Barcelona: Missing the Echoes

Back in Barcelona, preparing to return to the US, after a few days of business and sightseeing. A walk up La Rambla from Liceu to Plaza Catalunya, followed by a bit of crisscrossing through alleys reminds me something is missing in the US

Back in Barcelona after Madrid and Montserrat, capital and mountaintop experiences, respectively.

They say La Rambla is the tourist strip in Barcelona, and I’m staying at the HostalOpera, which is right around the corner from St Pau’s church, close by the Liceu metro stop.

I’m glad I stayed in a residential area for the first few days of the Mobile World Congress show as it provided a way to see the Catalunyan (Catalonian) capital closer to the way a resident sees it. I was right near the St Antoni market, which would make shopping for fresh seafood in the States something akin to microwaving salmon.

Walking through the alleys on either side of La Rambla, though, I realized the thing I miss most about the US is the lack of echoes and good piazzas and public spaces.

Dickens had it right when he said it was hard to tell whether the echoes are coming or going.

Turning a corner this winter evening in Barcelona, the echo of a hand organ grows, but is in a place that’s elusive unless one stumbles on it or listens carefully and then performs trial and error searching for the source of the bouncing sounds. I listened, but then stumbled in a way that I didn’t think was the right way, only to come face to face with the organ grinder beginning a Bach fugue.


A good night indeed.

Barcelona: The World Is Calling

A first visit to Barcelona reveals new sites, old acquaintances and a chilly misjudgment of the automatic doors on a regional train.

I’m in the middle of my first visit to Barcelona - to Spain, for that matter - even though I’ve worked all over Europe for years and even lived in Switzerland for a time.

Didn’t expect it to be quite so cold here on the Mediterranean coast, but it is Winter after all - the low season for tourists, which I’m happy about. The event I’m attending and writing a few articles on for Streaming Media magazine and streamingmedia.com, is the Mobile World Congress, a wireless mobile industry show that has grown to over 55,000 attendees.

So the tourists have been replaced by the American marketers, which is just as bad. Or worse (see the blog entry under Entrepreneurship for a glimpse at a new Valentine’s Day bouquet dispenser).

Barcelona has similarities to many European towns that host large trade events: the medieval city center, the beautiful cathedrals, lots of good food - and, for Europe, the latest dining experiences I’ve been to. But I found out today that it doesn’t share similarities with other cities when it comes to unlimited train passes.

Most cities, such as Amsterdam, give unlimited rides on the trams or metro / subways. Barcelona provided multi-day passes (3 for some people like myself, 5 for others of my colleagues) that were only good for one zona.

I didn’t realize this until I decided to take a quick train ride at the end of the day out toward Montserrat, a church and abbey that are accessible by train, then by cable car or funicular. The thought had been to use the last few hours of the day to use the “unlimited” pass to go out and see whether the funicular was working.

When we approached the stations that connect to Montserrat, I knew that Aril (the cable car stop) was not the one to get off at; when we approached the next Montserrat station, it was dark and it looked like we’d stopped short of the station. Come to find out, though, there wasn’t really a station - just a platform. By the time I figured this out about 10 seconds had passed and my attempts to open the train door were blocked by the fact that the warning lights (indicating that the doors are closing on the rest of the train) prevented me from disembarking.

So I stood patiently, balancing my bag and my weight as I stood at the door for the next few minutes to watch closely for signs of another platform and then got off at the next stop, which turned out to be about the equivalent of a rest stop on the Alaskan Highway - there was a platform, two benches and a train schedule. Oh, and a single track, which meant I had to wait quite some time in the cold, huddling in my travel sport coat to keep warm, while the train finished its run up another 15 km or so and then reversed course down the mountain.

I got on the next train with no trouble, but then received a stern lecture on the word “zona” when asked to present a ticket. Apparently unlimited was only for the metropolitan trains (with the same markings) even though my ticket let me enter the very train I was now on.

Press early, press often. And then live with it if you don’t get it right the first time. Brr.