Barcelona - 19 September 2011 (3)

Colon Monument

Columbus

We continued our stroll down Las Ramblas and, in a surprisingly short while, found ourselves by the Colon Monument and watching the cable cars.  Columbus points out to sea, standing on a high column, ornately decorated with statues and lions at the base.  Nearby is another tower, which is where the cable cars pass each other on their way between Montjuic and Barceloneta.  As it heads towards Montjuic, the cable car passes through an interesting hooped sculpture so we waited for the key moment to get a good shot.

Base of Colon Monument

Port House

We walked past the port house and reached a wooden bridge leading to a new port complex.  My mum was not up to walking across, so we just sat on a convenient seat at the start of the bridge.  There were a lot of fish swimming in the corner where the bridge met the land.  We couldn’t miss them as they were about 8” long.  There was obviously some food as they kept skimming the surface with their mouths wide open.  Occasionally one would jump over another and sometimes one would roll onto its side and flash white in the sunshine.

Cable Car Passing Point

Cable Car and Sculpture

A young boy came up and asked for someone to take his photo.  He posed in front of the boats in the marina but got so close to the edge of the bridge that we were worried that he would fall in.  We watched a mauve boat called Ventura start to manoeuvre out of dock.  They spent so long that I thought they were trying to get into another mooring bay, but they were only trying to execute a three-point turn.

Port House

Marina

Feeling rested, we continued on our way and walked along the bottom of the town.  We looked around a pretty square with a statue and lots of men sitting around on the many benches, chilling out in the sun, presumably while their wives were at work or busy at home.  It reminded me of my time in Peru where the men – and volunteers – liked to chill in the town square.  Perhaps I was being unkind and the men were on their extended lunch hour but unable to get home and back before work resumed.  We passed a military establishment which was holding an open day.  The sentry boxes were empty and locked, but there was one soldier standing by the gate.  I didn’t think that the open day was intended for tourists so we walked on until we reached the rather imposing Correos building.

Hungry Fish

Carrer del Bisbe

Turning left at the Correos, we walked up a very uninteresting street.  The narrow passageways to the left looked very old though, so I decided to take a risk and turn left.  We came to a very thick old wall and what seemed to be the remains of a moat.  We had hit the old town.  So we wondered round, looking for a café.  Unfortunately, there only appeared to be shops, especially tourist shops.  We passed Le Seu Cathedral and the Capella of St Lucia and several other old buildings which we intended to visit on Wednesday.  At one point, we found ourselves in the Carrer del Bisbe, which is spanned by an archway so we joined the throng of people taking photos.

Carrer del Bisbe

Not long after, we broke through into the familiar territory of Las Ramblas.  We called into a Carrefour supermarket to get croissants for breakfast and lots of water.  I was supposed to hand my rucksack into security, but I didn’t realise.  No one approached while I was in the store and the rucksack wasn’t checked on the way out either.  I wasn’t that impressed with the supermarket, but it is difficult to find things to buy when you don’t have any kitchen facilities, crockery or utensils – as I had discovered during our many “supermarket” stops in North Africa.  The hotel was nearby, so we popped in to leave our purchases rather than carrying them about.