A small and large public market bookended Thursday, our second day in Barcelona. We began by visiting the smaller of the two, the one where locals go to buy from a mere 100 shops (as described by the guide, almost apologetically!). The Mercat de Santa Caterina was built atop the ruins of an ancient monastery. Never have I seen such fresh fish, the most beautiful of vegetables, and the prettiest meat – they all abounded here and people were snapping them up!
From the market, we walked down a number of very narrow streets, many of which would have a variety of shops opening into the narrow passageways. We saw the ancient walls separating the city into its components, with the lower part of the wall built by Romans early A.D., and the upper added a few centuries later by the Gothic movement. The earliest settlement of Barcelona was by the Romans 100 BC.
One of the narrow streets led us through a small door into a courtyard and exposed a 15th. century “palace” that a wealthy family would have lived in., fronted by a small courtyard where the horses would enter. Cheryl remarked that it reminded her of a Romeo and Juliet type place, and I could almost hear the horse hooves clapping on the stones.
The Santa Maria de la Mer church from the 14th. century was next on the tour, and was built for and attended by the sailors who brought in the harvest of the sea. As with other buildings in the area, gargoyles were readily visible near the top of the walls, and served the purpose of allowing water to drain from the roof through their mouths onto the streets. Inside, the altar featured Mary and baby Jesus standing in front of a ship, again honoring and protecting the men of the sea. That would’ve been a tough task in the 14th. century!
From here we went to THE actual palace where the Queen greeted Christopher Columbus upon his return from “The New World”. Nothing opulent, mind you, but certainly mind boggling to think about him striding up the steps to get his due from the Queen who had financed his very risky venture, as we all learned in our early school years.
On to another church, this one being the Cathedral of Barcelona, built in the 14th. century. I remarked to Cheryl how amazing it was to build a structure this large and beautiful back in those times, without the benefit of modern construction techniques and tools. It had an area at its entrance where 13 geese are kept as they have some religious connotation but also function as the “guards” for the Cathedral and its many occupants in crypts. If one of the guardian geese dies, the keepers wait until two are gone before replacing them, always as a pair. The crypts tombs were covered with gilded gold – magnificent!
We emerged from the series of passageways and dark alleys onto a brightly lit and wide avenue – Las Ramblas. And, quickly we were at the second market – Mercat St. Josep – with its 300 shops. This one apparently is frequented by both locals and tourists and it was jam packed. We marched through from one side to the other and were treated with a small tapas of crab fried in batter and a local wine (mostly like champagne). That was the end of the tour, so Cheryl and I chose not to take the bus back to the ship but to continue walking around a bit more.
We ambled down Las Ramblas (or was that rambled?) taking in the many sites on this tree-lined walkway in the middle of the avenue. And, at its end was the monstrous statue of our pal, Chris Columbus. Not ancient but put up in the late 1800’s, it was still very impressive. The guide had earlier asked us where he was pointing and many on the tour shouted out “The New World”. My guess was (for fun of course) "Columbus, Ohio". He responded that BOTH were wrong, and that the "New World" was the number 1 wrong answer and, in fact, it is Genoa or India or somewhere else. I still think he's showing the way to Cowtown, USA. Nonetheless impressive.
Tonight we’ve arranged to dine with a long-retired oncologist from Charleston, SC and talk politics. Unbelievably, he’s bent left like us – imagine that from a doctor? – so we’re looking forward to that. As it turned out, we barely talked politics and more about he and his wife's adventures living on all 7 continents and in unimagineable places. That's been one of the best parts of the whole trip, in fact, just getting to meet others who are different and have other experiences in life.
Tomorrow is Mahon, Menorca, Spain where we’ll drive to the fishing village of Fornells and on to the Toro Monastery, the highest point at Monte Toro from which I can shout "Tora, Tora, Tora" . . .oh wait, that's a different movie.
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