There are several cities that compete for the special place in my heart. Visiting Paris or Copenhagen or London tips the scale every time in favor of each of them. Barcelona makes me fall in love with it all over again, even on this glowing hot Spanish afternoon. I cannot rationally explain what it is, the cozy location cradled between mountains and the Mediterranean, or the spacious green streets, rounded corners of which form a pretty little square on each intersection, or the friendly people. This city has everything and lots of it: busy harbor, ancient Gothic district, modern and ultramodern districts, beaches, tourists, street artists, skaters, music, palms, food, colors and smells.
Would I be able to live here? I honestly can’t tell, because it is like your sensory circuits are being fried every second of the day, but on the other hand – in a good way.
I do not know why this is: every time I am headed for Barcelona, we read and hear an extraordinary number of horror stories that can easily lay base for a handsomely sized volume dedicated to crime in Western Europe. People get conned, mugged, robbed – whatever other ways of parting an honest person with his or her money there is, it is all in this book of misery. Now, being stolen from is not a pleasant event to go through, don’t get me wrong: I have full compassion for anyone who has ever been victim to a crime in Barcelona or anywhere else in the world, it is a bad, bad experience. Just tell me one thing: where is it that you go in Barcelona and what do you do to attract the crooks’ attention? Yesterday it was our fourth time in the great Catalan capital and I am happy to report that I never saw even a hint of any criminal activity. So, stop giving bad name to the nice place, just remember you are in a big city and hold on to your stuff, as any reasonable person should do.
I am very grateful to the rich people of the past century for having allowed brave modern artists to use the city as a canvas and a playground. Visiting Barcelona sometimes feels like going to mr. Gaudí’s grand exhibition and once again it is a delightful overload to all senses. This time we visited the fantastic casa Batlló – for the first time – and were just overwhelmed by it, it is truly a house like no other house, unusual – oh, yes – but also warm and beautiful. Another destination of the day: the biggest jewel in the jewelry chest of the master: La Sagrada Familia. To me the awesomeness of this experience is in its uniqueness: where else in the 21st century can you be personally present at a construction of a major (and I mean – major) landmark in the heart of a big city? It is like peeking over an “under construction” fence at the first stage of Notre Dam in Paris while casually thinking: hmm, this one is quite nice, isn’t it? Yes, I think it is a lot like that, only bigger: the cathedral is astonishingly grand and the now very close to finished interior is like nothing I have ever seen, ever. I am not easy to impress with architecture, but this time, two years after I have been inside on the previous occasion, I had to collect my jaw from the newly-polished floor. If you have not been there, go and look yourself, and if you have, go and look again, it is majestic. I am happy that some money from my pocket is paying for one or two of the bricks in the towers that are still being erected at this moment.
Font Mágica – The Magic Fountain – is a very entertaining way to cool off after a hot day in the city, but you have to be prepared to be amazed by other things as well as this marvel of engineering (being built by the world exhibition in 1929 it is still a technical wonder in the 21st century): the vigor and enthusiasm with which the never tired tourists strike sometimes stunt-like poses to be captured for their Facebook pages. Once again, the Russian speech is everywhere, and one has to watch one’s toes from being stepped on. Nevertheless, Barcelona has again charmed, revived and exhausted us, all at once.