Beaches, jets and a thief

The 'W' Hotel is a massive landmark, and it's where the beaches start.

You'd never believe they were created, not natural. Imported sand where docks used to be, that sort of thing. Anyway, very popular.

Steve swam.

Then the Spanish equivalent of the Red Arrows arrived overhead, and wow!

And we were distracted, and a passing cyclist grabbed my bag off the bench. I chased, shouting very, very loudly. Someone intercepted him, I got my bag back and walloped him. Oh, and he dropped his sunglasses on the way, so actually I'm up on the deal. Drama over.

Moral: watch your stuff.

A fishy day

See fish. 
A visit to the aquarium is well worth it. There will be pictures later, and video. Sharks, eels, 'Nemo' fish, lobsters, anemones, jellyfish, sea horses, rays ... penguins. You get the idea. Well presented, informative and enjoyable. 

Sea fish. 
We tasted the beaches. Well, a beach, and a beach bar. We'll be back tomorrow for the full cruise along Barcelona's seven conjoined beaches. Or that's the plan, anyhow. 

Eat fish. 
Please, if you visit this fine city, patronise Cán Rámonet, an extremely good fish restaurant slightly off the tourist beat (don't expect good English from the staff) in the Barceloneta district. 

Steve chose grilled sea bass, I had a middle cut of hake (so, so soft) 'San Sebastian', both served with carrot crisps and a sort of compressed potato/cheese thing. 

Popular, with very professional and discreet service. Price: excellent given the quality; or expensive, if you prefer. 

Sagrada Familia

Just ... wow. Will write more when I can get my head round it.

It was Chris

Columbus, that is, on the column. From yesterday. Because after discovering the East by sailing West - or so he thought - in 1492, he came back and landed at Barcelona the next year. Only he knows why, having done a return journey across the Atlantic, he sailed three-quarters of the way round Spain before putting in to port, but hey.

Watched over by Mars

After a slow wander up a warm and packed Rambla - and a few diversions into shoe shops (and Massimo Dutti) - we found somewhere very pleasant to eat, and watch people, near the scaffolding-clad Cathedral. 

Mars rose slowly above a Gaudi gallery, in-line skaters raced by, cyclists wound between the ubiquitous sellers of illuminated blue rubber-band-propelled flying sycamore-seed-inspired thingamabobs, while we ate what seemed the equivalent of dinner, breakfast and lunch. 

Hola from Barcelona!

Up at a silly time: taxi+train to a dark, cold and foggy Gatwick. Smoothly through and on board the Airbus A319 to Barcelona.

Hot!

Easy airport coach with one change onto the Metro brought us to within a couple of hundred metres of our hotel, at the bottom sea end of La Rambla. We got a good deal on an upgrade and we're now just waiting to get into our room.

We've been for a wander, mind, down around the impressive statue (of whom we don't know, but we're guessing a navigator) above, and round a bit of the marina.

Quick guide to Europe

Netherlands: laid back.

Belgium: dirty.

France: armed soldiers on the platform.

UK: officialdom* and prohibition signs on everything.

*Why, when we've all been through UK Border Agency checks in Brussels, do we need our passports AND train tickets checked again at St Pancras? In Gare du Nord you just walk off the train onto a French street...

Well, I'm home. That was fun!

Your A Star

Geddit??

Pulling away from Bruxelles-Midi. Or is it Brussels-Zuid? Only in Belgium can a station have two completely different names. Or Wales (probably).

Boorish-Brit-deadening earphones in, bliss.

Travelling backwards. Again. Grrrr.

Flat, flat, flat

Why does it take the best part of three hours to travel by train between Amsterdam and Brussels? It doesn't look that far on the map.

Mind you, this Intercity train does a lot more stopping and travelling sedately than I was expecting. I probably could have paid extra for the high-speed Thalys train, but actually it's quite nice to see some countryside. Not to mention occasional train-set style sidings and marshalling yards, with locos and wagons waiting to head off across Europe to who-knows-where.

Flat wagons, open wagons, covered wagons, car transporter wagons, gravel hopper wagons, wagons of every colour and marking, graffiti-covered passenger cars, strange Dutch passenger trains with curious 747-type cockpit-bulges in the roof. It's the whole Hornby, and then some.

Fields, dykes, polders, other railway lines, bridges, highways and byways, rivers, container barges, gas barges, Friesian cows, football stadiums, churches, level crossings. You get to see everything when the country is so flat. There's an occasional gradient on the track, but that's to take us over a bridge or causeway, not because the land is hilly. All through Holland and Belgium.

Oh, and I'm particularly excited* to be on a corridor train, in a compartment. Just like when I was Interrailing back years ago. In fact, I might well have taken this line, thinking about it.

*Not that you'd notice. You might wonder why I'm guffawing frequently, but that's because I'm reading Paul O'Grady's At My Mother's Knee.

The Emperor's New Clothes

Once in a while I find it necessary to visit a museum of modern art, just to remind myself how some of my fellow humans are pretentious wankers.

This afternoon I went to the Stedelijk Museum, or more exactly "temporary stedelijk 2" (note the lower cas, because the main museum is undergoing major enlargement. Actually the plans for the new building look rather good.

There were the usual exhibits you expect, such as piles of coal, inexplicable video installations, and distorted bronzes. I really dislike having to read the caption to understand what I am seeing. Give me classical art any day, which, with a moderately standard education, I can 'read'.

My eye was genuinely only caught by a few things. The best was an old Super 8 projector which had been ingeniously modified, DIY-style, to show a continous loop of film. (The film was of some naked women standing, and occasionally walking, on a hillside. It was of _no_ interest.) Others, I noticed, were intrigued more by the projector too.

The best video installation was called "Mastering Bambi". Two artist had visited the American forests which had inspired the Walt Disney background animators of the classic film. They had photographed and shot video, then produced this moving montage, devoid of animals, and featuring a menacing soundtrack also inspired by the film. All in HD on a giant screen. Yes, and I had to read the csption to get all that, but it was good.

Having said everything I've just said, it was lovely to see a number of original Mondrians, and be introduced to the similar, Ukranian, Malevich. There was some Pop Art, including at least two enormous original Warhols.

And nice to note the gift shop was just part of the museum, you weren't forced through it. It was mainly a selection of art and design books, and some postcards, anyway.

€10. Regrets? No, not really.