Thursday, October 8th - Reus, Spain

This morning I was up reasonably early and after breakfast and clearing e-mails and doing other odd jobs, I caught the bus to the town of Reus, about a half hour inland from Salou.  I had my route all planned out, basically their tourist walking tour, but that got a bit off when the bus dropped us at a different location than I was expecting so there was a bit of improvising at the start.

The bus stopped near a park so I figured I should at least take a look in the park.  It turned out to be Placa Acalde Anton Borrell (lawyer and politician) and I was at one end of what looked like a very nice but long park.  There was a statue of a boy with a bird right at the entrance and it fit in perfectly with the environment which looked very peaceful and relaxing.  I didn't go in any further as my walking tour routes went in other directions.

Placa Llibertat is a very open rectangular area - all concrete with high silver pillars spelling Llibertat on the one side while trees lined the other edge.  At the one end there are for Roman pillars (Columns Kursaal) that were moved from a different location.  The place is obviously used as a gathering place at times but was pretty quiet when I was there.

To the side of Placa Llibertat was a branch of the Museum of Reus.  They were open so  I went in and walked through their two exhibits - both free.  The first was the history of Reus and area through photographs and it didn't mean much to me as there were no descriptions anywhere.  However, the two older ladies in the room were oohing and aahing at various photos so they obviously recognized and/or remembered some of the events or people in the pictures.  

The second exhibit was the story of their festival and it was really interesting.  It had the "costumed characters", including a donkey, and the "heads" worn on the shoulders of people in the parade and explained what each of them represented.  I don't remember many of the representations but one was that the big tall Indian in buckskins was representing the Americas.  The person who had to wear/carry this character would have the whole thing resting on his shoulders and would look out at about thigh level.  The Indian was so tall that it probably tripled the height of the person carrying it.  It seemed like it would be rather cumbersome but they had a video of them parading around and no one seemed to be having any problem.  The "heads" were just that.  I'm not sure what the person wearing/carrying the head had to wear but the head was certainly an exaggerated size.  And some of the facial expressions were hilarious - supposedly based on real people.  The exhibit explained about thee fireworks/explosions that are part of the festival - really just pots of fireworks on the ground around the main square.  They had a video of the this too.  It was really loud and people were behind the roped area of the square so it must be very loud for them being right there.  They also had a video of the festivities through the decades.  I watched a bit of this but not all.  They touched a bit on the different dances and performances during the festival as well.  It was a good exhibit to sea/hear since I have not caught an actual festival.  The exhibit ddid a great job of explaining everything.  Later on in my walk I came across a statue of the Indian character.  I was glad I had visited the museum so I knew what the statue was all about.  Others weren't so fortunate.  The man standing beside the Indian (part of the statue) proved that the statue itself really was about three times the height of a man.

I then followed the walking tour and went up to Placa del Victor, a small square where there is an 18th century statue of Neptune - not your typical one with Neptune's wild hair and him holding a trident but rather a King Neptune with crown holding what looks like a torch.  He is standing on a high pillar and the base might be a fountain - I don't remember.  From there I returned to Placa Llibertat and continued the tour.

I passed the church of St. John the baptist.  It looks very old and Gothic on the outside but in fact it is really from the 20th century and built in a neo-Gothic style intentionally to look old.  It was not open but apparently it is very modern inside with contemporary paintings and stained-glass windows.

I went in the Municipal Market for a quick look.  It was very quiet and a lot of the stalls were empty so I'm not sure if it was just opening or about to close or whether that's just how it is all the time.  I went in through a door that led to a grocery store too so at first I thought it was just an extension of the store.  However, when viewed from the other end it is distinctly a separate market building.  They were selling meat, fish, cheese and other items but I didn't visit all the stalls to know the whole offering.

I wandered down a beautiful tree-lined boulevard as part of my tour.  There were sidewalks on either side of the two-way traffic lanes but there was also a centre pedestrian area that was nice and shady and relaxing even though the traffic was speeding by.  At Placa de les Oques, which is really just a traffic circle, there is a statue of a little boy and two geese.  He is naked and I had a rear view coming into the square.  Later on the way back I had the front view and he is carrying a basket of food (strategically located) and the geese are trying to get at the food.  It's a really cute statue - from either direction.

The Central Library building is a neat white building with red brick trim.  It is very detailed and classic with beige brick at the very top.  The inscription on the building says 1892 Matadero.  When I looked matadero up the translation was slaughterhouse but it looked like a pretty fancy building for a slaughterhouse.  

Casa Gasull (1911) is on a street corner and both sides are very impressive.  It is made of light coloured bricks and the walls have paintings and designs on them.  The second-floor windows are arched and in groups of three with a bigger arch over all three and decoration painted under the larger arch.  Casa Rull (1900) is beside it and has a stone first floor and ornate wrap around the corner balcony. A small round corner pillar rises to a small circular balcony of carved stone with a lion statue on top.  The roof facade is carved as are the edges around the windows.  The whole house looks fairy-tale charming and there is a garden behind.  Neither of these houses nor the garden were open for visits so the outside is all I saw.  

