Visiting the Palau Moxo

On Thursday the administration of the Palau Moxo organized some tours to present their palace to the Barcelona local guides, and of course I didn't miss it and I loved it.

It's a unique opportunity to visit a private mansion of the 17-hundreds located at the heart of the Old Town. They keep original pieces of furniture and the building is still nowadays inhabited (that's why part of the house isn't open to visitors).

It's been opened recently, and therefore it's not yet in most guidebooks, what makes the experience even more charming as it's off the beaten paths. Plus you can rent the place for private events.

Don't miss it!

Http://www.palaumoxo.com

Sant Pau del Camp, a little known jewel!

Although most people just have the time to see the basic Old Town, which would include the Gothic Quarter (Cathedral, Jewish section, medieval alleys and squares...) and the Born section (Santa Maria del Mar, Montcada street, maybe the Picasso Museum aswell), sometimes I'm asked to include in our itinerary other places off the beaten track.

This is the case of the Murph. After a halfday trip to Montserrat, and a Gaudí and Montjuic tour, we still had planned a discovery of the Old Town. So after stopping for lunch at one of my favorite bars of the Boqueria Market (they really wanted to have an authentic food experience, and we had it!), we headed first to the Gothic Quarter and the Born section.

The Murph love architecture and were specially interested in the Middle Ages. They had made some research and had found out about one of the oldest monasteries in town: Sant Pau del Camp. I'm rarely asked to take someone to this charming little-known place, a jewel hidden in the "wild" Raval district. So I was very pleased to take them there.

From the Born area we crossed the Mercè quarter (another area that I rarely include in my average tours... except for a couple of great taverns in my tapas tours!), passed by Palau Güell and entered the multicultural streets of the Raval that took us to this romanesque monastery built over 1000 years ago in what used to be the countryside around Barcelona (hence its name: St. Paul of the Field).

The Murph enjoyed its ancient architecture (specially its cozy cloister) and its millenary history. And after the visit I took them to a nearby avenue and helped them getting a cab back to their hotel. This had been an exciting and illustrating day!

Great to have them back!

When a building I like needs restauration and it gets covered with scaffolding, I know I won't be seeing its familiar beauty for some months... even years!
But when the works are finally over, it's such a pleasure to have them back and clean and repaired!

This week I had to nice surprises: the works inside of the Església de Santa Maria del Pi, which had been totally covered with scaffolding blocking the view of its gorgeous rosewindow, and the front of Santa Maria del Mar, have been finally completed and they are both back to their normal scaffolding-free appearances!

It's great to have them back!
Would you like to discover them with me? Check out my Medieval Barcelona walking tours!

The egg is dancing again!

Sounds like a weird tittle for a post, doesn't it? But that's precisely what it's about! Every year around Corpus Christi day, the tradition of the Dancing Egg (Ou com Balla) is celebrated in the Old Town of Barcelona and a couple of other places in the Eixample District. The force of the water jets of medieval fountains of different gothic buildings pushes up eggs, that stay dancing on the top.

This year you can see it from today until June 14th, from 10am to 8pm in the following places:

See the complete Ou com Balla 2009 map

To see a video from last year's Dancing Egg go to this old post.

The Born in flames

Last Sunday, the local artist Muma organized a performance in the streets of the Born Quarter in Barcelona, inviting everyone to lit up candles forming wavy patterns in the twilight. He has done this kind of event in other European cities. In Barcelona, he choose the district that was beside the port in the Middle Ages, that's why he called this activity "Encenguem la mar" (Let's lit up the sea).

Although it rain through the first part of the event, the volonteers kept lighting up the candles and when night fell, the whole neighbourhood was imbued of the magical fairy and peaceful spirit of fire. I was there with some friends participating in the event.

I apologize about the delay, but there is so much work (tours and office work) that a week has passed before I managed to get the pics ready...

The Cathedral of the Sea, by Ildefonso Falcones

A best-seller in Spain, "The Cathedral of the Sea" by author Ildefonso Falcones is already available in English.

If you are coming to Barcelona and love historic literature, don't miss this book! Often compared to the style of Noah Gordon and inspired in Ken Follet's "The Pillars of Earth", it tells the story of a kid born as a serf that reaches the medieval Barcelona with his father scaping from their blood-thirsty lord, and progresses in the social scale to become a respectable and wealthy citizen. And his life is always somehow related to the magnificent Santa Maria del Mar church (Our Lady of the Sea).

Reading this book you'll learn a lot about the daily life in the middle ages in Barcelona and the Mediterranean area, and the city Old Town will become an even more exciting place to discover when you come visiting, because you'll be seing in person the places you'd have read about.

I do reccomend it! Enjoy your reading!

 

New Center of the Jewish Quarter

A new Center of the Jewish Quarter has recentely been open in the heart of the medieval Call of Barcelona.

Located in a restored old building with a history full of legends (some people said it was once the House of an Alchemist...), it wants to become an information point where visitors can discover more about the neighborhood where the jewish community lived until the attacks of 1391.

However, right now their offer is quite simple: a few underground excavations visible through a glass floor, some pottery and books displayed in a couple of showcases, a couple of jewish tumbstones, and slide show that in my opinion is more interesting for researchers rather than tourists. Guidebooks and postards are also available.

In one of the street doors there is a mezuza hole.

To know more: http://www.museuhistoria.bcn.es/