In the Dark

Having a lazy Saturday morning before going out to do some shopping I thought I’d do a silly post about a few random things that struck me about Barcelona. As I have mentioned before, I am resident in area of the city known as Eixample. Most of this zone was built in the 19th and early 20th centuries and its layout was very carefully planned, as you can see from this aerial picture:

I initially thought that the name Eixample related to the exemplary nature of the area, but in fact it means something like “extension”; the “ample” has a similar sense to the English “ample”.

To orient yourself, the Sagrada Familia is towards the bottom left. In the middle of the top you can see Plaza de Cataluña. Near that there is a junction of two wide tree-lined roads; the one running from SW to NE (relative to the picture) is the Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes (which is actually 8 miles long altogether); the one perpendicular to the Gran Via is Passeig de Gràcia. My apartment is a few blocks SW of this junction. You can see to the top left how the pattern of streets changes, as you approach the older part of town, the harbour and the sea.

Anyway, the street plan of Eixample is generally rectangular but if you look carefully you will note that the footprint of the blocks is not quite rectangular; the corners are shaved off to make them octagonal. This is a very nice feature because it means that visibility around the corners is very good and there is a lot of pavement space near the entrances. Many of these buildings now have a bar or restaurant on the ground floor and there is plenty of room for seated areas. Above all, combined with the wide boulevard-type roads, this gives this densely-populated area a much less claustrophobic feel than other cities with rectilinear street layouts, such as New York. Note also that each block encloses a communal space which contains private gardens, play areas, etc, though some appear to have been built over especially.

The road passing diagonally through the picture is called, um, Avenida Diagonal. It plays a rather similar role to Broadway in Manhattan.

As well as A. Diagonal, Barcelona has A. Parallel. In Spanish this is called Avenida del Paralelo; in Catalan it is Avinguda del Paral·lel. The signs on the Metro are all in Catalan so the one on the Metro station on this road says Paral·lel. I was puzzled for some time by the dot between the two letters “l” but it’s quite straightforward. In Catalan (and Spanish) the diagraph “ll” (which used to be listed a separate letter of the alphabet) is pronounced like the English letter “y”, e.g. in paella and amontillado. The dot in Paral·lel is there to indicate that it’s not the letter “ll” in the middle but two letters “l” next to each other and is pronounced para-lel rather than para-yel. The Spanish word “Paralelo” avoids this problem by simply dropping an “l”.

Now it’s nearly time to get ready to go out. The temperature here has fallen noticeably over the last few weeks. It was around 15° last week with a stiff westerly breeze. That was enough to persuade some of the locals to put on their winter coats, scarves and woolly hats although to me it still felt warm when in the sun. Today is about 19° C. The cooler weather makes it far less sweaty and much more pleasant to walk about. It’s also noticeable that there are fewer tourists around, which has two advantages: (a) one’s mean free path between people is longer and (b) it’s much easier to get into places of interest. I hope to ramp up my visits to museums and art galleries between now and Christmas.