Anyway, we successfully navigated to Placa de Catalunya, the main square in Barcelona. The plan was to have no plan, just wander around Las Ramblas and Bario Gotico and get the flavor of the place. Instead of repeating all the stuff you can read in any travel book or website, I'm going to fixate on some of the more obscure and maybe even odd stuff we saw.
Here's a very interesting sculptured mail slot from the Casa de l’Ardiaca.
The swallows represent the swiftness of truth and the turtle the pace of justice. Somehow those ideas and art seem very Spanish to me.
Not far away is the Church of Sants Just i Pastor.
I paid my 2 euros and climbed the narrow, winding, ancient steps to the top of the bell tower for panoramic views of the city. Along the way up I found what appears to be a Moorish head mounted on the wall.
Although this falls pretty squarely under the heading "politically incorrect," I suppose it's not too surprising, given the historic struggles with the Moors in Spain.
Back on the ground floor I found two other things I've never seen in a church before, though I'm no expert for sure. First, if you're going to have a birth, even from a virgin, you probably are going to have a pregnancy, but I've never seen that depicted in a church until today.
And finally, though Hell is still considered a thing in Catholicism, I've never seen it pictured in a church.
The weather today was stunning. Sunny and almost 70. Tomorrow's supposed to be better yet. I think we'll go to the beach...