We enjoy breakfast, including
some of the ham we bought last night. Today we plan to visit one of MUHBA’s
fifteen locations, namely the Barcelona History Museum. Certain we walked right
past this Museum when we went to the Picasso Museum Friday, we carefully plot
our Metro course. We head over to that part of town, El Born, positive that we
know our destination.
Enjoying the morning, we walk
around El Born, only to discover that neither of us really knows the History
Museum’s location. We end up at a chocolate museum. Whoops! I find chocolate
nauseating in the morning. We skip this museum.
Strolling about, we find the
old El Born market which has been closed for a long, long time. The city has
taken the space and created a free open-air museum. The city dug up the floor
in the old market exposing the underlying Roman ruins. Barcelona was originally
Barcino, a Roman town settled by Augustus (as in Roman Emperor Caesar
Augustus). Barco means boat in Latin. Underneath the market floor lie old Roman
shops and residences. Glass pathways allow viewing the street layout from
above.
Venturing further in the
museum, we discover a remarkable display of Catalan history documenting the
independence movement’s first defeat during the war of the Spanish succession.
(Brief history moment: The obscenely inbred, multiply disabled Habsburg Charles
II aka Charles the Bewitched died without issue, willing his country to the
Bourbons, kings of France, sparking the war of Spanish Succession.) The
Catalans supported the losing side during this war, namely the English and the
Austrians, neither of whom ever did much for the Catalans, a tragic repeated
historical theme. Their demands for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
echoed ours, only made a century earlier. Very sad, very moving. The Bourbons
exacted horrible revenge as they conquered Barcelona. But why did we (the
States), seventy years later, get our own country? What saved us? The French or
long supply lines?
After a quick lunch, we roll
down to the waterfront to the Maritime Museum, free on Sundays. I know Bear
will love this one. We walk through the entire thing! We see lots of models of
ships, thrilling the Bear. Using both models and full size replicas, the museum
shows the development of different sorts of ships. We see a replica of a
medieval rowing galley, and the impressive 60-meter-long royal galley Admirals
of the Juan de Austria triumphant in the Battle of Lepanto defeating the
Turkish Armada off of Malta. We also check out a surfing exhibit that shows all
the places people surf. My mind combines medieval knights and surfers,
wondering how quickly the armor clad dudes would sink.
Leaving the Museum, we pass a
huge statue of Columbus. I must admit some confusion, as Columbus faces east,
into the Mediterranean, but he sailed west. Perhaps he sailed facing backwards,
so as not to scare his crew with open waters. Nevertheless, he guards the
harbor. We decide to at long last walk up the Ramblas from Chris’ statue to
Placa de Cataluyna or Catalan square, a pedestrian walk highly praised by Rick
Steves. The Ramblas has wavy brick pavement, its best feature. Bird even likes
it; the cobbles elsewhere just shake her to the core.
Despite Rick’s
recommendation, the Ramblas forms by far the tackiest, stupidest thing we’ve
seen in Barcelona, perhaps in all of Europe. Stalls line the walkway stuffed
full of identical cheap crap from China. I can’t report even one thing worth
seeing. The Ramblas provides only comic relief and the opportunity to dodge
pickpockets.
I wonder if I’m outgrowing
Rick Steves, once my hero. Things that he endorses as mega-cool I just find
stupid. And I don’t agree with him about his choices in art either. (More about
this later.) We stopped staying at his recommended hotels long ago after finding
ourselves repeatedly surrounded by Americans, not what we came to Europe to
see. With Airbnb we rent flats (kitchens and washing machines) right in the
middle of everything, for less money.
We take the Metro home and
eat tapas again. We fear that we will soon transform, Kafkaesquely, into two
giant tapas.
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