Life’s an ocean with too much commotion

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a message on my blog I know, but it’s been an extremely busy period for me. This week (and next week, but I’m only here for a week), my girlfriend is participating a summer school in Barcelona. Every occasion for visiting Barcelona is fine for me, so this one comes in handy, especially after this hectic period.

We arrived at noon. Of course we were very tired, took a taxi to our hotel and fell down in our bed. After a short sleep we left the hotel and headed for La Rambla. La Rambla on itself is nothing special. You’ll see some special acts (the game with the ball hiding beneath a cup, some living statues, etc…), terraces and restaurants but it’s pretty fake. It’s the perfect place for being robbed if you’re not careful. My opinion is only to go to La Ramble for crossing it, not walk on it. In this case, we went to La Rambla because the linguistic department of the university is located there.

Our hotel, Silken Hotel, is located on the Avinguda Del Paral-lel. Between this road and La Rambla you have El Raval. It’s a region where poor people and lots of immigrants used to live. The government cleaned it out some times, but at night it’s still a place to avoid. We walked there to find a shortcut between the Parallel and La Rambla and crossed some people injecting heroine on the street. At day, it’s a place where you can find shops of second hand stuff (vinyls, clothing, …). Close to La Rambla, still in El Raval, you have Palau Guell.

In the evening, we went to Port Vell to examine the fish restaurants. We wanted to eat some fish or paella. I went to Barcelona four years ago for the first time. Then, the budget for eating a meal was about 10, max 15 euros. Now these restaurants start at 20-25 euros for a fish meal. Still worth the price, the fish is fresh and service is well. If you want to eat Paella, 7 Portes is a nice restaurant (located in Passeig Isabel II, near Port Vell). People usually have dinner around 9PM. Before 9PM most of the restaurants are empty. Starting from 9PM, it’s common that you’re queued and have to wait before going to dinner. We ate at El Caf9. It was rather expensive but the tapas are great.

We also visited the Mare Magnum that day, a shopping center with restaurants, pubs, places to go out, etc.. It’s entirely built on a platform on the water. Starting from there, you can walk to Port Vell, go to the beach and head for Port Olympic. This picture has been taken between the beach and Port Olimpic, and holds a partially reflection of the Gold Fish by Frank O. Ghery.

In a local shop we bought a bottle of Torres (we paid 3.89 euros here in a local shop, you pay double in Belgium!) and went back to our hotel.

In the beginning of may, we went on a trip to Morbihan, located in the south of Bretagne. We’ve booked a
chambre d’hôtes on Presqu’île de Rhuys, a peninsula in Morbihan. Of course I took a lot of pictures on the trip Actually, this HDR picture of Mont Saint-Michel was taken on our way back to Belgium.

Except for the abbey, which you really can’t miss, there’s nothing to see there. The city/village Avranches is full of tourists, so our visit was very short

There’s a small road heading for the abbey and at the end of that road, there’s a huge parking lot. As a reference, this picture has been taken at the right side of the abbey. I tried to avoid the touristic flood, took my car and try to see the left side of the abbey. It’s hard to get there because there are no roads heading that direction. Of course this was no challenge for me and I got there anyway. On a certain spot at the left side, their was a farmer who was organizing guided tours of a panoramic view around the abbey. He told me that, in ten years, there will be no water around the abbey anymore, due to the sand that is constantly being put off on the small road. To avoid that, they will break up the road and build a viaduct, so that the water, in the rising tide, can flow beneath the viaduct. They will also build a dam, which they can open so that a massive flood of water will wipe all the sand away again. Originally, when the abbey was built, the environment was full of trees, not water. Some natural reaction caused the area to be flood by water. That’s all I could remember of our little conversation

The HDR picture was merged by three pictures of different exposures. I used qtfpsgui to merge them and do some tone mapping.

Hi Koen,

I am delighted to let you know that your submitted photo
has been selected for inclusion in the newly released
second edition of our Schmap Spain Guide.

The Schmap Spain guide can be viewed here.

This picture has been taken in one of the countless streets of Cologne. We went there to visit the famous Christmas fairs. These fairs are spread around the city on several markets.

On one of these markets I drank a mug of Glühwein. You had to pay extra for the mug so you can take it home with you. This reminds me I still have to ask it back to the people that brought it home for me

Every year I try to do at least one city trip.
My city trip in 2006 was Lisbon (Portugal).
We went by plane, and on that plane there was a guy sitting next to me who was addicted to Lisbon. He told us he visited that city over 100 times. He talked during the whole flight and gave us some addresses of places hidden in Lisbon which would normally never get discovered by tourists.
One of them was Chapito, a small circus school in the center of Lisbon. It is located in the Costa Do Castelo, a small street heading to a citadel, which used to cover the old part of the city.
On the picture you see the only entrance to this circus school. It is a small door where you would normally pass by without ever knowing it’s there. Behind this door, you have one of the greatest views over Lisbon, a very nice restaurant and of course the Circus school. Unfortunately, we were too late to experience the circus acts that are performed there..