combo city transportation pass, we'll visit the things that interest us in due course. We thought the BusTouristic might provide a restful review/overview of the city, an elevated view of some the modernista structures that interest us, some photo opps, a chance to learn proper pronunciation of some of the principal Catalan place names; and perhaps some amusement. In fifteen years of travel, this was our first hop-on/hop-off experience, and perhaps our last. Not a great value.

We did both routes: the blue (Eixample, Sagrada Familia, Sant Pau, Park Guell, the Pavellons Guell, FC Barcelona, the Diagonal Avenue, back to Plaza Catalunya) and the red (Eixample, Mont Juic and all its many sights, the Fundacio Joan Miro, Telepherique Mont Juic, the harbor sights, the Arc de Triomf, and then back to Plaza Catalunya). We did the red line more or less twice, thinking, the second day, we'd hop off at Mont Juic. But we didn't, hopping off instead at the harbor and walking back home via the Ribera and Bari Gotic neighborhoods, which offered a couple more posts. Photo opps from a moving bus, we discovered, were somewhat difficult. Hence, the following, somewhat random and imperfect pix mix, will not be on the quiz. We'll revisit many of the sights in more detail later.

Whizzing past Casa Battlo

Sculpture at the main 1992 Olympic site, mimicking

the Olympic torch

The Torch

Total eclipse of the sun as two gondolas approach on the Mont Juic
telepherique harbor station

At the harbor marina, Chris Colon points the way

19th century water tower

Butt of most of Barcelona's phallic jokes

Look, kids, it's the Sangria Familia!

The modernista Hospital St. Pau, which we visited in 2013,
and which we just might visit again

Random modernista

Ditto

Gothic cross, marking old city limits

Spring is coming

Entrance to the Pavellons Guell (Guell was Gaudi's
major patron)

Now at Camp Nou, home of FC Barcelona

Ice cream cone in FC Barcelona colors

Camp Nou: the house that Messi built

Oranges coming on strong, despite a drought

More modernistas...

...

...and today's caryatids...

La Rambla, on Holy Saturday, goes on a mile or so

La Pedrera, we'll tour again in a couple days

A Miro sculpture of note; we'll do the Fundacion Joan Miro
also

Beyond the statue, Barcelona's bull-"fighting" arena, now a shopping
center with 100+ shops; Barcelona was the first Spanish city to ban
bull-"fighting" 

Of the big three who originated from Barcelona--Dali, Picasso,
and Miro--we know little of Miro, but hope to remedy that on this
visit

Wait! Are we back in DeSantisland?!

Only one cruise ship in port on Easter Sunday, but 8 more to arrive
on Tuesday, to disgorge 24,000 tourists on the city for a few hours...
cruisifixion, I call it

Jacarandas coming on strong all around