MY POINT OF VIEW 15 (by Tatiana Sisquella)
Today I want to take you on an excursion. Yes, that’s right, just like the excursions we used to go on when we were kids. So get out your lunch-box, put on some strong shoes and hang your camera around your neck, because we’re going to the mountains.
Barcelona has two big mountains: Montjuïc and Tibidabo. What’s more, these two mountains (depending on where you’re looking from) are face to face with each other, challenging and motionless, although in fact they’re constantly changing. They have both aged in different ways, and have shrunk more than a little (one at the top, and the other at the bottom). Years ago there was a fun fair on each of them, but, as often happens when two things are too much alike in the same city, it’s difficult for them to live in harmony. And no, I’m not talking about the Espanyol and Barcelona football clubs, although I could be, but that’s another subject. Let’s get back to strong emotions.
Fun fairs. Nowadays only the fun fair on Tibidabo still survives, and that’s the direction we’re going in, but not to go there, but rather the opposite. A future attraction at this fair is taking away part of the wood where I want to take you.
Today I’m going to write the article reading it our in a low voice, because if I shouted it out more than a few people would tell me off. For today I’m inviting you to walk through one of the most attractive locations in my home city: the Carretera de les Aigües, in the Collserola Nature Reserve.
Very often when we want to get to know better a thing or a person, or sometimes even ourselves, what we do is take a certain distance, and try to acquire another perspective to complete the knowledge and sensations that we have already gained from our contacts at skin-level, from close up. This is why, so as finally to get a total vision of Barcelona, it is essential (and also very pleasant) to go up to the Les Aigües track, and to go for a walk along it while enjoying what is perhaps the most complete and spectacular panoramic view you will find of the capital of Catalonia.
Don’t be surprised if when you go there you find whole families riding bicycles, girls taking dogs for walks, men jogging at a pre-Olympic pace or doting couples sitting in one of the many viewing places that you find. The fact is that this 8 kilometre-long sand track, practically without a change of gradient throughout its length, is a very special place that only a minority takes advantage of.
When you’re up there you will discover the city’s skyline with the sea in front of it, you can have fun trying to find your hostel, or daydream about the lives of the millions of people who, at that very moment, are passing beneath your feet without realizing it. And if you take your courage in your hands yourself, put on a tracksuit and take advantage of your visit to do some healthy exercise, you might like to know that you are doing so in the part of the city where there is least pollution.
The Carretera de les Aigües does not have any lighting, so you can only go there in daylight. There are many people who call for public lighting to be installed, and just as many who are against it, for the simple reason that they don’t want it to become a sort of ecological version of Barcelona’s overcrowded Ramblas.
I am practically certain that if you go for a walk or to take some exercise in the Carretera de les Aigües, you will want to go back again. And if you have some good friends, you will recommend it to them.
QUESTION: Why Barcelona?
ANSWER: Because there are still places where it is forbidden to pick flowers (like here, for example).
