Barcelona, Three Times Over

I’ve been to Barcelona three times now. Each time I leave, I tell myself it won’t be as long before I come back. Each time I’m back, I remember exactly why I said that.

This trip was different from the first two in a couple of ways. For starters, I came to celebrate my birthday -June 1st -which felt like a pretty reasonable excuse to be in one of my favorite cities in the world. I also lined up some work with a travel company starting a few days in, which gave the whole thing a nice dual purpose. Part birthday trip, part assignment, all Barcelona.

I flew in a few days before my birthday and gave myself that initial stretch of time to just exist in the city with no agenda. If you’ve spent any time in Barcelona you know that “no agenda” there is still a pretty full life. The city has a way of filling your hours without ever feeling like it’s demanding anything from you.

A few days in, my work assignment kicked off and I spent time shooting a tour through the Gothic Quarter. This neighborhood rewards slowness. You could walk through it fifty times and still find a doorway or a passageway you’ve never noticed before. It’s dense with history in a way that doesn’t announce itself too loudly, which I appreciate. It lets you discover things at your own pace.

At some point during the tour we came across one of the Gothic Quarter’s fountains with an egg balanced and dancing on top of the water jet. This is the “ou com balla” -the dancing egg -a Corpus Christi tradition that Barcelona has kept alive for centuries. It sounds like a simple thing, and visually it kind of is, but there’s something quietly enchanting about watching an egg hold its balance on a stream of water in the middle of a medieval courtyard while tourists walk past without noticing. I noticed. I photographed it. I thought about it for the rest of the afternoon.

The highlight of the tour, though, was coming out near the Cathedral and finding a group of locals dancing the Sardana -the traditional Catalan circle dance. If you’ve never seen it, it’s one of those quiet, dignified things that feels almost defiant in the best possible way. People of all ages, holding hands, moving together in these measured, deliberate steps. I stood back and watched for a while before I even raised my camera. It deserved that.

The Cathedral itself I also photographed, and it hits differently than the Sagrada Familia -which I made a point of getting to as well. The Gothic Quarter’s Cathedral has that worn, lived-in quality that the Sagrada Familia doesn’t yet have, though the Sagrada Familia is in a category entirely its own. Standing in front of Gaudi’s masterpiece and trying to make a single frame that does it any justice is a genuinely humbling exercise.

Some of my favorite photos from any trip are the ones I didn’t plan. Walking along La Rambla I looked up and spotted the giant yellow owl perched on top of the El Siglo building against a perfectly clear blue sky -big round yellow eyes staring out over the city like it’s been watching over the whole thing for decades. 

It has that quality of being simultaneously absurd and completely right for the place. Barcelona earns its owl.

And then there’s Carrer de Blai. If you know, you know. I made my way down there for pintxos, which is really the only responsible thing to do when you’re within walking distance. I photographed a plate before eating it, though I’ll be honest that the photo was more of a formality -the pintxos were not going to last long enough for a proper session.

For my birthday night out I had paella at Les Quinze Nits, which if you haven’t been is a long-running restaurant just off La Rambla that does a really solid job without any pretension about it. I also got to spend that evening with my good friend Adeline, who lives in Barcelona, and we grabbed a photo together that I’m really glad exists. One of those reminders that the best cities in your life tend to also hold the best people.

I’ve lived in Florence for a few years now, which means home has become a complicated word for me. There’s the place I’m from, the place I live, and then there are the places that somehow feel like both without being either.

Barcelona sits in that third category. It isn’t the architecture or the food or the light alone -though all of those things are doing real work. It’s that Barcelona asks nothing of you while somehow giving you exactly what you needed.

I didn’t realize that’s what I was looking for until I was walking back along that boardwalk again, feeling the same way I always do there, and thinking that maybe some places don’t need to be explained. They just need to be returned to.

Third visit down. I already know there will be a fourth.