Scratch A Barcelona Socialist, Find An Antisemite

Barcelona has a rather long history of antisemitism, which can still be seen in its buildings today.

From the attack on the Jewish Quarted of Barcelona in 1391; to the massacre in 1349 when Barcelonians decided to attack Jews blaming them for the Black Plague; to the attack and destruction of the Jewish Quarter in 1391 when at least 3,000 Jews were killed, to the expulsion of the Jews in 1492 and then the Inquisition as well.

So it's always interesting to see the rulers of Barcelona return to their historic trends.

Barcelona City Council is apparently working on a resolution to "un-twin" Barcelona from Tel Aviv in the name of social justice and BDS. How soon Barcelona forgets Tel Aviv standing by Barcelona after the 2017 ISIS terorist attack, or this is simply another example of Barcelona showing the terrorism works.

We'll note the Barcelona City Council is run by The Socialist Party of Catalonia and the Barcelona en Comú party which has a "social justice" theme. Progressives/Socialists as antisemites? Well, no surprise there.

Sadly not surprising at all.

Barcelona Part III - The City of Churches and Gaudi

First building we entered was the Cathedral of Barcelona, also known as the Cathedral de Santa Eulalia de Barcelona.

Interestingly, it had a large cellular advertisement placed on top of the building, which seemed a bit profane.

 

A Cathedral in the Gothic style, it was built from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries.

The inside is as impressive as the outside, if not more:

 

 

 

The choir area includes seats with the coats of arms from knights of the Order of the Golden Fleece, as Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire established a chapter of the order in Barcelona.

The Cathedral also holds a cross that was at the Battle of Lepanto.  The cross is off to one side, as it apparently moved to dodge an Ottoman cannonball at that battle. 

Tiles with inscriptions from the 1700s can be seen on the floor.

It also holds the Well of Geese and 13 Geese are supposed to be maintained in it at all times.

The 13 geese are in honor of the Saint Eulalia, who the cathedral was named after and was 13 when she was martyred.

Very impressive building and well worth the visit.

Next we went to the Sagrada Família, the Cathedral designed by Gaudi, the famed architect, and it is where he was buried.  Under construction since 1882, The Cathedral is currently the largest unfinished Roman Catholic church in the world.

To say it's huge and will be awesome when it is eventually done. It was supposed to be completed in 2026 the centennial of Gaudi's death.  It likely won;t be done by then due to the delays brought on by the COVID lockdowns.

The details of the facade are amazing.

After seeing the Sagrada Família, we then went to a scenic overlook at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya to see the city.

You can see the Sagrada Família standing out as a landmark over the city.

 

The view in other directions are equally impressive.

 

After getting awesome views of the city, we then headed back to the ship, and headed to our next port.

Barcelona Part II - You Never Know What Is In Some People’s Basements

As we walked through he streets of Barcelona we came to an apartment building.

Kinda nice building, not much to talk about really. 

But when they were doing renovations a long time ago,  they dug in and around the basement and foundations and you head down:

 

They found a Roman Temple dedicated to the Emperor Augustus.

To say it's an impressive sight is an understatement. Just a Roman Temple found in the heart of the core of the medieval city of now modern Barcelona.

There's also a large stone block with an inscription honoring a prominent Romaan Aedile and Priest who lived in the Roman Colony of Barcino which in time became Barcelona.  

The block had originally been at this temple,  but over time had been removed and part of of the foundations of a church moved to a church and was discovered there and then moved back to be placed on display.

Lots of history underfoot and all around you in Barcelona.

Barcelona - Part I

We left Gibraltar and had another relaxing day at sea before the ship pulled into port in Barcelona.

We had signed up for a shore excursion for this one so we all loaded up into a bus with about 40 other cruisers and headed off into Barcelona for the tour.

Once we reached the old city, we got out of the bus and began the tour proper.

The old city is very historic, with narrow streets and dates back to Roman times.  It is remarkably clean with nary a piece of litter to be found.

On the upside, the guide, who had a great sense of humor and excellent story-telling style had provided everyone with a radio audio set to be able to hear him.

On the downside the system seemed to have a very short range, and with 40+ people we would get pretty spread out walking through the narrow streets.

 

Of course we had some being very slow walkers between us and the guide leading us to be even more spread out, and the system lost reception due to the distance from him, so we didn't always hear what he was saying.

Our guide was very engaging and rather humorous, and made the tour nice and lively.

The guide narrated a history of Catalonia and how it got the flag it did. 

 There were also quite a few Catalonia is with Ukraine banners hanging from government buildings.

The story as to the origin of the Catalonian flag (Yellow background with four red stripes), as told by the guide is this:

The ruler of Catalonia was dying after a battle and his less than manly son apparently cried and asked him what banner they should use now.  The dying man with four bloody fingers dragged his hand along a yellow flag forming four stripes in blood and stated that was the flag of Catalonia now. Interesting story anyways.

Interestingly there were many Cuban-looking flags hanging from apartments.

The guide explained that Catalonians don't really consider themselves Spaniards. 

He stated that Cuba, being both a last possession of Spain and now communist, holds a special place in many Catalans hearts (He did not mention if Catalonian Commies are saying that Cuba isn't real Communism, but I;m sure they beleive they'll get it right if they're in charge....).

Apparently, Catalonians who favor independence from Spain fly a Cuban-style flag with Catalonian colors:

But, if they're flat-out Catalonian Communists, they just fly the Cuban flag.

So we saw lots of architecture walking around the old city and many fancy old buildings.

 

We then came to a building, currently the Museum Frederic Mares, built from part of the Royal Palace of the Counts of Barcelona that looked rather old, if pretty standard for the city.

On looking at the bricks a little closer, one could tell the Palace had been built using non-typical materials:

Yep, the palace was built using Jewish gravestones taken from the nearby Jewish cemetery, around the time the Jews had been expelled from Spain in 1492 and expelled from Catalonia as well - causing an economic crisis.   

The guide in a rather deadpan manner noted that Jews on tours tended to be a little unhappy on seeing this, and it was not very nice that it had been done.  

European rulers taking stuff from Jews tended to be a repeated theme throughout European history.