BARCELONA

Thursday, 20 October 2011

The day started badly. It wasn’t the predicted storm that was the problem. We hit a ‘bump’ in the sea at about 03.00 this morning and there was a bit of movement, accompanied by the usual creaks and groans – from the ship, not us. But the movement was quite soothing, rather like being rocked in the arms of a loving mother – and that was part of the problem.

The other, more serious problems was that I stirred, as I usually do, a little after five and took the first pills of the day as I have been doing. One of these is my ‘piddle pill’ to drain my body of surplus liquid and thus help my failing heart to cope. I take it first thing so that the emptying can be complete before we start our day and thus avoid any timing problems. With these pills when you gotta go, you gotta go: if you don’t know where the facilities are, you’re in strife. Unfortunately, instead of lying abed dozing, I went back to sleep and woke to a very wet bed. I swore a mighty swear which got Rab giggling. I was indignant and said it was undignified for an old man to wet his bed and it wasn’t funny, but she just went on, especially when I stripped the bed, battling with a series of Russian knots which tied the bottom sheet down and uncovered the mattress which looked as if it had been gnawed by rats. I had pointed out that the rat guards were not in place when the ship was in dock at Corsica so this may have been the work of Corsican rats.

We both had a laugh in the end, although at times, it isn’t funny getting old. Right now when I overheat and am not standing in the sun I am not sure if this is because:

· It is hot because the air-conditioning has been turned up

· My beta-blockers have disturbed my internal thermostat again

· That darned Zoladex is giving me a hot flush (or even flash to use US English)

· The remnants of the bronchial cold is still messing me about

· It is just a warm day

Ah well, as Rab’s brother says, it is better than the main alternative.

The whiners are gathering force. As I worked away here in the Captain’s Club I had a table of three women discussing for a good half hour how iniquitous it was that the bistro and Waldorf were not opening before noon, the time we are due to dock. Although we are here for ten hours, although the first tours are not leaving for at least 45 minutes after the ship is cleared, although they no doubt had a hearty breakfast, although they were only planning to have a roll and some soup (does that really take longer than 45 minutes to eat?) they all went on and on about how uncaring management was not to open early. The wind was somewhat taken out of their sales by an announcement that the bistro would be opening half an hour early – at 11.30. collapse of stout parties, not without parting shot about how it would have been better to make the announcement earlier.

Rab says all my moans and groans put me in the same position as these people and that I must be giving the impression that I’m a real old grump myself. But I see a difference between commentary and complaint. I’m not suggesting that these people should be thrown off the ship because I don’t like their behaviour (although that might not be a bad idea!) but merely reporting what I see are some curious quirks of human nature: like the people who complained about the cold on the river cruise last December. Living in England were they not aware of the fact that Central Germany does get a bit of snow most winters? I should also perhaps stress that these people are a minority – perhaps the non0silent majority. Most of the folk we chat to are very happy with the ship and the crew – and there seems to be a relationship between the number of cruises they have had, whether on Marco Polo or other ships and the level of satisfaction.

Talking about being thrown off the ship, there is a rumour going around that the Travellers’ daughter was thrown off at Corsica. I am sure I mentioned these people earlier when the male in the party behaved so badly here in the Captain’s Club lounge. Since then, whenever we have seen them – male, female (old), female (young) – they have either been drinking and smoking on the back deck, the only area where smoking is allowed or they have been wandering around looking the worse for wear. Apparently the younger female, who we assume is the daughter of the other two, had been thrown out of Scott’s Bar on a couple of occasions and warned that she’d be put ashore if she didn’t behave. She didn’t so they did, with the father commenting “Don’t worry about her. She’s got plenty of money and she’ll get back to her boyfriend in Spain.” We can’t make out how they can travel as much as they claim because they don’t look as if any of them are even employed, let alone in the money, but the father was commenting to a mate of his the other evening, when watching the Norwegian Epic get under way that he had travelled on her sister ship and on the biggest ship in the world, but it took too long to get to know people. So there’s the mystery.

