August 8 Barcelona

At about 8:00, I headed up (literally, it was very up) the three miles to the Parque Guel, a Gaudí designed park that is quite a delight.

Motorcycles very popular—among women, too—here.  Lots of scooters, too.

At entrance to Guel Park:

It is a not really a parky-park, as far as I could tell, because but you can't go off specific trails.  A view:

Closeup of tree trunk that looks like giraffe's neck. Honestly, this one looks painted.  I had to look up to see that leaves were growing and touch the trunk to make sure the tree was real:

Section of a palm tree trunk:

Aqueduct in park:

Gaudí designed chair in Gaudí House:




Selfie in front of Gaudi mirror:




Then off to the market.  These are not the biggest tomatoes I have seen:

After market, went to a couple of museums.  The Museum of Contemporary European Art was utterly depressing.  Even this horse announces that:

As does this dog:

Here is why.  Do you know what is on top of the lettuce on the plate:  It is the flesh that woman on the right has cut out of the arm of woman on the left.  (They must have run out of jamon (ham):

Man with large breasts and partial remains of dead animal:

Then went on to museum of African and Asian and Oceanic and Mesoamerican Art.

Beaded and shelled African head dress.  (Do not know which country.)

Tall carved poles of the Asmat (New Guinea) people:

The absolute best item here was a description of a game played in Mesoamerica:

"Ballgame was a common cultural phenomenon throughout Mesoamerica.  It came into existence about 3,000 years ago and continued to be played until the arrival of the conquerors.  Although there were variants depending on the period and region, a ballgame represented combat between opposing principles existing in the myths of origins:  night versus darkness (day versus night), a combat from which the chain of successive worlds originated, as well as the stars, humankind and social order.  A ballgame had two teams—put on the same level as the gods—that confronted each other on a playing field that represented the sky.  The game involved passing a rubber ball through a ring positioned up high, mainly using the hips and elbows.  It ended with players being decapitated, a sacrifice that represented the continuity of the cosmic cycle connected with the land's fertility."

Curious minds want to know, inter alia:  Did the Mesoamericans leave a rule book?  Did they stop playing the game because the conquerers, not discriminating between sides, killed off all potential team members?  Why would a playing field represent the sky and not the earth?  Is this an early version of basketball?  (And why it helps to be tall.) How does being decapitated represent the cosmic cycle?

A ballgame player, with head—but wait—he has a bat, does he not, so where does the elbow and hip maneuver come in?



Museumed out, I made my way back to hotel to pack and get ready for departure, stopping on the way for a slice of eggplant and tomato pizza.  I am ready to go home!!

I de moment, adéu a tots.  Y, por ahora, adios a todos.  Quién sabe qué pasará después!

August 7 Barcelona

Got to Barcelona at 8:30, and would you believe, the hotel let me check in.  It took just a few minutes to "get sorted" so soon, I went to see the sea:

Then I headed over to the Picasso Museum, and at first thought I was at MOMA:

Girl:

There are lots and lots of bakeries.  This one sold giant muffins:

There are also huge food markets crammed with people and, well, food:

Snack:

There was a Flamenco street dancer.  He was very good:

And martial arts:

Policeman, most vigilant, finger on the trigger:

Finally, visited the Ancient Synagogue, just a small room, really:

Barely anything left of it, and what is inside is recent and has been donated.  The original synagogue was not big since no synagogue was allowed to be bigger than the smallest church.  Barcelona had a significant Jewish population, until riots (pogroms, essentially), forced conversions, and other pressures emptied the city of Jews.  But now there are  over 5000 Jews in Barcelona.  Read all about it if you care to!  (This is the first time I have added a link to a post.  Enlarging to your "skill set" is so exciting!)

August 6 Camallera to l'Escala

Last day of a walk deserves its own post even though nothing much happened.  Today's stage was marginally less boring than yesterday’s.  At least the surfaces were somewhat easier on the feet.  But really, this is cyclist territory.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Despite the dullness, there is an undertone of giddiness that spurs you on because you know that soon you will have completed the GR1, even if every single step of it was not walked in your boots.

While musing suchly, about a 1/2 hour after Taxista dropped me off in Camallera, whence he went by car and I by foot to l’Escala, I got a WhatsApp telling me that no one was at the hotel to receive Rojita y Mochilita and so he was going to toss them in the bushes!  “Ay, no!!” I replied.  “No deje el equipaje!”  He said he could wait until 8:00 but that then he would have to return to Banyoles as he had other trips to do.  There were many communiques back and forth, but I was thinking that surely by 8:00 someone would surface since breakfast would be needed by the tony guests about then.  And that is what happened.  Crisis averted, but let me tell you that it is not so easy to  worry, to text in a foreign language, and walk at the same time.  

A surprisingly lovely home in the middle of nowhere (and lady with yappy dog):

At 11:30, reached the sea and the official end, Sant Marti de Empuries, a  place where people, lots of them, come to have fun.  I should try that some time:

Reached hotel at 12:30 without a hope of checking in before 2:00. I so badly wanted to go to my room, but I settled for changing boots to Keens, a seltzer, ice cream, and wi-fi.  Then went off to a huge Mercadona (supermarket) nearby.

