Lost bike in Barcelona

14/11/13 getting to Barcelona

We crossed over into Spain in lovely sunshine, and feasted our eyes on the last sight of snow clad Mt Canigou overlooking the vine covered slopes. 

There was a strange traffic contraflow as we got onto the autoroute out of France. Slow moving trucks as they are developing the highway. At one stage we were stopped to pay a toll, which was €1, which seemed a little pointless. Perhaps they were embarrassed by the roadworks.

Coming into Barelona was a little unnerving, as the satnav seemed to indicate we should turn right and this took us towards an underground carpark with a height restriction – 2.2m. We declined, and went around the block, and second time lucky turned past a large building site into an uninspiring parking lot. However it is convenient, and if a bit noisy, it shares the noise factor with a load of upmarket hotels! We are delighted to have a toilet block which includes bogs with seats and toilet paper, and there are also showers, but not as inviting as our own, as we aren’t that keen on mould and cracked vinyl flooring.

I got freaked out by all the tiny mosquitoes and spent half the night in the spare bedroom (David’s room) and in the morning Carol complained that her face was covered in bites; I counted about 20 small bites. Carol says they only go for the juicy ones! I guess that being right by the sea, there are lots of mossies breeding around here. It is still warm down here and I think we are expecting about 24’ tomorrow. Yay.

15/11/13

In the morning I got the bike out and prepared to go boldly into the city with a satnav and some faith that we would not get lost. (Blind faith obviously.) We had decided to go first to some of Gaudi’s bold modernist buildings, starting with the cathedral of the sacred family. 

There was not much sign of the sagrada familia, but there was a skeletal Christ and some cubist Roman soldiers on the façade at the front. 

The soaring spires were otherworldly, and one was wrapped up in a kind of cling-film fashion, and the whole thing overlooked by enormous cranes. This was a pity, but we could see the freakish spires, and organic flying buttresses, all like sinews and muscles. 

The sculptures were sort of cubist, and looked sorrowful. On one side there was some building going up with new concrete pillars being erected – no doubt there is a need for more shops and information centres.

Everywhere we looked there were people consulting maps. It was no wonder, as the maps are the worst I’ve encountered since getting lost in Athens, and there I could not read the names because of the Greek alphabet. 

The Barcelona maps have their names spaced out so that one cannot read the whole name in one go, or read the streets across or down in one go either. (In some cases the street name covers two or three folds in the paper) 

By now we had two maps from different information kiosks, and neither could be easily read. Asking directions, as you will see later, is just as risky as reading the map.

When we elected to go on to the next destination, I overshot the landmark and was out by a couple of blocks. We parked the bike, Carol noted that it was opposite a Clarks shoe shop, and I noted that it was outside a large VW car dealership, and near a taxi rank. Neither of us took too much notice of the name of the road! After looking around both the weird and wacky architecture, and some modern shops, we tried fruitlessly to get back to where we parked….

Losing the motorbike was not unexpected, as there were lines of motorcycles everywhere, and we did not really know where we were.

And there were taxis, all yellow and black and parked at mad angles. But when we wanted to find them we could not.

We must have looked a sorry sight as a woman stopped and asked if she could help us. Carol told her about the Clarks shoe shop, and I asked about the VW dealership. She seemed to recall the shoe shop, and helpfully sent us about five blocks in the wrong direction. I fortunately did not trust her directions, and we turned back after about 3 blocks. Not before I found a large shop doing key cutting, and the man there did a great job of cutting a spare motorcycle key, and put us in the right direction.

Anyway the buildings we looked at were the cathedral Sagrada Familia, (Spires like ice cream cones full of mosaic covered grapes, and a huge tree on the roof with doves) the wavy balconied La Pedrera 

(which it is true, Sarah, it does look like something out of the Hobbit), and then two buildings next to each other from another planet. 

These were Casa Battlo’, (Gaudi) and Casa Amattler ( another mad bloke).

We also took in a Starbucks coffee house (American) and a Tiger outlet (Danish stuff, a bit like Ikea), a Gaudi inspired mosaic bench, and a Carol fashion shop (what else – we saw St James in Ile de Ré)

At one stage we were accosted by a man in the street, who came and told us he lived in the building opposite and exported leather sofas; he gave us his business card, and directed us to the tourist trap of the weird buildings. He reminded me of Salvador Dali, but without the moustache.

Carol asks me if I am up for another day of adventuring out by motorbike? Am I up for it? Definitely. See me with two maps and a satnav, trying to enter Spanish road names!

But I shall take note of what street I am parking in!

In the evening I log onto the LSE website and see that I have passed my MSc in health economics, policy and management with a merit. I graduate on 17 December. Great news.