David's Diary: Wednesday, December 26, 2001

Views To Montjuïc, Barcelona

With all of the build up to Christmas, we have not had time to see much of Barcelona. Filled with Christmas turkey and eager to explore, we headed off to Montjuïc (literally the mountain of the Jews). The hill stands 173m/569ft tall and has excellent views to the city and Port Vell. A cable car stretches across the marina and it was a short walk to the base of the tower where we took the elevator before boarding the cable car.

Rambla de Mar

Our vantage point let us see much of Port Vell, with Barcelona spread below us. We could see Rambla de Mar, with its opening bridge, which Jocelyn and I had walked across during our first visit to the city. In the distance are the hills behind Barcelona with the huge telecommunications tower acting as a landmark for all to see.

Port Vell

As we started across the harbour in the cable car, we were able to look back to the Port Vell Marina which is our home in Barcelona. Many cruising boats spend the winter in Barcelona, enjoying the mild weather and the proximately of a major European city. We enjoyed being in a major center to do all of our Christmas shopping and we still have much to see in the city.

Castle Montjuïc

Montjuïc overlooks the city and the castle at its top has been used to bombard the city for centuries starting in the 1600s. The Spanish civil war saw Barcelona fall to Franco's regime and the castle at Montjuïc was used as a political prison. Today the castle is peaceful, but military fortifications make it clear why the castle could control a wide area of Barcelona. We walked through the gardens of Montjuïc and enjoyed the gondola ride back down. Montjuïc is also home to many of the venues of the 1992 summer Olympics, including a stadium and the swimming and diving pools.

After our visit, we planned a little surprise for Jocelyn, Kevin, and Allen. While in Port Vendres in France, we went and saw the new Harry Potter movie. We enjoyed the visual effects of the movie, but were lost in many parts of the dialog as it was all in French. Nearby Port Vell, we have discovered a movie theatre that shows movies in "version original." This means that the movie is shown with the original dialog (English in the case of Harry Potter) with Spanish subtitles. We have to walk down Montjuïc, find the subway, and navigate our way to the theatre. We are ten minutes late, but it is worth it to get the full effect of the dialog. Everyone but Allen has read the Harry Potter series and we all enjoyed reliving the books by watching the movie with its original soundtrack.