A little about the pension

Barcelona is crammed with apartment blocks. I haven't seen anything like a house or townhouse the last two days. Everywhere you go, is a mix of residential and commercial apartment blocks of a fairly uniform height of about 4 or 5 stories.

I don't know what the Barcelunans would call it tho, as our room at 85 Passeig De Sant Joan is listed as '2 floor, 2 door'. Which I thought was fairly creative, as we had to lug our gear up at least 6 flights of stairs and three stories to get to the apartment.

It's a rambling old place that must've been fairly grand in its day, but is now pretty run down. It's clean, but only as clean as you can get a 100 year old apartment that's had cheap-ass renovations and add-ons done by a succession of owners without the money to do something nicer. Many of the surrounding buildings show the unmistakable signs of gentrification - free-standing facades with new interiors being build behind. Ironic in a city that is so proud of it's Gaudi, that the bits of the buildings that are kept are the ones he most often covered over.

We're sharing the bathrooms with a young French couple and another guy we saw on our way in last night. The 'manager' doesn't really speak English, but she makes herself understood with the universal flapping of arms that we also employ.

When you look out the window, there's a great view of not only the streetscape, but yet another Gaudi-esque church across the road. I'm also stunned by just how sound-proof this room is, once the balcony doors are shut - Barcelona's a noisy damn city at all hours, but these shutters almost make me feel like I'm in the country.

I'm coming to realise that if I do ever get to go to Mexico, I'm gonna need to get over some of my squeamishness regarding general hygiene. This place isn't dirty, but I just don't like sharing.

Still, on our third and last night here, I've grown fond of this quirky little place whose rear verandah overlooks those of about a dozen neighbours, most in better condition. If every block is like this, then all blocks of apartments are arranged around a central square, which the back balconys overlook. This is actually the roof of the commercial premises on the ground floor and often has the gardens for the apartment blocks. Tonight, Thursday evening, many of the occupants are out on the balconys chatting, playing music and drinking - it has a very social atmosphere which I like a lot.

We're starting to get back into our running again. After a week getting fat on Austrian beer and meat-and-bread breakfasts, we kicked ourselves out of bed both in Ascona and here to try and get a handle on our running schedule again (hi Sean!). The Tapas style of eating here suits me, I graze more during the day and Spanish beer isn't so good that it's a must have. The red wine is great, Sangria good, white wine (so far) godawful.

On the run we went past the Sagrada Familia, the church Gaudi worked on for the last 40 years of his life and is still under construction. It's a magnificent piece of work, even in its current state and looms much larger than these photos convey. In typical cost-cutting moves, Catalonia's government have used an inferior stone since the death of the great architect, and the separation is plainly visible. There were tons of tourists around today, it was bloody hot, even at 10am and we're pretty sore from about 12 hours of walking yesterday.













After the run we had a lazy morning and headed off down towards the Espanol version of the Arc de Triomf. Nice, but the walk way it's situated on is much cooler, with these fantastic steam-punk street lights.

We were walking down Passeig De Sant Joan to get to the Museo Picasso. In addition to the already impressive permanent collection, which gives an exceedingly comprehensive overview of the artists entire life from his earliest scribblings to a collection of 41 ceramic pieces created near the end of his life and donated by his widow. The museum does a great job of explaining his life and his art's influences, all in three languages.

However the temporary exhibit, featuring the work of his close friend and pictorial biographer, Lee Miller was just fantastic. Lee Miller was a famous model and even more famous photographer, one gutsy enough to be both a fashion photographer for Vogue and a leading war correspondent, one of the first to enter the fallen concentration camps and record the remains of the atrocities there.

She was married to Roland Penrose, Picasso's friend and most prolific biographer, a man so obsessed with Picasso and his work that Miller described herself as a 'Picasso Widow'.

The work on display is a collection of both published and private images taken not just by her, but of her working with Picasso. Her work is vibrant and extremely personal.

However the capstone of the exhibit is a series of portraits of Miller done by Picasso in his famous style. This entire exhibit opened up Picasso for me in a way I didn't expect. These previously unreal renderings, when compared to both images of Miller and the writings on her vibrant nature, suddenly make sense and have given me new eyes to appreciate his work.

Situated in an old mansion, with foundations dating back to the 14th century, the museum is, like every other part of Barcelona, hidden in some back alley, surrounded by apartment blocks. If you peek through the drawn blinds inside the museum, you'll likely see someone's washing hung out to dry on a balcony. And this is somehow very appropriate.

The movie here captures a short recording of a really cool duo just outside the museum.

We wandered around for the rest of the day, but now we're both tired and looking forward to getting to Sevilla. We leave at 5.30am tomorrow.