Bon Nadal! Holiday lights and a festive market

In the middle of November the city starting to string up lights across the main streets of Barcelona, and as the days progressed more lights went up, spreading to smaller streets. Even our small street got a couple. On the main streets at night, it's quite impressive. In a city graced by numerous festivals, this season seems to bring out the biggest and brightest. We took a ramble to see the lights, and later, spent an evening at a festival by the water. It's great to see so many people out, enjoying the sights, sounds, tastes, and just being out in a walkable city with so much to do and see.

Walking in Light

Last week, we took a walk to Plaça Catalunya then up the fancy Passeig de Gracia and back down the attractive Rambla de Catalunya to do some gawking. It was a cool but pleasant night, and Barcelona's a wonderfully walkable city.

Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes is a major thoroughfare a half block from our place. It's quite wide with maybe 5 lanes in the center, plus a pair of slip lanes on either side. But the scale is been tamed by wide walkable islands lined with trees between the three traffic lanes, and bike lanes in the slip roads.  These photos don't really do it justice, but I didn't wanna stand in the middle of the street to get the long-view shots. The tower University of Barcelona was lit up in a fiery red.

At Plaça Universitat, we headed down Carrer de Pelai which is lined with some stately old mansions.

We entered the large Plaça de Catalunya which had long strings of lights across it, and checked out the colorful rectangles going down Ronda de St. Pere, but the huge El Corte Ingles store stole the show with its animated 9-story wall of lights.

The Plaça was heaving with people all taking in the displays like we were. We headed up luxurious Passeig de Gracia which we expected to have the most impressive display and were not disappointed; unsurprisingly, its sidewalks were also filled with people taking in the sights. As we continued our walk, we got the first glimpse of the ornate Gaudi-designed Casa Batlló.

and finally to the Casa itself. It's absurdly beautiful -- even to my jaded rectilinear tastes -- but definitely over the top, and even more so with the changing multi-hued light washes tonight.

I've always preferred the sculpted look of Gaudi's Casa Milá, or "La Pedrera", but its lighting was surprisingly ... understated.

We hopped over to the parallel Rambla de Catalunya with its wide central walkable area and cafes. At the top, we were greeted by the playful Flirtatious Giraffe sculpture with colorful ball lights running the length of the Rambla.

Every street and plaza had its own unique shape and color of lights, and we took in one more on Carrer de Balmes on the route home.

Christmas Market at the Port Vell

This week, we hit the market at the old port on its opening night. It was filled with lights, decorations, and live music.  My favorite display was a three-story tall animated Christmas ornament with swirling displays, large enough to accommodate lots of folks sitting inside. 

Yup, we're holding adult beverages, outside, in public. This is a country that loves to eat and drink. Have you ever seen a fair whose food stalls have large live fire cooking, and sell octopus?

Anchoring the festivities was a giant Ferris Wheel; why not? We got some stunning views of the port and the city. The steep hill that cascades to the water is Montjuic, where the castle is.

With very reasonable prices -- 3-4€ for wine, mulled wine, beer, or vermouth -- it wasn't hard to have another. There were lots of food trucks, including one with a wood fired pizza oven serving authentic Neapolitan pizza (the Crown of Aragon, part of Catalunya, controlled Naples back in the day).

There's a lot about Catalan culture that's mysterious to us, including the "Caganer" pooping peasant and the "Caga Tió", or "Tio de Nadal" -- the Christmas log. It's a log, with a smiling face, wearing a blanket over its hindquarters. As we understand it, kids are supposed to sing songs and whack it with a stick, and it will poop presents. At another market this week (where we saw lots of Caganers), we heard kids and adults singing the song.

On the way home, just a couple blocks from our place, we noticed the old Moritz Beer building was decorated too. I was tempted to nip in for a nightcap but we were sated for this evening.

Festies with my Bestie

There seems to be a festival of some sort happening constantly in Barcelona; like, every day, some neighborhood or organization has an event. It's impossible to keep up, and we've stumbled upon one by happy accident.  Here are the most recent.  (they were a lot more fun than the painting in the last post!)

Barcelona International Community Day

On Saturday, Barcelona held Barcelona International Community Day to connect prospective and new residents with organizations and companies that could help them: property finders, residence and tax lawyers, business development organizations, schools, etc. Totally free, in the beautiful Maritime Museum, just a 20 minute walk from our place. 

Ironically, one of the talks was "Tips for following the city's cultural calendar and not die trying". :-)

But the one that floored us was the dry-titled "Barcelona 2030: ongoing projects for a more sustainable and digital city"; we figured it'd be blue-sky, but Bárbara Pons, Commissioner for the 2030 Agenda, Ajuntament de Barcelona, gave an informationally-intense high-level view down to the street-level plan for a city with better transit, improved inclusion, and on and on -- all supported by rich multi-layered maps that backed up the city's goals with definite plans. When someone asked about the high-tech development called "22@" she dove into it with enthusiasm and details, and almost had to be pulled off the stage due to time constraints. It's fantastic to see a speaker that's got all the data at her fingertips and makes the subject matter compelling. 

