Mont Juic Night

On Saturday 2 July it was the “Night of Mont Juic”. On this night all the museums and other attractions on Mont Juic are open to the public for free entrance. Musical concerts, firework displays and other gatherings were also arranged all over the mountain, in different places. It all began at 10pm and continued until 4am on Sunday morning. What I could not understand is why the museums do not open in the day time and then close by 10pm sort of thing. Can you imagine museums and galleries being open until 4am in London or New York ??? And there being queues of people outside, waiting to enter a museum at 3am! Never. Anyhow, on this night, there are queues of people waiting to enter these places. Free transportation is provided between the different venues on the mountain. The buses were loaded with jovial passengers who were dancing, singing and having a good time on the way to the next place. Whilst my brother and I were on the bus – loaded to the hilt – up to the castle on the top of the mountain, we chatted to a young American girl. She gave up her seat (next to her American friend) because a fowl smelling Latino boy was trying to chat up her friend seated next to her. So she ended up standing and chatting to South Africans! It turns out she is on a 6 week exchange programme from the USA. She is at university in the USA but this is just a summer course and not related to academics. We asked her if she enjoyed it here but we never quite got the answer. We got that she did not like the small space, the noise, the price of things but never got to the likeability part of it. Anyhow, she was almost on her way back to the US of A. She had only another 2 weeks left. The bus finally got to the top of the mountain and we visited the Castle – quite something! Imposing massive stone walls overlooking the bay. There was a Sonar Music festival at the castle so you can imagine how many revellers there were. The views of the entire bay are magnificent from there. The city seemed to be a display of fairy lights from above. After that we made our way back down to the amphitheatre in the Greek Gardens for some Catalan music. Catalonia is the province that Barcelona is situated in. It is a fiercely nationalistic place and the people here feel like they want to secede from Spain and have their own country. Catalan is the language spoken here. Catalan is different in written and spoken form, to Spanish. As an outsider, learning Spanish here is hard as you never know which language you are dealing with . Do I hear Catalan or do I hear Spanish ??? Anyhow, it was a good night with a very late bed time. 4am!! My flatmates only arrived home at 7.30am!!!

Mont Juic and the Palace in the background

Fireworks display