A Spanish feast for the senses
History, culture and food in Barcelona makes this city a draw for millions of visitors
Along the jagged Mediterranean coast of Spain, from Barcelona south to Málaga, along bonewhite barren hills and lush olive groves, from the shimmery gardens of Andalusia and the grandeur of the Alhambra, I made my way to the homeland of my ancestors for the first time.
It took much of my life to get to Spain. But I’ve known it — the Spain of blood and sand, flamenco, theatre and poetry — since I was a child in Puerto Rico. Madrid evoked marvel and dreams for us, and my mother longed for the crimson geraniums of Seville and the dirges of Granada, reciting García Lorca’s lines, “Verde, que te quiero verde. Verde viento. Verde ramas.”
My mother, whose ancestors came from Catalonia and Madrid in the late 1700s and early 1800s, wasn’t the only source of my dreams of Spain. Few places have been romanced as passionately as the 1,500-year-old city of Barcelona, capital of the autonomous region of Catalonia. Catalan poet Joan Maragall called it la gran encisera, the great enchantress. Devastated in the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War and immortalized in George Orwell’s classic “Homage to Catalonia,” Barcelona houses celebrated museums and architecture and was home to the great artists Joan Miró, Antoni Gaudi, Salvador Dalí and the young Pablo Picasso.
So that is where I chose to go. I ambled down Las Ramblas in Barcelona last summer, through the throng of tourists who, at a fast-rising clip of more than 18 million a year, overrun this Catalan metropolis of 5.5 million people.
Las Ramblas, flanked by narrow car lanes and lined by cafés and souvenir stands, is packed tight night and day, a convivial rendezvous for foreigners and locals alike. The boulevard, which follows the course of a stream that was eventually diverted, was home to convents and monasteries before the anticlerical riots of 1835 destroyed many of them. The promenade, whose name comes from the Arabic word ramla, was rebuilt in the late 19th century and is
lined with historic sights: the Teatre Poliorama, where Orwell hid for three days during the Spanish Civil War, and the Mercat de la Boqueria, where the seafood, ham and sausage counters draw hungry denizens. And then there are buskers and backpackers, hawkers and mimes, live human statues in glittering silver makeup, Gypsy troubadours, and, on a second-floor balcony, a Marilyn Monroe look-alike, in a white pleated skirt wafting up to her bare thighs, a takeoff of the steam-vent shot in “The Seven Year Itch.”
The evening was heavy with human heat and humidity, reminiscent of the Caribbean. But I pushed on. To the sea.
Finally I reached the Mirador de Colom, an austere 1888 monument to Columbus that looks out toward the Mediterranean. Merchant ships, tourist cruisers, yachts, sailboats and fishing boats jammed the marinas. I slowed down to study gallery posters and sculptures along the 4.3-kilometre-long boardwalk. I turned toward a row of open-air fisheries set along the pebbled waterfront, in sight of the crisscrossing steel beams and blue glass of the 44-storey Hotel Ars Barcelona soaring over the Barceloneta beach.
Now, at last, the Mediterranean. It conjures images of the voyage my ancestors took on the way to America.
Framed by hills and sea, Barcelona used to be walled off from the Mediterranean by old textile factories and a grimy industrial port. The beaches were filthy with factory waste, railroad tracks and garbage dumps. But after the death of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in 1975 and the birth of constitutional democracy in Spain, which lifted Barcelona as much as the rest of Spain, artists, engineers and architects set about to remake the city, restoring the century-old street grid and redesigning hotels, discos, bars and even food in time for the 1992 Summer Olympics. The games introduced this design-obsessed city to a global television audience. From then on, Barcelona has reigned as a dazzling object of tourism.
More than 2.8 million people a year visit Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s unfinished cathedral in Barcelona, the most popular monument in all of Spain. On the steamy afternoon that I visited it, I felt that all 2.8 million were there with me, the crowd was that large, unmanageable and distracting.
