Spanish Pyrénées (and thinking about big landscapes)

Amy and I spent a couple days hiking in the Spanish Pyrénées.  We stayed at a little farm/inn called Mas La Casanova, and hiked to the Queralbs station to take the rack railway up the steep river valley to Vall de Núria, then hiked from there.

The scenery was so enormous, it was hard to take it in.

Some of the terrain was craggy and inhospitable.

Other views looked bucolic and soft.

I thought a lot about photographic perspective.  It helped to have someone little in the picture, to see how big the mountains and valley were.

Or, I could take a picture with a big subject, and the mountains behind.  (Only later did we learn that some of the cows didn't like tourists, and occasionally a gored tourist would get hauled off to the hospital.)

Because of the scale of the landscape, we often had uneven lighting as clouds passed overhead.  It was gorgeous, but only sometimes could my camera manage the dynamic range.

Even with the enormous scale of the countryside, t was also rewarding to look closely as well.

Photography is a form of curation.  My photographs can't show everything I saw, or what was behind me, or the sound of the cowbells or the feel of the sun and wind on my face.  But my hope is that good photographs can convey some of the glory of these mountains.

Barcelona

I know I'm late to the party on this -- so many people have told me that Barcelona is a wonderful place.  But now I've been there, and, well, it's a wonderful place.  Also, perhaps to the benefit of this post, it's a visual treat.

I'm going to focus on two aspects of the city: the food, and the public spaces.  The street art above is related to both; as far as I can tell from The Google, it's the front of a restaurant (four by five, in Catalan, apparently referring to the restaurant's small footprint).

Below, an amazing dish of ceviche with a spiced sorbet made from the ceviche juice (the chef called the sorbet "leche de tigre."

We went on an amazing tapas tour (a gift from colleagues, thank you!!).  Here Zoltan, our guide, explains the best way to enjoy our prawns.

As fabulous as the food in Barcelona is, it is equaled by the visual delights.  There is street art everywhere

and the streets themselves are varied and interesting.

There are many imposing old churches

and even the water fountains are beautiful.

Scattered throughout the city are Antoni Gaudi's masterpieces.  We were enthralled by the Sagrada Familia church, begun in 1882 and still under construction (return trip to Barcelona in 10 or 20 years when it's done?).

The Casa Milà (La Pedrera) was one of Gaudi's last works.  Completed in 1910, it still looks very modern.

Gaudi even designed sea-themed sidewalk tiles used in much of Barcelona.

One final thing:  apparently Barclona is like a cat, and if we dispose of garbage properly, that will be good.

A really big cat....

12 Reasons to Bike The Dalmatian Coast (Croatia)

We had a week biking along the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia.  Despite a heat wave, it was a wonderful trip.  Highlights:

1. Biking mile after mile of gorgeous coastline with amazing views.

2. Biking up really long hills resulted in really long downhill zooms!

3. Lavender was in bloom.

4. We picked fresh blackberries, plums, and figs along the roadside.

5. We stopped for picnic lunches in olive groves,

and octopus peka (cooked "under a dome") in a vineyard.

6. We rode through (and stayed in) beautiful old stone villages and cities.

7. Kittens.

8. A forest fire along our route on the island of Hvar gave us the chance to see, up close and overhead, planes dumping sea water to extinguish the flames.

9. Sunsets.

10. Amy and Sarah joining with a group of children flinging pebbles at sunset.

11. Dalmatian traditional singing and dance.

12. Marco and his friends in Stari Grad (we ate at this restaurant because we heard him singing from across the square).

You can hear Marco sing here:  https://youtu.be/MSHQ8NsnWi0