Gothic Quarter and the Ship

Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia - Barcelona

The Gothic Quarter and the Ship

I woke at around 2:45 AM last night and never got back to sleep. So it'll be that kind of day [Ed. Note: It was fine. Too much else happening to feel tired.]

I forgot to mention that last night we had to pack everything up because this is embarkation day, and they'll be up for our luggage starting at 7:45.AM So I was back to the room at 7:15 so we could pack up the stuff we had needed overnight, and then a long, leisurely breakfast.

Some day-after-turkey day bon mots, from WOMR: an e-mail beginning “Happy Thanks-Boxing Day,” and a DJ introducing a Robin Trower (with Jack Bruce!) song from the album “BLT:” bacon leftover turkey.

Anyway - No bus this morning – we'll be doing a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter, where our hotel is located, and where we will finally get to tour the Cathedral whose tower has loomed over us as we've come and gone from the hotel.

More narrow stone-cobbled streets, squares, medieval and Renaissance architecture. Real people get to live here, which I think really gives the neighborhood dimension – people sleeping, eating, talking, living, dying for maybe six, seven, eight hundred years in an unbroken string.

Part of the wall
in question

Some more confusion about the wall! If you'll remember, in our last episode (or one of our last episodes), we encountered the ancient wall that is woven in and out of the extensive semi-walled enclave which is the Barcelona Cathedral. Part of that part of the wall that is ancient is literally right across the street from our hotel. Our guide was German with an accent; she had lived in Barcelona for thirty-some-odd years. We walked by the wall, which she just referred to as Roman and defensive, so I asked her when it was built. She said, in a way that may have seemed like she was guessing, “...about three hundred years before Jesus.” So another county heard from. This would put the construction of the walls generally during the Punic Wars (ye gods, what a mess they were). However, this very thorough tour of Barcelona's Roman walls, by a local enthusiast who may not be an academic, puts the Roman founding of Barcelona at between 13 and 15 BC, and it was founded to provide Augustus's veteran soldiers with some land, sort of as a pension, after their own rather difficult Peninsular War. Wikipedia tends to agree, although it is much more careful to lay out the limits of our knowledge of that time.

So – mystery wall! I'm going with the last two – built some time after the Roman iteration of the founding of Barcelona, and not with any of the three guides who seemed to be guessing, which disturbs me – on the Viking river cruise in June, we were impressed with the thorough scholarship of the guides. Not really so this time.

By the way, the original Roman name of Barcelona was Barcino or, more accurately, Colonia Faventia Julia Augusta Pia Barcino. Now you know. Wikipedia suggests that it might have been founded by Hamilcar Barca, grandfather of Hannibal, of elephant fame, and named after his family. Greek mythology suggests it was founded by Hercules, of whom we will hear more later. Busy guy.

The Cathedral is woven into the Gothic District in such a way that it is hard to tell where one ends and

the other begins, and I guess it's not important to make the distinction. Narrow (often very narrow) streets opening into small squares (which are never square), from which more narrow streets extend at odd angles and wander away crookedly. Everything is stone. We encountered a small municipal vehicle that was essentially a water tank on wheels, with a hose in the back and a guy using the hose to wash the street. Also people with brooms, sweeping up leaves and other detritus. [Abbey: The streets were of flat stone, sloped to aid run-off. I asked if they were made that way to handle the effluents tossed out of the upper windows in ancient times, and our talkative but not knowledgeable guide said it was for directing heavy rains. We were also told that stones were hard to come by, so later generations just built on earlier walls. Back to Gary.]

We waited outside the main entrance of the Cathedral until the appointed time, and admired the elaborate facade which was, apparently, the gift of a nineteenth century banker who is, not surprisingly, is now buried in an ornate alcove in the Cloisters out back (with the geese). Up until then, it was a remarkably plain building. Inside, it's dark and gloomy, but also beautifully built and ornamented (Abbey disagrees; she thinks it is unremarkable). There are 20-some-odd chapels along the sides and in the Cloisters, most gifts of guilds of the town; looking at them, you get the sense that each was determined to out-glitz the other. The choir is gorgeous, with elaborately carved seats, and history. Charles V gathered nobles and luminaries there (including the Pope) from around western Europe to discuss the proper response to the encroaching Ottoman Turks. She was probably talking about the Treaty of Barcelona, in 1529, but she didn't say as much. They all sat in that choir, right where I was sitting. You have to understand – Charles V was a big deal. Cool!

