HOLIDAYS & TRAVEL
A Classified View
BARCELONA
Tim Hitchcock writes: C pain is my addiction. I get antsy if too long ',passes without an Iberian hit. It can be art. food, drink, nightlife. The Spaniards themselves. Or all of the above.
I acquired a serious Spain habit on day one of my first trip to Barcelona in 1986, to mark the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. The moment I walked out of the station, POUM and PSOE were forgotten. History books hadn't touched on the fascination of Barcelona, its architecture combining the old of the Barn i Gotic, the elegance of Eixample and the downright eccentric of Antoni Gaudi.
At lOpm, 1 hit La Rambla, the bustling avenue that runs through the city to the port. People strolled or packed the cafes. A bird market was in noisy flow. Nearer the docks the creatures for sale changed. Prostitutes of both sexes lounged about. A transvestite in satin hot pants gyrated his buttocks at passers-by. Nobody seemed to notice. Very different from my parents' hometown, Worcester, I thought. A friendly man stopped me to ask something. Past stage one of the incomprehension barrier I figured out he was offering me a job. Once his pimpish jewellery and some very clear hand actions had sunk in, I realised it would be lucrative but not perhaps the career I wished to pursue.
We parted with no hard feelings. A little later, a man walking ahead casually took a knife from his waistband, hitched up his trousers, and shoved it back in a comfier position. I scurried away to sample the bars of the medieval Old Town. Another revelation they didn't open until 3am, when London's night owls were putting on their pyjamas.
Late next morning, everything I had experienced the previous day seemed astonishingly vibrant, from Gaudi's Sagrada Familia to the ropy end of La Rambla. I was hooked the more so after meeting a girl who established my enduring preference for brunettes. Sitting next to her on the train, I cursed my lack of fluency in Spanish. Wordlessly, I drank in her oddly familiar scent. It took a Proustian moment to work out why. She was wearing Brut 33 and smelt like Henry Cooper.
Spain was like that in 1986, the year it joined Europe: desperate to be modern, chic, and European but not quite there. Nowadays that girl would have a dab of Jean Patou behind her ears and be dressed by Zara.
New art galleries have transformed Barcelona's formerly rough districts and the city vies with Paris as a destination for weekend breaks. EU money has spruced up the whole country but Spain still has its distinctive ethos and vivacity. Despite common belief, popularity has not spoilt the country. My most recent visit was in March to that part of the Costa del Sol derided as Southend-in-the-Sun. The inevitable developments tapeworm along the coast but a few miles inland, the mountain villages defiantly retain their character.
Where next? Madrid, to revisit the Prado? Granada, with its Moorish quarter and pedlars selling prickly pears? A pilgrimage across the north to Santiago de Compostela beckons. It's a hard decision because, like me, Eurohomogenisation has never worked south of the Pyrenees. Here comes that antsy feeling again.
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