Year: 2011

I know it (the smile) was still there when I woke up this morning. It was overcast and windy, but the temperature definitely hinted of what we at home consider summer. A little later the sun broke through the clouds, and sitting outside, just wearing a bikini was actually both possible and comfortable. Now this […]

L’Alfaz del Pi, home of the free?, home of the Spaniards, quite a few Norwegians, and, lo and behold, for the next two weeks, me! The shuttle bus that I had booked from home, awaited me and my companion for the first week, right outside the customs, and took us, and on this occasion no […]

The taxis were on time. Three little yellow and black SEATs awaited us with their trunks wide open, ready to swallow our bulging suitcases. Our chauffeur was in a good mood, but our effort to strike up a conversation with him, as is our habit, was futile. He was already deep in playful conversation with […]

Park Güell, like many other ambitious projects of Barcelona, was initiated and financed by one of the many well to do citizens, in this case the industrialist Eusebio Güell. The place was intended as an English garden city, hence the spelling of the word Park, with mansions scattered around an elaborate and unique park, according […]

Monteserrat, much more than I had bargained for. The peak with an altitude of 1236 meters. The monastery further down, huge, impressive, but leaving me a little flustered; Once a place of recluse, solitude, retreat, peace. Now a full-fledged toursist machine. Or vortex; sucking people in by the grandeur of its site, the buildings. Centrifuging […]

Montejuïc, 213 m high hill, on the south side of the city. Spangled with buildings and constructions erected to impress, for the 1929 World Exhibit and the 1992 Olympics respectively. With an infrastructure, both elaborate and confusing. For walking somewhat lacking in directions; a maze of small pathways among groves of orange and almond trees, […]

Sunny, pleasantly warm, still teaming with life. Just enough tourists to keep it «going». Refreshed, young guide, eminent, knowledgeable, and like most Catalanes; for historical and political reasons, hungry for independence, autonomy. Proud, but friendly, open, easygoing, at least towards us, nonspaniards as we definitely are. She takes us around Barro Gotti, old town, with […]