The last session was the most fun, "Experience Barcelona by bike: the best routes" by Marta Casar, Member of the Board of Directors, BACC (Bike Club of Catalonia), website bacc.cat,  Bikes are extensively used in Barcelona, and the city's done a great job of providing separated lanes and even crosswalks for bikes, but Marta pointed out some areas they are pushing for more protected lanes.

She then provided a number of routes to explore the city including the most stunning examples of architecture in the Modernisme style, as well as some very challenging ones to the top of Montjuic and Tibidabo. She also presented some routes where you could take your bike north or south on a train, then return by bike path to Barcelona -- this sounds excellent: we've seen the path along the coast from the R1 train line.

Side Bar: Cocktails

We headed home and stopped for a drink, but the first cafe wasn't welcoming, so we looked into a narrow street in El Raval and spied a place that looked like a cocktail bar: Somnia. Oh, yeah, a cocktail bar if you've got nightmares of circus clowns! The place was over the top decorated, and all the seats in the upstairs "Big Top" room and the downstairs area were reserved, but we were able to sit at the bar. Good thing, too, because the bartender was top-notch. In addition to a bunch of obviously popular wild-assed concoctions (a drink served in a bathtub-shaped "glass" complete with molecular gastronomy foam bubbles), he built us some classics and variations. I enjoy telling bartenders my favorites (Negroni, Last Word) or ingredients (amaros), and seeing what they create. In addition to a fine Negroni and Manhattan, I got a Cynar-based drink that was delightfully dry, boozy, and balanced; if I can remember the ingredients, I might be able to create it -- if not, well, that's the fun, it's a unique experience. He realized we're into classic cocktails and recommended three bars to us: Paradiso (just won an award for best bar in the world, Sips (the number 3), and for the classics, Boadas (the oldest coctail bar in Spain). I really appreciate getting recommendations for the competition. He also said if we stuck around, at 8pm a magician came to perform tricks for the guests -- sounds like fun, for next time.

Accidentally: A Fest for Tomato Bread

We headed home -- again-- and as we crossed the pedestrianized Ronda de Sant Antoni, we heard music, saw tents, and lots of people. Better check it out!  There was a DJ spinning tunes from my youth, folks nearly my age dancing in the street, vendors serving local wine and beer, and a bunch of food stalls.  We headed to the beginning of the tents and saw it was a festival celebrating the Catalan classic "Pa amb tomàquet", tomato bread: bread (frequently toasted to crisp it a little), rubbed with a specific kind of tomato bred for this, lashed with good olive oil, and a sprinkle of finishing salt.

 

After a couple drinks, we headed to the beginning of the tents and -- for 7€ -- got some big slabs of hearty bread, which the first tent topped with rubbed tomatoes and oil, and the next two topped with the precious jamon Iberico and conserved tuna. It was tasty, rustic, authentic, and filling -- no need for the dinner I'd planned at home!

Check the Lava Lamp at this drinks tent

Pa amb Tomaquet with tuna, escalavida, and jamon

Festival of Markets

We love the municipal markets in Barcelona. We tend to frequent Mercat del Ninot (just 10 minutes walk), but are also 7 minutes from the beautifully restored Mercat de Sant Antoni, and 13 minutes from the famous (and tourist-clogged) Boqueria. There are 32 of these markets spread throughout the neighborhoods of the city where you can get to know your fishmonger (different vendors for fin fish, shellfish, cephalopods, bacalao), meat (choose cow, chicken, pig, sausage), amazing cheeses, vegetables (including seaweeds and seasonal mushrooms), beans/lentils, and much more. 

This weekend, there was a Mercat del Mercats, where it seems each market had 2 stalls where you could sample an amazing array of foods ready to eat, meats you could take to another stall where they'd grill them for free, things to take home, as well as local beer, wine, cava, and vermut. This was at the modern Plaza Glories in the shadow of the Museu de Desseny building adjacent to the Glories tower -- a 17 minute bus/train ride away. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of the festivities: these are from two nights earlier when I was returning from a Python Meetup:

Funnily enough, despite being on the other side of town, we ran into Dani and Maria who run Milar Catalá downstairs from us, the shop where we bought our water heater and fridge.  It's the second food festival where we've run into them -- maybe we have a connection!

We wandered, tried the beers and wine, got some delicious snacks from vendors, and I let one talk me into taking home a lovely cured Llonganissa sausage and butifarra negra (blood sausage) that Irene enjoys (I'm still a little squeamish). 

What's Next?

No idea. I need to find various planners, like the one presented by the Visit Barcelona developers on Saturday. Or maybe we'll just stumble upon another. Either way, I'm sure it won't be long before we're eating, drinking, and listening to much more of what this vibrant city has to offer. 

La Mercè 2022 Fest: Fire, Music, Towers, Giants, and more

We moved here just in time for our first La Mercè festival, which spans 4 days with hundreds of events spread throughout venues all over Barcelona, all of it free. It originated in 1687 when Virgin of Grace saved Barcelona from a plague of locusts. We began on Saturday with a food festival a few minutes away, and ended Monday night with a big fireworks display that we watched from our terrace, and got to see a lot of the city in between.

