On my last day in Barcelona, we were going to meet up with Andrew and Joanna. We went to a local bakery that is a fave of Edie and Bill, Praktik. They had a nice little patio to sit in.
We headed to the Miro museum together, via taxi. It was interesting to see so many Miros in one place! I particularly liked this tapestry.
It was a very hot day and I was super tired, so I didn't get into all of the info about this unique artist but I did appreciate the air conditioning. They also had a nice little sit-down restaurant as part of their cafe so we had a nice lunch.
After our 'siesta', Edie found a casteller, or human towers, show. This is a Catalan tradition that started in rural villages but apparently is quite popular in Barcelona. Based on my observation, several 'teams' meet up in a plaza. Each team is wearing a team coloured shirt. The teams rotate in building their castels. The bottom level is the big guys and lighter and lighter teammates climb onto the previous level's shoulders. The top level is a child (I'd guess 10-ish and from what I saw always a girl) who needs to raise an arm and flash 4 fingers (to represent the 4 stripes of the Catalan flag) before climbing down. While a team is building their castel, members of the other teams will provide side support (like flying buttresses on gothic cathedrals) at the base. It seems like there is a sense of competition, but not really. The teams started by building 4 sided castels, then 2 sided then single. The finally included all 4 teams building single castels together. The whole thing is accompanied by drum and fife type music. It's all quite festive and after they're done, everyone dances and celebrates. It was a lot of fun!
After watching the castellers, we headed to a nearby outdoor restaurant for tapas. It was so great that Edie and Bill knew exactly where to go. Since we had a pretty big group, we shared a large selection of dishes. What a great way to spend my last evening in Barcelona. Of course the evening ended with gelato, which seems to be super popular in Spain.
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