Barcelona Again, Minus the Bike this Time

Although there were fun elements of my last trip to Barcelona, I finished the heart attack-inducing bike tour already eager to come back and see more of the city in a slower, less panicky way. So on Saturday, just late enough that I didn’t have to set an alarm, but still early enough to get to the city before lunch, I took a train up to Barcelona for the day.

I was planning to head for the Montjuïc area, but as soon as I arrived, I wandered off course in search of coffee. I stepped into a place called Tarannà because I liked the look of it, and before I could order my coffee, something oddly familiar caught my eye on the blackboard over the door to the kitchen. “Brunch,” the board announced.

I nearly cried tears of joy. As my non-Portland audience may not know, brunch is a big deal in Portland, something people plan whole weekends around and stand in long lines for. I had not yet seen any indication that brunch, perhaps my favorite meal, had found a following anywhere in Spain. Yet here I was, face to face with a brunch menu. (Later, as I walked back toward Montjuïc, I saw several more restaurants advertising brunch, which means it will probably be a critical part of all my future trips to Barcelona.)

Needless to say, I scrapped my plans for a quick coffee, sat down, and ordered brunch. Specifically, baked eggs with ham and mushrooms (yes, Mom and Dad, mushrooms), a dish that, with a few additional flourishes, I could easily imagine seeing on a Portland brunch menu. In fact, without the Catalan on the chalkboard and the slightly too fashionable and clean-shaven diners, Tarannà would have fit in quite well on Alberta Street in Portland. Or in Sellwood. Also in the Division-Clinton area. And inner Southeast. Basically all of the east side. And maybe Northwest. Yup, with its minimalist wood and brick interior, the mismatched tables and chairs, and a waiter who looked very much Fred Armisen in Portlandia’s “Bicycle Rights” sketch, pretty much everything about this place was reminiscent of home. And that meant my day was off to an excellent start.

Back on track after brunch, I walked to Plaça Espanya and then onward, up the many steps to the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya. MNAC was one of two museums in the the Monjuïc area that I was considering checking out that day, but looking up at the huge and imposing Palau Nacional, which houses the museum, I decided I did not have the attention span for that much art right then. Nope. So I followed a path around the building and kept going uphill through a wild, forest-like park and then through some surprisingly empty gardens, quiet except for bubbling fountains. Eventually I came to the Fundació Joan Miró, and looking at the low, sprawling building, I felt this was a museum I could handle.

I feel a little bit guilty that in this, apparently the best public collection of Miró’s work, my favorite piece by far was not only by a different artist, it was by an American. I stood for several minutes at the glass wall separating visitors from Alexander Calder’s Mercury Fountain, utterly entranced as I watched these little silver beads of liquid run down from the top of the fountain, joining larger pools of silver, until those pools spilled over and sent more beads cascading down to the bottom. Like water but different, it was mesmerizing.

There was plenty of unusual, very abstract, and downright weird art at the Fundació, but when I finally left Mercury Fountain and descended a staircase into a brightly lit, white room, full of tables and chairs, overturned and stacked on top of each other at weird angles, I felt like I was dreaming. And when a group of giggling French teenagers (or young twenty-somethings, maybe) in that room tried to imitate my accent and asked me “but what does this room make you feel?” I felt like I was being pranked. Back in the relatively sane world on the floors above, I could occasionally hear them gleefully shouting “Hello!” to other unsuspecting visitors.

It was getting late in the afternoon when I finally emerged from the museum, but I still had another stop in mind. I continued walking uphill toward Castle of Montjuïc. I was headed up mostly for the views of both the city and the sea, and they were beautiful as I got higher up, but the wind that had been a mere nuisance back down on the city streets was brutal up there. Walking into it required extra exertion, but it helped me along when it was at my back. I began to fear for hats, women’s scarves, and any small child who was not securely attached to an adult. On the train home, I found pine needles in my hair. With that wind to contend with, I did not want to stay at the top of Montjuïc very long.

The sun began to set as I was making my way back down the hill, and while I was walking down the wrong side of Montjuïc to see the sunset itself, below me the whole city of Barcelona was cast in a warm, rosy glow. In the fading light, it was time for me to find my way through the maze of roads, pathways, and staircases back down into the noise of the city.