Misdirected from one side to another, I walked outside the monument looking for my guide. I finally found the right group, and we shuffled up the steps to the entrance and were held up by other groups. Our guide, wearing the red jacket that identifies Sagrada Familia doyennes, could barely be heard above the cacophony of voices and scuffling feet. I couldn’t take in the immensity of the church, its iconoclastic design, the inscriptions etched on walls and wooden doors, the towers built like dripping candles, the sweeps of curving walls and statues of odd shapes and faces. On the outdoor steps, tourists plopped down, worn out, sweating, but still dazzled, their eyes raised to the spirals that have become the stuff of souvenirs, fridge magnets and postcards.
It was in Málaga, and in Moorish Granada, where I noticed the ubiquitous presence of Arab culture. I wondered if some of my ancestors had come from that culture, but nothing I found in my family’s history suggested that. But Islamic civilization left a deep mark in Andalusia during seven centuries of domination that ended when Christian forces expelled the Moors with the fall of Granada in 1492. The Moorish legacy is evident, in the tea rooms and back-street markets, in Arab names, the baths called hammams and food.
One way or another, rich or poor, artist or farmhand, Muslims are a growing factor in Spain. The poor settle in the jobrich cities, remote towns and agricultural fields along the Mediterranean. The rich own homes in Marbella and park their yachts in Puerto Banus.
The village of Torregrossa lies flat in the farm country of Catalonia, a nine-century-old town of about 2,300 people. For some time, I had assumed that a branch of my family originated there, given the similarity in the town name and my family name. One day, shortly after my arrival in Barcelona, I travelled to Torregrossa to find out. An acquaintance in Barcelona had arranged for me to meet Josep M. Puig Vall, the amiable 50ish town mayor.
We met in his office in the Ajuntament, which, like most of Torregrossa, was ancient, with shuttered windows, dark stairs and stone walls. He offered coffee and spoke quickly and proudly about his town, where he’d lived all his life. Then, somewhat apologetically, he said that there had never been a Torregrosa in Torregrossa. He could confirm that Torregrosa, my mother’s paternal name, is Catalan but found in many parts of Spain.
Perhaps it was my mother’s passion for carnations, flamenco and jamon Iberico. I imagined her maternal bloodlines came from southern Spain, from Seville, or Cordoba, or maybe Madrid and bordering provinces.
I arrived in Seville late one night on the train from Málaga. I had been travelling by autobus and train for more than 18 hours after a short overnight visit to Tangier, Morocco, one-time centre and cinematic setting of forbidden sex and Dionysian poetry. The international jet set, fashion designers, royals, movie stars and writers made their appearances in Tangier. But it has fallen on hard times. The spotlight has turned off.
After that trip, Seville seemed miraculous. I checked in at my hotel shortly before midnight, walked down the boulevard Reyes Catolicos, past open restaurants and bars, turned on a side street and spotted a small neighbourhood called La Azotea, clearly a place that tourists don’t find by chance. I took up a stool at the bar, ordered a glass of dry red and asked for whatever the kitchen wanted to make me. I looked around the room, an everyday tapas bar on Zaragoza Street with a blackboard listing wines and patrons laughing and sharing plates. Shortly a small bowl was placed in front of me. A delicate piece of delicious grilled or sauteed cod rested on a bed of mashed or puréed potato. When I finished, I asked to meet the owner-chef but didn’t have the presence of mind to ask for the recipe. I wrote down the name of the place and paid my bill: 8 euros ($9.50 US).
Instantly, from the first hour, Seville for me was all like that, a feast of the senses. Walking one morning in the Parque de Maria Luisa, I thought of my mother, who loved it, who had its name. Another day, I found the romantic Art Deco bar at the opulent Alfonso XIII hotel and chatted with new acquaintances while sipping a perfect Negroni.
Spain has been a haven for writers and dreamers and wanderers, expats from colder lands. Unlike Mexico, where expatriate Americans tend to concentrate in San Miguel Allende, Mexico City and the Riviera Maya, Americans in Spain are scattered through the peninsula.
Sarah Gemba, a Bostonian who fell in love with a Spaniard, moved to Seville years ago and started a travel agency.
A fellow New Englander, Lauren Aloise, transplanted herself to Madrid and established food tours.
My mother had wanted to move to Madrid and lived with that dream for years but never managed to do it.
As a child, I didn’t understand her passion for Spain, why she felt so at home there. But now I know.