No problems in getting ashore today with a bridge across to the deserted Ocean Terminal. So deserted in fact that we wondered if we were going to see more evidence of the effect of the global financial crisis here, as we had in Corsica? Walking out into the empty car park with the odd weed in sight, that view was reinforced. We spotted a red double-decker open topped bus and headed towards that, thinking that a tour of the city might be a good idea. €38 for the two of us, with a Senior’s Discount and we were off on the Orange Tour of the western and older side of the city. We sat downstairs and not in the open upper part of the bus. Our experiences in Victoria Island had taught us just how cold it can get atop a bus, even if the sun is shining and there was a nip in the air with an early morning temperature of about 15, although it got up to about 20 during the day.

The tour lasted two hours and was very good. We saw many parts of the city that we didn’t realise existed from our previous visits and we were glad that we had done this. The gentrification of old parts of the city has been done very well and most of it looked very good. There were areas which looked pretty rundown, with shops closed and shuttered, graffiti and all the other signs of poverty and some of the modern structures were not to our taste. One square for example had what looked like a badly designed tin shed in the centre of a concrete plain with some odd railings around it. Certainly not attractive to us, although a magnet for the skateboarders apparently. As we got closer to the city centre, the properties improved and by the time we hit Diagonal Avenue, there were some grand places all around us. The Diagonal is a terrific road which runs 12 kilometres right across the city aimed at providing easy access. Not sure that it works quite as well as the designers envisaged because there is an awful lot of traffic, but it certainly gives a grand entrance to the city, with trees lining the boulevard. One item that I found of particular interest was that the tram lines are laid between grass, so it looks as if the trams are running on a grass verge next to the road. Very innovative.

We were shown several of Gaudi’s buildings, all of which we had seen on our previous visits. They really are unusual and clearly he was regarded as being away with the fairies in his time. Our commentator mentioned several other ideas of his that never come to fruition, although many sounded as if they might be workable. The biggest puzzle is the Cathedral. Why has it not been finished despite the decades that have passed? The general reason is lack of funds – at present it depends on private donations for any progress. But surely the Spanish government or the state of Catalonia could cough up the dibs? After all they have spent hundreds of millions on the Olympics and in other developments. Why not complete what is one the largest tourist attractions in Spain – or maybe the completed cathedral wouldn’t be the same draw card that the unfinished building is? Who knows, but it is beyond me.

Our ticket entitled us a similar Green Tour of the Eastern and newer part of the city, so we thought we’d do that after we had a bite to eat. We hopped of our bus at the lower end of Las Ramblas, the magnificent avenue that runs up from the harbour to the central square and headed up town. There was no sign of any significant financial problem, certainly as far as tourism is concerned. There were dozens of tour busses running and coaches everywhere. The Ramblas was crowded, although clearly not as busy as it would be in summer when there would be far too many people for our taste. The lower end was pretty well multiple souvenir stands carrying very similar goods (probably made in China as most souvenirs are these days) but improved the higher we went, as did the eateries.

We finally settled on one just behind a statue (we never did check to see who it was) where we decided on a tapas menu rather than paella. We’d never had tapas before and the meal was a pleasant surprise. Lamb, octopus, clams, chicken wings, small roast potatoes all in tasty sauces or in oil. Washed down with a couple of BIG beers, in a comfortable chair on a warm day, out of the wind and sun in an exotic city, what could be nicer?

Leaving our little snug, we continued on our way up towards the bus stops. There are so many lovely buildings and views that it is difficult to pick one out, but the one that appealed to us had open umbrellas grouped in patterns on the walls and a fierce dragon holding the light above the main entrance with a brolly beneath him. (I’m assuming it was a male dragon – I don’t recall any fairy stories about female dragons, although come to think about it I have met a few in my life.)

Looking down one alley we saw a sign for the market and, attracted by the thought, as ever we went down to see what was being sold there. The answer was fruit and dainties and lollies and hams and…..it was like an Aladdin’s Cave. And the fruit was so big and perfect and arranged so well - it looked good enough to eat. We’d have loved to buy a couple of enormous mangoes we saw there, but apart from the practical difficulties of eating one, there is a rule that no fruit can be brought on board, so we just looked on in wonder. The incredible selection of dried and glace fruit, including some that we had never seen before was tempting and we thought that might get past the ship’s ukase, but there would be no point in trying to get those items past Australian Customs. So we limited our purchases to some chocolates and half a dozen of the largest dates we’ve ever seen, having been given a sample by the store owner. We often say, with some pride that the Victoria Market in Melbourne is the best in the world and until now that has been true, based on our experiences, but I fear the fruit and vegetable section at least will have to take second place to Barcelona.