The Cathedral is dedicated to St. Eulalia, and I'll let Wikipedia tell her story:

Eulalia bas reliefs

At the age of 13, during the period of persecution of Christians under Emperor Diocletian (284-305 AD), Eulalia ran away from home and went to find the governor of Barcino to rebuke him for the repression. When the girl refused to renounce her Christian faith, the governor condemned her to thirteen tortures, one for each year of her life.

Well, OK. I find this kind of stuff disturbing. The tortures were pretty grim, and I won't leave you with the stuff of nightmares, but legend has it that she miraculously survived all but the last, which was crucifixion on an X shaped cross. There are bas reliefs on the back of the choir which illustrate the tortures in great detail.

Why the emphasis on barbaric brutality committed by authority figures in Catholic legends? And why the glorification of that brutality? There's a pattern here, and I don't like to think about it too much.

Where the geese live

Anyway, St. Eulalia, before she was a martyr and then a saint, took care of the geese at home. So, of course, there are 13 geese (one for each year of... you get the picture) in the center of the Cloisters, which has been transformed into a verdant environment with palm trees, a fountain, and other elements to make the geese feel at home. Real geese. As Abbey said, what a life for a goose.

And this is why we travel.

Then it was time to make our way to the bus, but first we traipsed through the Christmas Market, which will open officially tomorrow. Many stalls were open and fully furnished with goods, most of which seemed to me to be kitschy Christmas items. Here and there, though, if you looked carefully, you could find a booth with some really clever or artistic handcrafted gems.

But no time for shopping – we walked through the Born Quarter, where the Picasso Museum is, and, for the last time, to the place where we got the bus. Then through busy urban highwayscape along the shore, to the cruise ship pier.

And there it is – our home for two weeks, give or take. Smaller than ships we've been on – fewer than a thousand passengers.

Off the bus and into the terminal – to the longest wait for security of the trip so far, including airports. Long snaking lines of passengers arriving by bus – and exactly one security lane working, out of seven or eight that were available. Anyway – onto the ship, glass of champagne, quick life jacket demonstration, and up to the buffet for lunch. Not really hungry, but had a small hunk of delicious, moist turkey breast, and some cranberry sauce - Thanksgiving dinner (lunch?). Then we found our way to our room, and naps.

View of Barcelona from the ship
Sagrada, with her attendant cranes, in the distance
The first of the many enormous ferries we will see, left foreground

Nice room. Much (much!) bigger than on the river boat – queen size bed, couch, easy chair, and a desk with a chair across the opposite wall. Found it odd that the TV was opposite the bed, not the couch. Big mirror opposite the couch. The room is an upgrade offered on certain sailings, including this one, which falls over Thanksgiving (as you know). [Abbey: We took this trip because it touched base on many places we had never been to, it had free airfare, and a veranda! A few days ago, we were notified of another upgrade. Back to Gary.

The balcony is really nice – we've never had one before. Table, two chairs, room to stretch out. Glass railing just like on the Crow's Nest at the Cape, and just like that railing, the handrail runs right across the horizon line, where all the interesting things are. Sitting on the wo decorative pillows on the chair raises us enough to see what we want to see.

The weather's been nice enough to enjoy the outside in general. It's cool – 40s and 50s – but calm, and the sun is – or seems to be – hotter here on the Mediterranean coast. Just sat on the balcony for a while after naps and looked at Barcelona.

Another thing faithful readers know is how I feel about dressing for dinner. I did bring a pair of khakis because the instructions indicated that jeans were not welcome in the dining room. So we went to dinner and sat next to a guy wearing jeans. Fine. I dressed up once. That's it.

Dinner was – not up to the standards of the Viking river cruise, where all the food was better than any of the food we'd had on other cruises. After a really intensely delicious smoked haddock soup, the salmon was a little dry and tasteless, as was the cheesecake for dessert. Abbey had beef cheeks, which I'd never heard of until recently, when they apparently became fashionable. A little fatty and not much taste. I'm not going to bore you with a menu review each day, but this dinner was news; unexpected. We'll see how it progresses. Good food is Abbey's specialty; it means a lot to her. I'm generally happy with most of what I eat, but after the meals in June on the rivers, I sat up and took notice. Now I'm spoiled. Oh well – first world problems, as they say.

After dinner we went out on deck to watch us disembark, down an industrial channel and out into the sea. We were moving! Then we walked once around the ship – ¼ mile – and I went back to the room to write, while Abbey continued walking until she was up to a mile. I finally finished yesterday's post and sent it, and we conked out.

The Gothic Quarter