Around the Adriatic Sea
The challenge: cycling round the Adriatic Sea. Will I manage it before the weather in the Balkans gets too rough? I’m curious to find out myself….
7-10 Oct: Barcelona
Four days in Barcelona, of which I had to devote a fair share of my available time to practical matters: arranging a check-up for my bike, because with my tour around the Netherlands added I am now at 4,000km and 20,000 altimeters. The brake pads will probably need replacing. Orchestrate a dental visit, as a piece broke off a rickety canine tooth. Shipping a parcel. Buying a new windstopper jacket.
Friday it rained until late in the afternoon. I only drove to the city centre again in the evening to pick up the forgotten charging cable at the bus stop of Camping Barcelona
Then I passed the Sagrada Familia and the Plaza de Cataluña.
On Saturday, I had invited Paul and Mar, with whom I was staying for two days, for lunch at an Indian restaurant, and then I drove on to Casa del Tibet (See earlier post: click here).
Sunday I had to move to Hostal SafeStay BCN. That is located next to Casa Batlló Gaudí, one of the city's iconic Gaudí buildings. There is always a group of tourists in front of it to photograph it. In the evening, I joined the mob for a photo, but decided not to visit the building. Actually, I am so not a fan of Gaudí's architecture. He must have had a huge imagination, but I find his style too far-fetched and fairytale-like. Too much playfulness.
In the late afternoon, I made my way to Parc Güell to escape the hustle and bustle of the city for a while and do some more work of Gaudi to see, haha. At least along the outside.
Parc Güell was an idea of entrepreneur Eusebi Güell. He wanted to build an urbanisation for wealthy Barcelonans on the hill above Barcelona in 1900, in a beautifully landscaped park away from the hustle and bustle of the city. He hired Gaudí as architect. They worked on the park for 14 years, but it became a commercial fiasco and in 1914 the works were stopped. The city bought over the land and made it accessible to everyone as a park in 1926.
On Monday, I walked to the Gothic Quarter. I had also been there in 1977 and established experientially once again that memories are not reliable. I had a very different idea of it.
Retrieved from Plaça de Sant Jaume, the square between City Hall and the Generalitat de Cataluña, something was about to happen. A team from the Spanish RTVE ready, but I didn't keep waiting because I had a ticket for the MacBa (contemporary art museum) at 3pm. These museums are not usually run down, here I was able to escape the city bustle for a few hours again.
As I passed the cathedral, I noticed that both the sides and the façade were abused for advertising. The church factory will need money....
The MacBa museum was bigger than I expected, but the displays are very spacious so you are not overwhelmed by masses of art.
The ground floor was all for the Brazilian artist Cinthia Marcelle. If you entered the room to the right, you bumped into a barricade of various, neatly arranged materials behind the corner. If you entered by the left, you saw a large installation the had been built with those same materials. Not by Cinthia, but by art students shortly before the exhibition opened. While improvising and interacting with each other.
Furthermore, there were from Cinthia some more slow videos and some photographic works. I found her work quite poetic and contemplative.
The second floor showed 20th-century art, pop art and psychedelic art and music forms, with flashbacks to e.g. the Beatles and Velvet Underground. There was also much focus on social movements, such as opposition to Franco in Barcelona in 1936 and feminism. On the top floor, a new exhibition was under construction.
After a few days in the city, I am looking forward to starting cycling again.
The challenge: cycling round the Adriatic Sea. Will I manage it before the weather in the Balkans gets too rough? I’m curious to find out myself….
From 2026, Eva will be raising funds for the International Campaign for Tibet Europe, the world’s largest Tibetan advocacy organisation.
