Flags were flown in the streets, from cars, balconies and worn as capes. Although there is drinking and gatherings, celebrations are not nearly to the extent of our 4th of July festivities. The Catalan nationalists focus more on organizing demonstrations and marches.
After navigating the masses of flag-wearing Catalonians, I walked to the Montjuic area in the western part of Barcelona. This is the tree-lined walk on Gran Via De Las Corts Catalanes, one of Barca's main thoroughfares.
Montjuic is a massive mountain that over looks Barcelona and at the top is the former National Palace, which is now the National Museum of Catalonia Art.
The views of the city from the top of Montjuic are beautiful.
You can walk around and see all parts of the city.
To get to the top of Montjuic you needed to climb a bunch of steps, but the payoff was that there was a full bar at the top...una cerveza por favor!
On the backside of the National Palace is the Olympic quad area. It was a massive open area with fountains, statues, grass areas and the various event venues.
The Olympic Stadium was the main building in the quad area - this is the front facade to the venue.
It was a spectacular building because it looked brand new, but the design and architecture was more historic. If it wasn't for the clean walls and upkeep then you'd think this stadium was from ancient Roman times.
Palau Sant Jordi, home to the 1992 Dream Team gold medal run.
I stumbled upon a baseball field, which was also part of the Olympic quad area. Nice to see a little bit of Americana.
After exploring the Olympic venues I had sports on the brain and had to go check out Camp Nou, home to FC Barcelona. Although the team doesn't play while I am in town, I had to see the club's legendary stadium. It holds 100,000 making it the largest soccer venue in Europe.
Camp Nou was built in 1957 and has been home to numerous historic sporting events over the years including UEFA Championships and the 1992 Olympics.
In 1982 a more modern extension was added to the front of Camp Nou.
Tours of the stadium were closed because of the National Day of Catalonia, but the club's megastore was open.
They had any and every players' jersey you could want.
The team store sold jerseys for each of FC Barcelona's teams including basketball...I dug that this dude with a Pau Gasol Lakers jersey and hat was checking out the basketball jerseys.
FC Barcelona even has its own potato chips.
While walking around Camp Nou and the team store I overheard one of the workers mention that the FC Barcelona handball team was playing in their season opener later on that evening. It struck me that although FC Barcelona is known worldwide for its soccer team, it is actually a club featuring multiple professional teams including basketball, hockey, aquatics and the reigning Spanish League handball champions. I checked at the ticket office and sure enough the team was playing in an hour in their season opener against Helvetia Anaitasuna. Nine euros later and I was all set with my own courtside seat!
I've seen handball on TV before, but I definitely don't know the rules, which made the entire experience that much more exciting. What I thought was an absolute brutal foul would be let go, and what I thought was for sure some sort of traveling violation, wasn't even scoffed at by the crowd or other players. Basically, I was trying to equate it to every sport I knew and was oohhing and aahhing at things that were quite normal for everyone else. One guy dribbled, picked up the ball, jumped in the air, came down with the ball and dribbled again...there is so much wrong with that in my mind, but apparently it is completely legal in handball.
The stadium held about 7-10k, but only about 2-3k were in the stands.
Introductions...
Game on...it's two 30-minute halves and seven players on each side, so six "field" players and one goalie.
It was a tough start for Barcelona as they gave up a penalty shot on the first defensive sequence...I later found out that there are about a dozen penalty shots each game so it wasn't a big deal.
Crowd favorite and Barcelona team captain Victor Tomas had a game-high eight goals...he was about 5'9" at most...I totally missed my calling as a professional handball player.
Rough doesn't even describe how physical the game got inside. It was flat out molestation. If the "center" player got the ball he was absolutely manhandled by the defense, but a foul was rarely called. Even more impressive was that the "center" often got a quality shot off even with two or three guys hanging on him.
Victor Tomas in action...every shot was an impressive jump-throw type maneuver.
Final score Barcelona 26 - Helvetia 19...nice way to start the season.
Being a Tuesday night it was pretty mellow, at least for Barcelona standards. I did dinner at another recommended place called Sinatra just off Las Ramblas. From there I bounced around the various streets of Old Town and found a couple bars that were still celebrating the National Day of Catalonia , but I called it a night around 1am.
Sinatra is just off the popular Placa Reial.
I started with a few small tapas. First was a marinated lean beef brochette with teriyaki sauce and wok-fried vegetables...
My main course was the lamb chops with confit sweet potatoes. The chops were a bit fatty, but tasty, and the sweet potatoes were amazing.
Dessert...
I love crepes...I left Sinatra and found a crepes place down the street and decided to stop in for dessert...
...a golden crepe with nutella and banana.
On Wednesday I plan to explore the third and final part of Barcelona - Eixample. It's home to some of the city's most iconic architecture and nightlife.
No comments:
Post a Comment