Walk Like an Olympian

This morning started off with a run up Tibidabo.  It wasn't the run that I had planned, but when I stepped out my door, my feet had a mind of their own.  So up to the mountain I went.  I'd planned to just go to the base of the top funicular, but once I got there, the challenge of getting up to the peak was too tempting.  So up I went again.  I'm glad that I went on all those mountain runs with my coworkers, because I needed it.  It was a beautiful run through the Tibidabo part of Collserola Park, and there was even free Gatorade on the way back down (GREAT timing for a promotion, Gatorade people!).
The rest of the day was similarly filled with mountains.  I spent the afternoon at Montjuic, which I hadn't really explored (I'd just gone to the Fundacio Joan Miro).  Most of the stuff on top of Montjuic is from the Olympics, held here in 1992.  For example, this "Walk of Fame" with athletes' shoeprints:

I also went inside the Olympic Stadium, which is massive.  I couldn't stop thinking about how painful it would be to run the stadium here (for non-runners, this means running up and down all the sets of stairs between the sections of seats).

Outside the Olympic Stadium.  I don't think anyone mistook me for an undercover Olympic athlete (then again, I'm also not in England right now) but there's a chance, right?

I also stopped by the Calatrava Tower, another swanky communications tower with its own flare.  Designed by Santiago Calatrava for the Olympic games, the tower's interesting shape represents an athlete holding the Olympic flame.  The base is decorated with the broken tile shard mosaic technique, trencadis, pioneered by Gaudi.

For people who love random factoids, the tower's orientation makes it work as a giant sundial AND the architect also designed the famous Chicago Spire.
There were other interesting Olympic tributes, as well, such as this set of rock sculptures dedicated to Hwang Young-Jo, a Korean athlete who won the Olympic Marathon in Barcleona in 1992. This set of art also incorporates elements showing the dedication of Korea (I'm assuming South?) and Catalunya to working together.

Given that everything seems dedicated to the 1992 Olympics, it starts to feel a little bit like Mount Olympics rather than Montjuic, but once I'd wandered a little further, the feeling dissipated, because....
My next stop was the castle that sits proudly atop Montjuic.

It has had various incarnations in its many years, including several fortifications that no longer exist.  The current fortress was built in the 17th century, though it was later enlarged.  Since then, the fortress/castle has simply endured the stupidity and brutality of the humans that occupy it.  It sustained damage from shelling in 1842 (Madrid v. Barcelona), served as a prison and execution site of political opponents under General Franco (it was also an execution site for anarchists in 1897, when workers rights were being suppressed).  During the Spanish Civil War, both sides (Republicans and Nationalists) held control of the castle/fortress at different times and executed their opponents there.  There has been a lot of blood shed here.

But now, in this time of peace in Barcelona, when the Catalan culture has won victory in its struggle to celebrate its culture and exalt its perseverance, the fortress is simply a beautiful, almost serene place to look out over the city.  The passageways between levels offer a cool respite from the beating sun, while the simplicity of the various levels is a surprising relief to the constant barrage of beauty and complex designs of the architecture in the city below.

A few statues decorate the fortress...

but most of its "adornments" are old pieces of military equipment: cannons and machine guns and other heavy artillery.  It's striking to watch people pass these relics without pause, without thought, climbing on them and throwing up their hands with huge smiles, forgetful - or more likely, ignorant - of the bloody past.  Most striking, perhaps, was watching the carefree attitude of parents who posed their children atop cannons for photo-ops.

On a lighter note, this fortress/castle was also where the astronomer Pierre Mechain established the coordinates of Barcelona using triangulation measurements during the years 1792-1795.  He used measurements of the meridian arc, which served as the basis of the metric system.  Go Pierre!  This plaque was posted in honor of the two hundredth anniversary:

Walking down the hill from the castle, I came across this oft-photographed statue of Sardana dancers:

This group dancing (which I witnessed a few weeks ago) is a traditional Catalan circle dance performed to live music.
And, one of my favorite gems: the Montjuic pool offers probably one of the greatest urban overlooks a recreational swimmer has ever seen.  It would have been a beautiful day for a dip.

Note: this pool was used for the Olympic diving competition and hte preliminary phases of the water polo competition.  It was built in 1929 on the site of an older pool, and was enlarged for the Mediterranean Games in 1955. And then, as with everything, it was made Bigger and Better for the 1992 games by Antoni de Moragas.  And now, of course, it's open to you, too. (price: 5.35 euros)

Spotted: Piknic Electronik Barcelona, an electronic music festival held this weekend (and quite a few weekends coming up) on Montjuic.

I first noticed signs for this music festival a week or so ago, when Naaman's flatmate Gaby commented that Piknic Electronik is held every weekend on an island in Montreal, right by the McGill campus.  She was surprised to see it here, but then we realized that there's a major music festival here almost every weekend and it began to see a bit less surprising.  The festival seemed to be a bit sparsely attended, but perhaps it hadn't started in earnest, yet.  There were a few little white tents set up, a few food stations, and loose clumps of people roaming the open area.  The guards at the entrance seemed very relaxed, and didn't even look up from their small talk when I went all shutterbug on their music festival.