Following our memorable visit to Montserrat Abbey in the afternoon of November 19, we returned to Barcelona to enjoy a bit of night life. We had only one evening for this since the next evening, our last, we would have to pack and bed down in preparation for an early-morning departure on the 21st.
Our guide, Manuel Sueiras, proposed a paella dinner in a restaurant in the harbor area. Our tour bus did not operate at night and we had to take separate taxis to get there. Our taxi driver, for reasons not apparent to us at the time, dropped us off about half a mile from the restaurant and we had no idea how to get the rest of the way. At this point we had as yet no idea of the geography of the city.
We joined up with Jim and Joan Hinds, who were in the same predicament, and proceeded to grope our way through the night. Fortunately the location proved not too difficult to find. It was in a huge indoor mall called MareMagnum, easily identifiable by the giant geodesic dome visible above the parking garage. We shortly found the rest of our group waiting in front of the mall, and we enjoyed a fabulous dinner of seafood paella in Casa Amàlia Port Vell.
Port Vell, which means “Old Harbor” in Catalan, is not as old as the name implies, at least not in its present form. Before 1992 it was a rundown area of factories, warehouses and railroad yards. An urban renewal project undertaken to prepare for the Barcelona Olympics, held in 1992, transformed it completely, giving it the MareMagnum Mall, an IMAX theater, and Europe’s largest aquarium.
Port Vell is accessed via a causeway which incorporates a swing bridge allowing boats to enter and exit the marina enclosed by the port. The causeway is an extension of one of the main boulevards of Barcelona, La Rambla, for which reason it is known as Rambla de Mar. It only allows cars to go as far as the parking garage. Our taxi driver had dropped us far short of the garage; maybe he was afraid that if he went that far he would have to pay to get out of the parking lot (I’ve had that experience myself in a number of places), or maybe he thought he might get trapped behind the swing bridge. Anyway, both before and after dinner I was able to take some passable night shots of the port and its surroundings, as well inside the mall.
It never became clear to me which part of Barcelona Harbor was Port Vell and which parts belonged to other venues, so my photos don’t conform to any specific locale; they just record what I saw from the Rambla de Mar that night.
The harbor of Barcelona is oriented north/south, and across the bay from Port Vell on the east is the peninsula of La Barceloneta, which has some of the most famous and popular beaches of Barcelona, as well as many restaurants and nightclubs. Cruise ships dock there, on the inner side of the peninsula, and it’s also the location of the Torre Sant Sebastià, which serves as the terminus for the Port Vell Aerial Tramway. More about that in a later post.
The view to the south on the Rambla de Mar is dominated by the World Trade Center Barcelona, located on the neighboring wharf (Moll de Barcelona). This is a vast business complex with 40,000 square meters (430,000 sq ft) of office space complete with convention centers and meeting rooms. Created by American architect Henry Cobb, the WTC consists of four buildings in a circle, vaguely resembling a boat. It also houses a hotel, shops and restaurants. Next to the WTC stands a tall tower, the Torre de Jaume I, an intermediate station of the aerial tramway en route to the other end at Montjuïc Hill. On the water between Rambla de Mar and the Moll de Barcelona are two sculptures of human figures, molded in white polyester resin and fiberglass, standing on hemispherical buoys. They each represent a boy looking up at the sky while holding behind his back a red star “caught in a dream.” They look small but are actually about 3.5 meters (11′ 6″) tall. The buoys have weighted bases so they always right themselves if tipped over. They are called Mirastaels, which means “stargazer” in Catalan, and are the work of Robert Llimós, born in Barcelona in 1943. He created the Stargazers as a tribute to his friend the Catalan poet Joan Brossa (1919-1998), also a native of Barcelona. Brossa wrote a poem called Saltamartí , which means “grasshopper” in Catalan, but it is also an alternate name for tentetieso, a toy that always pops back up again when knocked down. Brossa, and hence Llimós, used it as a metaphor for the human capacity to recover from adversity and hold on to one’s dreams.
After dinner, we strolled back along the Rambla de Mar to the Christopher Columbus monument at the foot of La Rambla, where we were to catch our taxis back to the hotel. Although it was mid-November, the night was calm, clear, and magical, and the views along the waterfront were reminiscent of scenes out of impressionist paintings by artists such as Monet or Pissarro.
Finally we arrived at the Columbus monument, which is an impressive 60 meters (197 feet) tall and was completed in 1888 as a prop for Barcelona’s first world fair. It commemorates the fact that Columbus came to Barcelona after his return from his first voyage to the New World to report on his discoveries to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. The octagonal base is elaborately decorated with sculptures representing both mythological figures such as winged victories, as well as real persons associated with Columbus and his voyages. There is even an elevator to take visitors to the top of the column; we were unaware of that at the time, but it was not operating at night and we didn’t have time to take advantage of it anyway.
While we were waiting for our taxis to arrive I checked out some of the vehicles parked in the area. Motorcycles are ubiquitous in Barcelona and I saw some models I hadn’t known existed. I was particularly intrigued by a small electric contraption which appeared to be a cross between a motorcycle and a golf cart. I wondered if it was the future of personal transportation in Barcelona.
Next morning we were scheduled to visit the famous basilica La Sagrada Familia first thing after breakfast, and that will be the subject of my next post.