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Photos: Illegitimi Non Carborundum
There is a passage in the Bible where the Devil stands with Jesus on a mountain that looks upon "all the kingdoms of the world" and says, …Et dixit illi haec tibi omnia dabo si cadens adoraveris me-- "All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me." Imagine looking out on all those riches, offered so much power! What a tempting, horrible moment. What a story.
It´s a dark, intriguing story, to be sure. And suppose you worked on the outskirts of Barcelona and all you had to do was turn to the right and look out of the window to see this imposing mountain named after that story rising up above the city, crowned by a church, omnipresent and impossible to ignore. In the end, Laura, my colleague, had to ask what I kept looking at and I told her. She enthused about going up Tibidabo, and how one can see all of Barcelona from there. Hannah chimed in with the story of Jesus and how she always thought about it when she saw the mountain.
So, of course, the logical thing to do was to go up there and maybe it would stop intriguing me so much. Though nothing is ever so easy in Barcelona. It is an attention h0r of a city, which is why I shouldn´t have been too surprised to get off the metro
Apparently, all these weird imitations of ancient statues had sprung up all over the Ramblas. Barcelona does so love its street art.
They were beautiful and huge and sinister.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jaffacakequeen, I wish you had been there. You would have been clicking away like mad.
Even the very buildings are distracting. I notice something new each time. But I was going up that mountain, dammit!
I arrived at Avenida del Tibidabo and more attention h0r buildings.
Even the bar en-route couldn´t stop me. The drink is not mine, I hasten to add. I merely came for the view!
Okay, so it was a hot day and the road was uphill. Nae bother! Look, the church and shizz wasn´t too far away, surely?
Just a little bit further, Becky, I told myself. No, you´re not going to die up here. Just... a few hundred more metres. Upwards.
I tried not to think about how small Sagrada Familia looked over yonder.
Lots of nice flora there to watch me stagger past. Pretty, huh?
ozfille, remember when I said I had a real D´oh moment when I realised I could have got the funicular rather than struggling ALL THAT WAY? This is it. My face must have been a parody of shock and rage.
I was working my way back down the mountain when I came across this view and decided it absolutely could not be ignored.
Then I got lost coming down a mountain and limped my way along a Sleepy Hollow-esque trail.
...And back to non-sweaty civilisation. There are all sorts of weird and beautiful houses in the rich district on Avenida Tibidabo, but I was looking for one house in particular...
Number 32, the cursed home of the doomed Aldaya family in Carlos Ruiz Zafon´s novel The Shadow of the Wind. Except it´s an office, now, so one has to exercise a little extra imagination.
Those grand imposing gates help, though.
Poor Penelope. :(
It just looked neat. :D
So, tired, hot and hungry, I got back to Placa Catalunya to catch the train to my part of the city. Of course, Barcelona couldn´t leave it there and I ran right into all these people giving out free hugs. Barcelona has attention deficit disorder, I swear.
.
It´s a dark, intriguing story, to be sure. And suppose you worked on the outskirts of Barcelona and all you had to do was turn to the right and look out of the window to see this imposing mountain named after that story rising up above the city, crowned by a church, omnipresent and impossible to ignore. In the end, Laura, my colleague, had to ask what I kept looking at and I told her. She enthused about going up Tibidabo, and how one can see all of Barcelona from there. Hannah chimed in with the story of Jesus and how she always thought about it when she saw the mountain.
So, of course, the logical thing to do was to go up there and maybe it would stop intriguing me so much. Though nothing is ever so easy in Barcelona. It is an attention h0r of a city, which is why I shouldn´t have been too surprised to get off the metro
Apparently, all these weird imitations of ancient statues had sprung up all over the Ramblas. Barcelona does so love its street art.
They were beautiful and huge and sinister.
jaffacakequeen, I wish you had been there. You would have been clicking away like mad.Even the very buildings are distracting. I notice something new each time. But I was going up that mountain, dammit!
I arrived at Avenida del Tibidabo and more attention h0r buildings.
Even the bar en-route couldn´t stop me. The drink is not mine, I hasten to add. I merely came for the view!
Okay, so it was a hot day and the road was uphill. Nae bother! Look, the church and shizz wasn´t too far away, surely?
Just a little bit further, Becky, I told myself. No, you´re not going to die up here. Just... a few hundred more metres. Upwards.
I tried not to think about how small Sagrada Familia looked over yonder.
Lots of nice flora there to watch me stagger past. Pretty, huh?
ozfille, remember when I said I had a real D´oh moment when I realised I could have got the funicular rather than struggling ALL THAT WAY? This is it. My face must have been a parody of shock and rage. I was working my way back down the mountain when I came across this view and decided it absolutely could not be ignored.
Then I got lost coming down a mountain and limped my way along a Sleepy Hollow-esque trail.
...And back to non-sweaty civilisation. There are all sorts of weird and beautiful houses in the rich district on Avenida Tibidabo, but I was looking for one house in particular...
Number 32, the cursed home of the doomed Aldaya family in Carlos Ruiz Zafon´s novel The Shadow of the Wind. Except it´s an office, now, so one has to exercise a little extra imagination.
Those grand imposing gates help, though.
Poor Penelope. :(
It just looked neat. :D
So, tired, hot and hungry, I got back to Placa Catalunya to catch the train to my part of the city. Of course, Barcelona couldn´t leave it there and I ran right into all these people giving out free hugs. Barcelona has attention deficit disorder, I swear.
.