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Rambling on the RamblasBarcelona is the Mecca for all of Gaudi’s PilgrimsBy Patricia Kutza
Boarding the bus in Perpignan I wondered if I was making the right choice: with only three days to spare, was it worth a three hour bus ride to also pay homage or kick back and enjoy the festive crowd gathering for Perpignan’s annual jazz festival? But I had so steeped myself for months in the architectural works of Antonio Gaudi, that not making the trip to Barcelona at this point seemed downright crazy.
Like a funeral cortege that respectably stops at the haunts of the departed we paused at Pedrera. The taxi driver sat silently as I gushed about Gaudi’s genius. How many times a day, I wondered later, did he hear these eulogies? Could it be possible in this Gaudi-immersed city to take this architecture for granted? Suffice it to say that my introduction to Gaudi’s works was not by way of the usual path. No coffee table book education here. Nor inspiring teacher passing on her legacy of knowledge.
Three hundred years from now it would be comforting to think that this Art Nouveau
On this first hour in Barcelona I wanted to make sure I could still see the real thing. So even if this taxidriver seemed bored by the show I was primed and pumped to be amazed. I tapped the now dozing driver and we were on our way. Three minutes later we turned the corner on what looked like a festival: masses of people dancing , screaming, laughing ...I blinked....was I back in Avignon for the running of the bulls? No, he had delivered me to the Ramblas, a year-long unheralded festival masquerading as a simple promenade. The Ramblas is Barcelona's answer to the question: where do all the people converge at night? I winced at the spectacle, already worried that the precious sleep I needed would be co-opted by the din. Fortunately my room at the famously nondescript Hotel Cuatro Naciones did not face the Ramblas and I woke in the morning awash in Gaudi-fever. Take me to the nearest Gaudi, I said to myself as I scoured the tourist map. Fortunately Gaudi-lovers can get their fixes at hourly intervals as fanciful embellishments he designed still adorn many lamp posts, and ornamental grillwork throughout the city. To the tourist on foot, the treasures awaiting them in the sidestreets off of the Ramblas are like the little paper windows of an Advent calendar: each day leading toward Christmas offers up a sweet. I turned my gaze left and I saw a slice of light piercing a rectangular darkness on a side street. I veered off the Ramblas and was pulled toward the light.
Part of what has kept Gaudi’s legacy alive is the help you get going there. Barcelona’s mature train and subway system place you very close to the main landmarks of any Gaudi pilgrimage: Sagrada Familia, Park Guell, and La Pedrera. For added convenience, the metro (underground) also parallels the Ramblas . Two days and two sore feet later, I boarded the train for Lyon. Had I quelled my Gaudi fever? Not hardly. When will I be back for another treatment? Hard to say…but I will be back. Even if Josh Redman is headlining at the same time in Perpignan. Contact Information:Images by Patricia Kutza Such jazz luminaries as Maceo Parker, Fred Wesley and Pee Wee Ellis performed at Jazzebre, the Festival de Jazz a Perpignan during its month long program in October 2002. For more information visit www.jazzebre.com Barcelona has a very lively cultural movement and such amenities as Arttickets offer art aficionados the opportunity to visit many of their museums at reduced prices. The Artticket is a combined pass providing half-price admission to six of Barcelona’s arts centers. For more information visit: www.telentrada.com Accommodations on the Ramblas:Hotel Cuatro Naciones Las Ramblas Barcelona Spain |
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From all over the
earth they come to pay homage to this man. I guess you can say that I came
a long way too: from the San Francisco Bay Area by way of Bourgoin Jallieu,
a small French town 20 kilometers south of Lyon. I took the train to its
end point at Perpignan, throughout the journey getting ever-so-brief
glimpses of jewel-like Mediterranean-fronting towns that Frommer and Fodor
travel guides reduce to three sentences.
A
painstakingly slow bus ride dropped me into Barcelona at 1AM. Bleary-eyed
I said to the taxi driver: Can you take me to the Hotel Cuatro Naciones and
pass at least one Gaudi structure on the way there? He did and five minutes
later we passed La Pedrera....its undulating walls and ice-cream coned roof
dramatically lit amid the cloak of darkness of the surrounding buildings.
It was a story I
found on the page 54 of the Sunday newspaper. Some klutz had severed his
hand while forging ironwork for a balcony. And then blamed it on Gaudi.
Blamed his misfortune on that fabulous ironwork of La Pedrera’ balconies,
ironwork that I later discovered was actually the work of the brothers Badia
in the first decade of the twentieth century. What was really the
collaborative efforts of a host of talent that included such architects as
Josep Maria Jujol, the builder Josep Bayo and the gifted plasterer Joan
Belran have since been distilled into one word that has become synonymous
with Barcelona, Gaudi.
Period
that he symbolizes will still be palpably present, that folks will gush in
the presence of La Sagrada Familia, the Colonia Guell or the Casa Navas.
The proliferation of Gaudi-branded coffee cups, tea plates, calendars, ash
trays and every other surface imaginable has ensured that someone somewhere
will find the evidence of this glorious movement, however vestigially
vulgar.
I found the Havana
of my daydreams,the Placa Reial, a huge square where fellow pedestrians were
feeding large swooping legions of pigeons and one particularly energetic two
year old chased an enormous blue balloon. The balloon escaped her gleeful
cries and almost broke its buoyancy atop another Art Nouveau jewel: a set
of beautifully-crafted lanterns.
Everyone
seemed to be engaged in eating, feeding themselves and the pigeons. My
Gaudi quest was subdued for the moment. Now I had to eat too. Back on the
Ramblas I fell into step with a swelling number of folks now drawn as if by
magnet into another dark passage. They were leading me to another Barcelona
landmark, LaBoqueria.
This market isn’t
listed among fine arts galleries, but I’ll wager that some of the
ArtNouveau-era artists found the inspiration for their curlicued signature
work among the lounging avocados, apples, and oranges. My palate lusted
for meat and that passion was quickly satiated by fresh cold cuts, a loaf of
fresh crusty bread and a slab of cheese. Just enough nourishment for the
next phase of my Gaudi Crusade.