Saturday: Food and Beer, Dance, Dragons

We decided to start our Mercè exploration close to home; five minutes away on Ronda de Sant Antoni they'd set up a music stage and were opening a bunch of food and drinks stalls staffed by local restaurants, brewers, and wineries. We'd arrived a bit early, so wandered the neighborhood a bit and stumbled across Queviures Fruits which had excellent quality produce and prices, so we'll do some of our shopping here.

We returned to a busy street fest with open food and beverage stalls, so we got a bunch of tokens and started sampling. We had cava, multiple wines, beer from three different breweries including a really well made Saison from Barna Brew right in Sant Antoni neighborhood. While I held the table, Irene went foraging and returned this tasty and rich lobster and sardine sandwich:

We headed to the large Plaça de Sant Jaume where we took in a very old and very formal dance accompanying ancient music; can't say it looks like they were having a ton of fun, but maybe that's throwing down a few hundred years ago. 

We left the plaça, wandering around, always choosing the most narrow street, stepped through a narrow passage and were stunned to find these ancient Roman columns from the original city, with newer ancient buildings built around them; can you imagine looking out your window and seeing these 100 BCE relics??

As evening fell, we headed to the waterfront where they were putting on a huge fireworks display, distracted by other architectural features that delighted me, from the gorgeous building geometry to the smallest stone detail work:

We stopped in for a bite to eat in the old El Born neighborhood, right next to the Santa Maria del Mar cathedral (funded and built by the people starting in 1329, documented in a decent Netflix series "Cathedral of the Sea"). We still intended to hit the beach, but never made it: as we were finishing dinner, we were surprised by a huge parade of monsters, dragons, and other beasties -- driven on by drumming groups interspersed between each fantastic creature.

Sunday: Towers, Fire Walk

The 2018 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington DC featured Catalunya, where we first got to see the Castellers, human towers. We headed back to Plaça Sant Jaume to see a number of competing teams, and barely arrived before the police closed the streets -- it was packed. The first were short 4-person towers with one person on top of the next, and once established, they were able to walk around -- very carefully -- and wave to the crowd. 

It's hard to believe the men, women, and children can build these and remain stable -- at least long enough for the smallest tot to scamper up the sides and raise his or her arm. At the bottom is a mass of people who provide a base; next is a group of strong men who are supported by the mass below, pushing them inward; above they build 3-, 4-, and 5-person levels that rise to 7 or 8 people tall. The photos below show the construction of a tower, this one was unusual in that in addition to the outer people, there was an inner person on each but the highest levels.

On our way to lunch, we dropped into the General Archive of the Crown of Aragon (Arxiu de la Corona d'Aragó), one of the oldest and largest historical archives in the world, housed in a stunning palace with open courtyard, intricate carved wood ceiling, and a delightfully creepy sculpted metal door. 

After a rest at home, we headed out to Barcelona's most posh shopping street, Passeig de Gracia, for a wild experience. After a "small" fireworks display:

the beasts we saw last night now paraded down the street spewing flames and sparks, and little demons showered the crowed with sparks -- the Correfoc, or Fire Run.  Braver souls than I ran into the fires, smart ones wearing goggles and nonflammable clothing.  A woman in the crowed had to tap me on the shoulder to tell my my shirt was on fire (just a little, fortunately). It was a blast!

Monday: Music, Giants, Fireworks

We headed out intending to hit jazz concerts by the port but got distracted by a lazy stroll across the Rambla del Mar to the Maremagnum, a huge new complex of shops in the harbor (chains, not exactly our taste) surrounded by oligarch-sized mega-yachts moored right next to quaint sailboats -- some clearly in need of help -- and an unusual tilted mast style I've never seen.

We continued on into the long but narrow streets of La Barceloneta, diving into the Mercat area in search of lunch; we didn't have to look far to find some vermut, cava, and huevos rotos (potatoes with a runny egg and jamon on top). 

I was curious if there was a brewery nearby, and Google Maps said there was just a few minutes away; on the way, we talked to the first cat we've seen here, then stopped into the Black Lab, a microbrewery at the edge of La Barceloneta for a good west coast style IPA and (IMHO) a too fruity sour.

We had dallied long enough that it was time for a couple concerts I'd highlighted in the program, two different renditions of traditional Havaneres, music from when Catalonia was exploring the Caribbean and specifically Cuba. I really enjoyed the music of the women in Ultramar Trio, and the men in La Guingueta seemed to be having a lot of fun. We noticed that for this traditional music, the crowd in Plaça de Sant Jaume was much older than the previous events we'd seen here, and were singing along with some of the songs.

The next event in the Plaça was the closing ceremony, where Gigantes begin the final procession with a dance. It's a tight fit for them to exit the Plaça through the narrow medieval passages.

We walked home, stopping by a corner cafe for dinner, and got to our house just in time to open a bottle of cava and watch the finale from our terrace, the Piromusical, a 30 minute spectacle of fireworks set to several operas which celebrated the Liceu opera house's 175th anniversary. Perhaps next year, we'll go to the Fuente Mágica so we can take in the full spectacle of the dancing fountain and music up close.