Last weekend saw the return of two annual events here in Barcelona. 'La Nits dels Museus' on Saturday night where all the major museums open for free from 7pm till 1am (yes, past midnight!) and 'Los Coros de la Barceloneta' which is an annual parade that happens on the Saturday and Monday for Pentecost, which is also known as 'Segunda Pascua' (second easter) here and Whitsun in the UK. I'm not religious but I enjoyed the holiday from work on Monday and the music, dancing, drinking and street fireworks were great fun too.
It's very difficult to find information on Los Coros, it doesn't really get a lot of publicity in the city. I think this may be because it tends to get a bit raucous as the day progresses on Monday. The parade consists of marching bands who belong to various local workers' associations. They all march through Barceloneta all day making stops at various points, finally finishing beneath fireworks at midnight. Saturday is a bit of a practice run, they all take off somewhere for a jolly on coaches on the Sunday, then back to go at it full pelt on the Monday. Check out the video of one of the bands this year. I've also taken some photos to give you a bit of a taster. They're not great but that's what happens when you're wandering around drinking beers, dancing and generally forgetting that you have your camera with you ;-)
Band in St. Miquel's Square
Fireworks
Dancing in the streets
The museum night was obviously a lot more subdued but it was good to have the contrast otherwise the whole weekend may have ended up a bit too lively. We decided to visit MNAC, the national art museum of Catalunya. I did hear of huge queues at some of the others but we waltzed straight in to MNAC. The building is massive so was well able to cope with the hordes of extra visitors. My favourite part is the Romanesque collection. The murals have to be seen to be fully appreciated but you can get an idea here of how beautiful they are.
I was too busy looking to take a lot of photos and I don't think they would have done the art much justice but I did get a few of the main auditorium to give you an idea of how big the building is.
Pillars in auditorium of MNAC
Free jazz concert
Main auditorium
Roof of central hall at MNAC
Primavera Sound is this weekend and even though I'm not going to the main event there are also some smaller gigs being arranged by the organisers to coincide with the big festival, so I may pop along to some of those. After that we have Sonar and Sant Joan to look forward to so there'll be no rest for a while yet.
My latest feature for miniguide magazine giving the lowdown on two of my favourite shops, Colmado and Co-Shop. Both are in El Born, which is my favourite area to shop in Barcelona. Click on the picture to make it bigger, or you can read the feature online here if you like, as well as checking out the magazine for ideas on where to go in the city if you're here now or planning to visit at any time.
This weekend is a long one for the Pentecost bank holiday (I'm not religious but I'll take the days off if they're offered!) and this coincides with a fiesta of marching bands in our barrio. I'll be taking photos and putting them up here early next week. Hasta pronto!
I'm always seeing camera crews on the streets of of Barcelona and in our little barrio of Barceloneta. The city seems to inspire everyone. I've just been looking at the blog 'Living in Barcelona' which is written by a German Yvonne who introduced herself to me in a comment on this blog, and I found the following video which shows loads of scenes from literally right outside my door and all over the barrio. If your German language skills are good then you can read her post about it here or if they're as bad as mine you can use Google translate.
I love the way some of our local characters have got in on the action in this video, there are loads of familiar faces here. The beach is a big star too and the old guys playing dominoes make sure they don't miss the action either. The video really is a great snapshot of Barceloneta and the rest of the city too.
For anyone who likes art, graffiti, street art or Barcelona, the documentary linked below should be of interest. We saw it at a launch night last week and the full film is now online. Please let me know what you think of it and who your favourite street artist is. I'd also love to hear about the artists in your city, wherever you are.
