Weisie arranged an apartment for us whilst we were on the road to Barcelona. Our accommodation was perfect – its terraced roof had a panoramic vista that included many of the city’s most famous landmarks and overlooked a square (an old monastic quadrangle), now called Plaça Reial (pictured in the following image).
We spent a fair bit of time in the apartment, enjoying glasses of chilled cava, the view, the smell from the restaurants below and the constant noise of people making merriment. The vibe of the place was amazing. We also enjoyed a few drinks and meals in the square.
Our first stop was Gaudi’s quite astonishing temple of atonement, La Sagrada Familia. They reckon it will take another 15 years to complete but, given They have taken over 100 years to do half of it, They have got to be kidding. A walk up the amazing spiral staircase (pictured below) into and across the spires is a must-miss attraction, especially if heights or faith are a problem. Weisie and the others, however, seemed to love it and Eny put me to shame by going the whole way up and down (knocking knees prevented me from doing so).
Barcelona is full of people. Street performers lined La Rambla, acrobats danced about Plaça Reial, tourists moved in swarms and no one goes to bed, ever. There were queues for everything worthwhile, especially toilets, and walking in a straight line, or even taking a photo, was darn near impossible. It was, as Luke kept saying (using drawn out, French/Spanish/Scottish accent),
formidable. Actually, I'm not quite sure why he kept saying that.
Seafood in Spain is popular, fresh and readily available. We had a number of great meals with really good wine. Paella was, of course, on the menu more than once.
The works of Guadi tend to dominate the itinerary of anyone visiting Barcelona over a short period. Besides La Sagrda Familia, Weisie’s favourite Gaudi creation was Parc Güell where we spent a couple of hours in the sun mixing with the crowd, buying trinkets, taking snaps of the view and goofing around (surfing a rock wave).
We almost did not make it back from Barcelona. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, but, seriously, we almost didn’t!
An increasingly odd smell filled the apartment around 5 a.m. on the morning we were to depart. Tony woke up, had a glass of water, opened the balcony door and returned to bed. The raucous mob outside woke Weisie who then asked me to close the balcony door. As I got up, the smell became distinctly smoky. A quick inspection of the stairwell confirmed my suspicions. I returned to the apartment and announced, as calmly as possible, that our building was on fire.
Luke sprung into action and dashed downstairs. The flat directly below us was billowing with smoke. By the time Tony joined us (he was ironing a shirt or something) we could see, through a window, flames licking the wallpaper of what looked to be a bedroom. The occupant was at that stage unaware that the adjacent bed was on fire.
Weisie was eagre to play her part and ran downstairs to fetch help. Using some choice Spanish phrases she had picked up over the years, she asked for and found a policeman, and asked him for the bill. Weisie then led the baffled officer upstairs to the flaming flat. “Mucho aqua!” the policeman said and motioned with an imaginary bucket. “Mucho aqua?” Weisie replied. “Si!” the policeman said before disappearing downstairs, never to be seen again.
In the meantime, an elderly woman, possibly sloshed, eventually found a set of keys and opened the door. Luke’s banging had woken the woman and the as-yet-unseen occupant of the bedroom (probably saving their lives). Luke then pulled off his socks, handed me one and tied the other around of his face. I looked at the sock, then at the wall of smoke, and decided I need to breath so put the sock in my pocket and entered the apartment.
Two wizened and equally inebriated women emerged through the pall of smoke like ET’s coming out of a spaceship. They joined the first old woman and they all began to berate a fourth, younger woman whose room we presumed was the one presently generating so much interest (and heat). Although we could not understand all the words, the gist of it was that she had caused a terrible inconvenience and that it was going to be impossible to find bed linen that would match the new colour of the walls.
As this discussion was going on, in the hallway outside the burning bedroom mind you, Luke was running buckets of water to and from the kitchen. The heat and smoke were considerable in the dark, densely packed bedroom, but somehow Luke and Tony managed to douse the flames. By the time they had finished, there was enough water on the walls, floor and remains of the bed to ensure that there was going to be no problem matching the linen and the wallpaper as it would all need to be replaced.
During all of this, Eny was in the upstairs flat putting out fires of her own, literally. The gas stove was tricky and she was trying to get the bugger of the thing to work but the flames kept gong out. She had thought, rightly as it happened, that we would want cup of tea after fighting fires all morning.
The overpowering stench of smoke, free flowing adrenaline and carbon monoxide encouraged us to make ready and leave the flat early, which we did before 7 am. As we walked down the stairs, we passed the women who were mopping up the mess. The bedroom was clearly not the only thing left smouldering as they thanked Luke repeatedly and waved goodbye longingly. “Bombero!” they said as we filed past, which we think means fire-fighters, although we looked more like Ghostbusters with our bulky backpacks on.
So it was we drove out of Barcelona, just as the sun was breaching the horizon and warming the new day.
Instead of kicking and screaming, little Oliver John tumbled out looking like a stunned smurf, all blue and wide-eyed.