2:00 room not ready and I am cranky.  2:15 even crankier.  2:35, at last,

If you care to, see post titled España 2019 Getting ready, June 06, and look at handsome boots ready for adventure.  This is the same pair:

They have lost all structure and support.  Poles worn out, too.  Ditching both here.  Backpack is pretty worn and filthy, doesn't smell too terrific, either, but definitely still useable.  I am pretty worn and right leg is sore and swollen, but I am not ditching myself here!  There is still Barcelona whither I head at 6:30 tomorrow morning.

August 4+5+6 Besalú to Banyoles to Camallera

The most striking thing about Banyoles is that it is a real city, with businesses, cars, traffic lights, lots of housing, parks, and so on.  Getting here was easy.  Short, mostly flat, not inspiring, but not so much on terrible surfaces that you are just aching for it to stop.

Burros "hiding" in the woods.  (They were very shy):

This is not any old clump of dead leaves.  This is a clump of dead leaves behind which is a way mark telling you to "turn here."

It's that time of year!

I had a plan.  Taxi to Melianta, about 4-5 k. distant on asphalt, then go past Orriols (designated stop point for the day) to Camallera, about 5+ k. take taxi back to Banyoles, then start in Camallera tomorrow to shorten the last day since I then have to lengthen it in order to get to accommodation, there being none at Sant Marti de Empúries, the official start//end of this walk, perhaps a metaphor for this walk's relative inhospitable-ness.  Plan fell through because I was not able to get a morning taxi, at least not easily, so I headed out at 5:45 and walked from Banyoles to Orriols, about 14 miles of the most boring, deadly stretch of walking ever, almost entirely on asphalt.  How John could have described this stage as wonderful, I do not know.  Anyway, arrived at 10:20, too early for a noon taxi so decided to push on as fast as I could to Camallera.  The walking conditions improved, but the temperature kept going up.  Was seven minutes late for taxi, but he waited!!  (Yes, I WhatsApped him.) Total: 18.5 miles, but flat.

August 3 Besalú rest day

Got up early, way too early, so when it was normal early I went out to see the town void of people and walk a bit along the river.

Where there is a river, there will be ducks:




This one did not want to get its feet wet:



There was also some art.  The thing that is amazing about this chair is that it is a flat piece of metal, but when you photograph it, it becomes 3 dimensional or at least two dimensional.  Just could not figure out how that worked:

Seems as if some artist had a thing for chairs:

Even a high chair!

Old door with curtain and flower:

For the kitty lovers: 

Cannot even begin to comment on this photo:

which is in the same place as this menorah:

Besalú had a Jewish community until it didn't for the usual reasons.  Now that past serves as a tourist attraction.  There is a tour of the old synagogue, of which virtually nothing is left, but if you are going to give a tour, you have to say something. So the guide kept saying (in Spanish) "Imagine that there was an X here" and imagine there was a Y here, and so on.  It was very annoying.  There is also a mikvah, no longer kosher, kept under lock and key.  So much for the romantic Jewish past of Besalú.

August 1+2 Sant Pau de Seguires to Oix to Besalu

Too much road walking:

  There were some watch-your-step, steep, rocky downs and ups, to be sure, so it wasn't all a slog.

I think these might be sloe, of interest to John Anderson and other gin drinkers (maybe)!

Mountains still around for viewing:

But so much tamer than on previous stages:

This is San Isidro, patron saint of farmers, way up high in his cell (?)

Could not get out of Oix fast enough, but had to wait until the deep rumble of thunder and the downpour stopped—they were quick—which happened, much to my relief, before there was enough light to get going anyway.  What really bothered me was the air in the room.  It was so foul, it burned the eyes.  There was a filthy version of an "air conditioner" mounted near the ceiling, that made a horrible noise but did not do any perceptible air circulating, and from which, every 15 minutes or so, a tiny puff of cool air was emitted.

Walking felt good today for the first time in a while.  Either the swollen leg is less swollen or I am used to it.  After a bad fall (two, actually) due to boot becoming entangled in some undergrowth and then, in Besalu, due to not seeing a curb, that due to of being utterly engrossed in eating real ice cream.  I am beyond amazed that I have not broken a limb, but there are three more days of walking for that to happen, God forbid.

Mountains are now scenery rather than the path:

Tree trunk that made me think of a giraffe's neck:

House readying for the day:

A stand of three cyprus:

Arrived in Besalú by noon but baggage was still back in Oix. After some back-and-forthing with Cristina, we arranged for it to be delivered by 3:00.  So off I went from very nice hotel, very very nice, to see some of the sights of the town among which is a miniature museum.  Yes, is a museum of miniatures, but the museum itself is pretty small.  Some of the exhibit has miniatures that are so miniature that you have to look at them through a microscope. My favourite among the collection  of microscopics was this ant on a high wire: