Barcelona Wednesday - Museum Day

We knew Wednesday was going to be rainy. So we called it “Museum Day”. I got my golf umbrella out of my bag, and after our normal breakfast, after I had breezed thru the International Herald Tribune, printed Marilyn’s puzzles off, & torn out the crossword from the paper, and she had finished them we set off in a heavy drizzle.

We sorta knew where we were going . . . Marilyn had sussed it out from her books and maps: the National Museum of Catalunya – that is that part of spain that doesn’t like to admit it’s part of spain . . . 8^) . . . they speak catalan here, not really Spanish . . . sometimes when I would try to use my pidgin border Mexican for even simple pleasantries, they would get a very quizzical look on their faces . . . they never say buenas dias, they say Hola! They never say adios, they say Adio. . .

The museum, it turns out is at the top of a hill they call Mont Juic, which means Mountain of the Jews. We could see the museum ahead of us, but like a mirage, it just seemed to keep getting bigger and further away no matter how high we climbed – I mean: It IS a mountain. There’s a funicular up to the top, but we didn’t bother to locate it, because we didn’t realize . . . 8^D . . .

and that museum is HUGE . . . 2 of the permanent exhibit halls were closed, Thank God! Or we might not have finished. . . The exhibit they had labeled Gothic was full of old church art they have rescued and re-installed there. . . like frescoes and stuff from alcoves and walls that they have recreated, but just left the original stuff without restoring it. The one that blew us away the most was this picture of seraphim with eyes on their hands and wings: f-r-e-a-k-y! Bot a poster of the angel with the eyes from the gift shop for 3euros. Bargain
They had a numismatic exhibit, several centuries of gold and silver. . . culminating in the tin & paper euros in the last case . . . ooops! The rest of the exhibits were interesting tho’ unremarkable, full of people we have justifiably never heard of . . . probably essential to the Catalunyan psyche and all, but not . . . us . . . they did have a couple of picsassos, natch, and this one Dali that I would say was not representative . . . 8^D. . . just a rather ordinary, if well-done, portrait.

So we walked back down the mountain in the rain, then ventured over to a tapas bar that marilyn had found in the neighborhood from her book. We were so tired, hungry, and wet we were almost on our last legs before we reached it,
Quimet I Quimet.

It had a very unimposing appearance from the street, and inside, there were tall tables but no chairs. They had a very impressive collections of wines, olive-oils, and staple varietals on all 4 walls, but it felt a little claustrophobic. We were drawn like moths-to-a-flame to the food cabinets, the glassed-in deli-style offerings they made their tapas from.

A young woman offered to help us, and we just said, “you do it”, so she made us some plates . . . we couldn’t help but point and ask for stuff anyway, it all looked so interesting . . . she didn’t mind: Anchovy-wrapped-Olives, roasted red peppers, little spicy green peppers, artichoke hearts, pickled cucumber (but NOT Pickles!), sun-dried tomatoes, sardines, tuna, cappellini onions. Then she made actual tapas dishes for us: smoked salmon on toast with roasted pepper for one and salted cod with dried tomatoes on the other. The wine was a very inexpensive catalunyan native. We liked it so much we took a bottle with us.

Well, that was good, and it ought to have been enough but we wanted more, so we got two more tapas. Basically we picked the main ingredient and she filled it out. We asked for shrimp -?- prawns -?- langostini -!- ahhhh! This came with sun-dried tomato, cream-cheese and caviar. And mussels: they came with bruschetta tomatoes and caviar.

Well that put us over the top . . . we still had the Miro museum to go, and it was apparently back up on the MontJuic, so we decided to fortify ourselves with some cappacino. I knowledgeably asked for some Crema Catalunya, but all they had was cookies (postreses). . . OK! I had to have an armagnac, too, once I spied a few bottles on the upper shelves. The one she poured for me was – I kid you not – Loung Doung Armagnac. Very nice indeed, but I cant find a reference anywhere on the internet, now, so I got the name wrong to some degree.

So, we hiked slowly back up the hill to the Miro Fundacio. It was a madhouse. There was some tour group of school kids had just pulled up, but eventually we got in. I was pleased to see that – unlike the Picasso museum, they allowed cameras . . . I mean, with the glare & reflection of the glass on the photos they’re no use to anyone but me. But I like being able to just snap the photos then decide later whether they’re worth keeping or not.

This one here caught our eye because – if nothing else – of that little star in the bottom left corner . . . just a little round yellow glow with the thin ink drawing in it . . .I don’t know why, I just like it . . . that motif shows up in a lot of his paintings, but this was the best one . . . they didn’t have it in the gift shop our I woulda bought a poster. . .

There just something so essentially cheerful about Miro, it’s hard to take him seriously but he was a very serious man . . . the little blurbs in the museum made that clear from the discussion about his experiences during the wars.

So we saw signs for the funicular leaving the museum, and took it back down MontJuic. Totally worth it. Then we trained back to the hotel for a little siesta before dinner. This picture is from La Rambla Poblenou near our hotel. It’s a pleasure to amble on La Rambla. . .8^D. . . We had a disappointing dinner that night, not good enough to talk about. We just ate and went back to the hotel. Watched our Seinfelds and the movie Dave and went to sleep. Marilyn said, “it was a perfect day! We got everything done!"