We were a bit later than we had thought we would be in catching the Green Tour bus, but we set off in high anticipation. Regrettably it was not as memorable a trip as the first one – and it is interesting to consider that we may have felt differently about our Barcelona experience had we done the trips in reverse. Right from the start, I realised that we’d have difficulty seeing all the sights in this, newer bus. Still reluctant to expose ourselves to the cold air, we sat inside downstairs. The design of the interior was very poor with only one or two windows with an unobstructed view. Rab chose a good pair of seats, but our vision was limited from all practical purposes to the sights immediately to our right.

The initial part of the trip was in the newly built or redeveloped areas around the three or four main beaches. We had been down here in 1998 for an evening meal and found it difficult to believe just how changed it was since then. No doubt in the height of summer it is jumping but on a chilly October afternoon it had the sad and lonely air that seaside places seem to adopt when the crowds are not there.

Moving on we drove through the grand boulevards of the new suburbs of high rise apartments. Without the trees a boulevard is just an urban motorway and bare of any substantial greenery these suburbs look Orwellian. Concreted parks with small clumps of children’s slides and swings and a tree or two were empty of life despite this being about 17.30, when you’d expect children to be out and about. Individual people trudged between these concrete deserts towards small shops let into the walls of the buildings. Some were open, some shuttered. There were a couple of dogs, a handful of pigeons to add colour to the landscape but it seemed to me to be bleak and one could imagine, as the old guide said in Denmark that these places could easily become the slums of tomorrow if they didn’t brighten up or change in some way. Rab doesn’t agree with me – she says I paint too desolate a picture, pointing to the large area behind high walls containing hectares of fields and sporting arenas and other positive aspects. Maybe she is right, maybe I was just getting tired – my back and leg were certainly playing up after the hours on what were pretty hard seats, although they were well designed.

Again, as we approached the older parts of the city the sights became more interesting as did the traffic. Until we started meeting this, presumably part of the evening rush, we had bowled along at not too great a speed for the tour timetable and kept getting ahead of ourselves, so to speak. This meant that every other stop we had to wait to let the timetable catch up with us. Rather boring, especially in the area I thought of as a bit of a wasteland. During this time Spanish Musak played in our ears through the commentary earpiece. Initially this had been rather nice and we had been smiling and swaying to the beat. By the end of the voyage it was rather like the bouzouki in the Monty Python Cheese Shop and we would take out the earpiece until we started moving again. Generally speaking we learned a good deal of interesting information from the disembodied voice, but there were just a couple of frangicisms – like the referrals to the architectism of various constructions. The guide on the Riviera trip also had one small favourite, referring to the resting place of people as cementaries. Not bad when you think about it – old crypts and monuments were carved in stone: modern ones moulded in concrete.

As time went by we started to get a little anxious about getting the next bus back to the ship – the Green Tour didn’t go down to the docks, the Orange Tour did, so we had to swap busses at the Plaza Espana but according to the voice in my ear, the last bus was at 19.00 in winter (20.00 in summer) and we clearly weren’t going to make it for the change by 19.00. Were we in winter as the American gentleman said yesterday outside Firenze? Were we in summer as the complainers about the weather insisted? What was the Autumn timetable? Did it Fall between the two? Did it really matter? No it didn’t, but it did focus our attention more, at the end of what turned out to be a longish day with nearly five hours on the busses, just how many traffic lights there were in Barcelona. It seemed at times we would lurch forward 20 metres, rock to a stop (excellent brakes on public transport in both Italy and Spain, we can report) and then inch forward to avoid running down pedestrians, accelerate another 20 metres and stop again. Or so it seemed.

We finally got to the plaza and parked right at the end of a long row of coaches. Our cashier on the bus told us that the Orange Tour bus was at the top of the line so we hurried along – and I saw the doors start to close while we were still about 30 feet away. Oh! Not another 20 minute wait, please! Fortunately another couple reached the bus in time to stop the doors closing fully and although the driver was arguing that they were too late, he delayed the issue long enough for us to leap aboard to his annoyance. Once there we weren’t going back!

It had been a lovely day and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, but it was good to see the dear old Marco Polo looming out of the night, to make our way aboard and get a couple of beers and a quick meal down. Rab was asleep by 21.00 and I wasn’t far behind.