La Carretera de les Aigües

.... or rather, the view from La Carretera de les Aigües (literally, the road of the Water)!

In Barcelona we have a green treasure. Actually it's not only ours, but we share it with other municipalities around, and its name is Collserola. And yes, those who say that the park suffers many attacks are quite right, but it is still a privilege to have a space like this, which can be reached by public transportation. As they say, it is one of the largest metropolitan parks in the world.

The Carretera de les Aigües is the secret that the people from Barcelona keep in this green park. A walk along its route helps restore your spirit. At least it happens to me. And when I sit in one of the benches along its route, I admire the esplanade of Barcelona and I think .... Wow! No matter if the day is sunny and the visibility is good or the atmosphere is dirty, foggy, and cloudy...it always happens to me... Wow!

Butaaano!

The city is also defined by its sounds, and Barcelona is full of them. We keep in our emotional memory those men delivering the orange gas cylinders, making loud noises with metal objects, telling us that they are here: those of you who need butane just tell us now! we take it to your house! Butaaaaaaaaano!
A very hard work, strolling through the city streets with their trucks, and weekly delivering the tanks, picking afterwards the ones that are already empty. By the way, often climbing narrow staircases to upper floors, loading a cylinder weighing about 35 kilograms when full!
The city gas and electricity, much easier to use and distribute, have been gaining ground, which is totally understandable. But we must not forget that the butane has given heat, light and energy to a city, a whole country which have not always had so easy the fact of turning on a light or a heat source. An everyday object that has come to define a color, and has contributed to the welfare of many of Barcelonians.

The laundry in Barceloneta

The streets of Barceloneta have always had a special personality. A fisher district created in the eighteenth century on land reclaimed from the sea four centuries earlier. It became an important industrial area, when the City Council banned the installation of industries with steam inside the walled city. Simultaneously, many of its houses were divided into smaller dwellings, thus creating the famous "quarters of house".
The Barceloneta has always been a sailor district, popular, full of workers, and in recent years it has been subject to a growing tourist pressure. The washing hanging out in its balconies just reminds us all what the neighborhood has always been: the narrow houses, the Mediterranean character of its people, the popular spirit and the desire to build a public space together. As long as I see the clothes hanging in the streets, I'll feel happy: Barceloneta is still here.

Open for vacation

In August, Barcelona suffers a curious duality. I wouldn't say that the city is empty, and just take a walk through the center to check it, full of tourists. But what we call "els barris, the neighborhoods" are left strangely empty, sleepy, silent. The sign"Closed for Vacation" is repeated on the doors of shops, telling us that the shopkeeper has fled, like almost everyone, and that until September there is no rush.
I feel that this was much more evident a few years ago, when the city's beaches were not a reasonable alternative and holidays for workers were more concentrated during the two central months of summer. Today, first day of September, to take I open this space in which I will try to make a collection of things that the locals recognize as their own, beyond the typical tourist sights. What we do, what we love, what we are.