Barcelona Unveiled: A Day of Walking, Wonder, and Mixed Goodbyes | Day 279 of my 2023 Journal

It is not easy to park a seven-meter van in the big cities. The simple solution is to accept; you just walk some more. In Barcelona, there are a lot of parking houses, all too small for our vehicles, and the solution is big parking for buses, vans and campers and the Moncjuiic mountain. It is the stress-free way. When we then want to go to Gracia, where we have had our circles over the years, the roundabout of the day becomes something like fifteen kilometers.

Some would argue we could take the metro. They would be right. But then we would miss the many details of the city, the tired legs, the stamina, the street art, the people. And we would never get to swear so very much at the end of the day when the last stretch includes stairs taking us the nine stories up to the top of the little mountain to the van.

It is pretty there. The view is overwhelming, most of the city down there, unfolding until the mountains behind it: in the daytime, the vastness of it; in the nighttime, the lights. In the evening, there is music and people and chickadee singing, light air, and open hearts, and we dance a bit and talk a lot and are very, very exhausted when we start the car and the air conditioning.

We have been in Barcelona many times.

This time, we had ice cream with a friend and snacked some of our favorite desserts from the vegan bakery, walked the streets we know, talked about how much the city stinks, had a meal at our favorite restaurant, and enjoyed some street artists.

A nice day out.

The big cities have their charm, all of them.

And I am not sure whether we said hello or goodbye.

It might be a bit of both.

With love

Cecilie Conrad

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