Wednesday, April 28

Snapshots From The Last 7 Days: Catalonia



Driving from Santander to Barcelona was easy enough, but once in Catalonia things got a bit confusing. The Catalan people have their own language and like to name/number their roads or not as they see fit, I spent 4 hours being lost in the spaghetti knots of roads around Barcelona trying to find my way to where the crew were working.

There are currently a series of unofficial referendums being held around the Catalonian towns and villages to try and get support for independence



In Barcelona I handed over the van to the cameramen so they could drive the kit home. The Director and I then took off for a few days on the rocky Catalonian peninsula of Cadaqués.


The centre of Cadaqués is maze of crazy-paved and cobbled streets which will become dead ends or steps or simply a rugged sort of rocky riverbed, quite a lot of streets are unnamed and most houses don’t have numbers

I had a go at making a map of Cadaqués


I had booked an apartment on Picasso Street, the landlady emailed me to say that there was no house number but I should call when we arrived and she would take us there. We wound our way down around the mountains and parked the car in what seemed to be roughly the right bit of town, suddenly before us we saw Picassso Street and felt triumphant, I called the landlady:

Me: Hola – Isabel, we’re here - at the end of Picasso Street
Isabel: Which Picasso Street?
Me: It has a furniture shop at the end where I am
Isabel: No you’re at the wrong Picasso Street, you need the short one.


Isabel came to our rescue riding this moped




25 comments:

  1. Haha... Are you sure it wasn't Escher street?

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  2. Great map. Glad you got a little holiday out of the trip.

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  3. Maybe Picasso designed the streets!


    PS: Did you see any sign of Kaz?

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  4. I love exploring scribbly streets. The scribblier the better.
    Hope you found your way in the end.
    Sx

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  5. Alesa - no it was more surreal (Dali Street)

    Eryl - I'm training as a cartographer

    xl - no Kaz spotted I'm afraid

    Scarlet - we left a trail of crumbs when we went out

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  6. KAZ JUST POPPED IN ON HER BLOG!

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  7. *sigh* how lovely! glad y'all had a moment or two to relax. those little girls are too adorable for words! xoxoxoxo

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  8. I love Cadaques! It's such a beautiful, funny place. Glad you had time to get lost and confused there. Then you had an excuse to sit in an outdoor café and have some sangria.

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  9. In Costa Rica, you get directions like
    2 blocks south and one west of the fig tree.
    Great, except the fig tree fell down fifty years' ago.

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  10. We rented this cool house in Cadaques with friends. It was a bungalow with two houses and an inner courtyard on the edge of the water (though surrounded by a high wall with a gorgeous wooden door) From the top of the flat roof where we would sip our apéritif in the evening, we would watch the older kids play on the rocks and take photos of the fishing boats.
    Sigh - wonderful memories...
    Love those two wee girls!

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  11. Most impressive map. can you draw me one of Oslo now please?

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  12. And a fine homage to Catalonia it was. Apologies to Orwell.

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  13. I'm guessing there's no Google Street View for Picasso Street.

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  14. oh man, that sounds lovely...lovely...

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  15. Those girls are gorgeous, they look so happy!

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  16. xl - Hooray!

    Sav - I very nearly adopted them on the spot

    Dedene - there was a lot of outdoor café activity

    Mr Fly - Those are interesting directions indeed


    Ange - We covetted many of those wonderful seaside houses


    Madame DeF - certainly, I am best at designing fjords


    Mrwriteon - thank you


    MJ - Ha!

    Screamish - not too far from you

    Synchy - It might be impossible to be unhappy in Cadaqués

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  17. Hurrah for Isobel! All Spanish women on mopeds make me think of Rossi de Palma in that Almodovar film, the name of which eludes me.

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  18. The Catalans claim that of all extant languages theirs is closest to Latin. But that's bullshit, the Romans never spelt chocolate with an x.

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  19. Gadjo Dilo - it's funny how sexy mopeds can be, they also have groovy helmets

    Nursey - I bought the last one - but I'll share!

    Inky - The Catalans make a lot of claims. That x business is very odd though isn't it?

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  20. Nice bit of reportage Lulu and I love the pics.

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  21. Hurrah, I arrived in the end but after everyone else

    x

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  22. Ta FJ

    FF - always good to see you xx

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  23. A cartographer on top of everything else? I am reeling here. XXOO

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  24. K - Surprisingly people have navigated using my maps

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