When the plane arrived one hour late in Barcelona at noon, I had the strong suspicion, that the pilot had lost his bearings. That didn’t look like Spain at all. My taxi driver was very communicative. I learned, that I could not expect much about seat belts in Barcelonian taxis. My last doubts about my current whereabouts vanished , when he showed me the olympic village, which we passed on our way. I was in Barcelona.
Whilst I was still admiring his art of driving (which sure prevented me from paying a higher fare than usual) we reached „La Rambla“ the heart of all life in a merry town. On this day half Catalonia and a lot of tourists seemed to have gathered there, it was Whitsun’s Monday (public holiday).
A first walkabout
La Rambla is also the address for one of the best opera houses of Europe, the Liceu. The Liceu, which burned down in 1994 had been reopened after its reconstruction in 1999. The poster at the opera house gave us certainty. After a year with planning, some bad messages about covers and a 3 tenors concert in Hamburg on June 16(which had been cancelled later), panic orders of tickets for another performance, we had managed it. We were going to see and hear the opera „Sly“ with José Carreras.
After all of us had arrived, we started for collecting the first impressions of Barcelona. We were in the midst of
the fascinating old part of Barcelona. A walk through the Gothic District(Barri Gòtic), the narrow alleys, a visit of the cathedral and a little break on one of the terraces of the restaurants at the Placa Reial should not be missed definitely.
Of course we were also collecting the first interpersonal impressions, because it was the first personal meeting of Elly from the Netherlands, Jo-Ann from Maryland, Marion from Germany and Borghild from Norway.
On our walk we passed the Palau de la Musica Catalana, where many world-famous singers ( amoung others the Catalans Montserrat Caballé, José Carreras and Jaume Aragall) have given concerts.
La Rambla
We had our dinner, followed by a Sangria (red wine with fruits) in one of the restaurants on the Rambla. Coming for the first time to Barcelona you have the impression that all life takes place there. Later you will notice, that other places of Barcelona are quite populated, too.
The avenue consists of three lanes, two narrow lanes for the traffic, one in each direction, and a broad lane for the rest. The rest are pedestrians, terraces of restaurants and cafés, stands with newspapers, flowers, pets, birds, hens, fishes for aquariums and street musicians, mime artists, painters, tatoo sellers, beggars, pickpockets and of course tourists (forgive me this sequence, but being myself a tourist it would be unpolite to list the tourists first).
It is a great pleasure to sit there watching the whole colourful and of course loud activity.
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