I eventually made it to Placa Mercadel which is a big square with fancy old buildings all around it and the Gaudi Museum, which is not old.  It is currently under construction and covered so I didn't really get to see it but I have a feeling it really doesn't match the style of the other buildings around the square.  I think it's just a raised cube shape.  There are cafes all around the square with lots of outdoor seating.  The City Hall building has a tower with clock and steeple.  City Hall was an old 17th century building but has been restored and remodelled many times since then.  This square was the market at one point and the stall numbers are carved into the stones in the square.  It is still the main area for all festivals.

The most beautiful building on the square is the 1907 Casa Navas with its curved bay window on the side and the curved balcony rounding the corner of the street.  The corner view is amazing.  The work is so detailed with carved plants and busts of real people (at the time) covering the entire heavy concrete balcony so it looks light and delicate.  The building was not open but apparently the inside is also very elaborately decorated with painted scenes and carvings.

St. Peter's Church (16th century) has a high 60 metre tower that can be seen over the rooftops from many points of the city.  The main entrance to the church is rather plain looking as a tan colour brick building with very little decoration.  There are statues on top of the facade and a rose window above the main door.  St. Peter is the city's patron saint.  The church's claim to fame seems to be that Gaudi was baptized here.  The interior is white with high arches and a very plain ribbed ceiling.  There are stained-glass windows at the front above a simple but impressive-looking altar.  There are side naves and chapels but I only got to look from the back of the Church so didn't see too much in detail.

Just beside the church is another plaza with big stone arches at either end.  This was once part of St. Peter's priory and there are large three storey buildings that look very similar on either side.  These each have high arches all along the front before their covered walkway - much like a cloister.  This was the Church Square in the 19th century and then at one point it was the fish market.

I went again to the Museum of Reus, this time to the main building.  I thought it was going to be much larger than the first building I visited but in fact it wasn't really much bigger.  It too had two exhibits.  The permanent exhibit is archeological and some parts of it I could follow but not others.  As usual there was no English on the exhibit but they did have an English brochure to go with it.  Unfortunately the brochure was so general that it was still hard to figure out what part it was taking about even though it was all numbered and so were the exhibits.  I would match numbers, read about and wasn't able to match the reading with anything I was seeing.  Only about twice out of 30+ entries could I actually say matched.  There were lots of artifacts from arrowheads and old tools to coins and ceramics and jewelry.  There were only 4-5 small rooms, which was good.

The second exhibit was definitely easier to follow.  It too had a brochure in English to go with the exhibits.  While the exhibit might have been interesting it really wasn't something I came all the way to Spain to see.  It was on Roman Erotica or Sex in Roman Times and covered everything related to sex that you could imagine and from several different perspectives like paintings, written works, sculptures, jewelry, rule books, etc.  They had some pretty explicit and graphic details.  I'll spare you any more details except to say that I found it interesting that one of the reasons a Roman man could divorce his wife was if she hid or kept the keys to the wine cellar from him.  

The Gaudi Museum is one of the main attractions in Reus and it was interesting and informative.  There were lots of interactive displays that helped you understand weights and stress and arches and twisting beams and geometric models but don't ask me to explain any of them.  They were fun to play with and see how they changed but I don't think playing with them will help me build anything.  You get an audio guide with the visit and it works automatically as you walk around the building.  That is great except if you are listening and walking at the same time because then you get really confused on what part they are talking about - and I'm sure the guide gets a bit confused too.  There was a video at the start talking about Gaudi: his life, his accomplishments, his inspirations, etc.  There were models of many of his structures and even life-size parts of others so you could see how the pieces fit together.  There was a section talking about his technical contributions to architecture and another about his influence in Reus.  One of the parts that always interests me is how Gaudi looked at nature to determine how things should be done and took his inspiration from nature.  The tree-like look of the pillars in the Sagrada Familia is only one example.   Gaudi's birthplace was on my walking tour route but I didn't make it there as it got too late and too dark for further touring.  The building is now privately owned so you can't go in anyway.   I did make it to the statue of Gaudi as a child playing with some balls, apparently one of his early interests.  The family had traditionally been boiler makers so that was the environment he grew up in where material was bent and curved in ways to make objects and give them the most strength - seems to tie in a bit with the architectural path he followed.

The modernism tour of Reus is in part related to Gaudi.  Modernism ran from the end off the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century and Gaudi was certainly active in that period.  He had a style that was all his own and added certain dimensions to the architecture of the period - the curves and colours and touch of nature.  Many of the buildings in Reus were designed by followers of Gaudi and they have adapted some o f his techniques and some of their own.

There are many beautiful buildings in the city - some of which I've described individually above, but there are others.  There are lots of buildings with beautiful balconies, peaked roofs, curved aspects, statues and moulding designs.  There are houses of different colours: pink, blue, white, green, etc. with as many different colours used to decorate them.  Red brick buildings are trimmed in white.  Light brick buildings are trimmed in grey.  There are short buildings and tall ones, narrow ones and wide ones.  There are carved cement balconies and twisted wrought iron balconies.  There are plain windows with intricately designed mouldings around them and there are incredibly fancy windows with just plain brick around them.  There are windows and decorations and mouldings sunk into buildings or built out from buildings to create 3D illusions that are absolutely beautiful, especially when painted various colours - so delicate looking, and on the outside of a house.  There are brick designs, ceramic designs, wood designs.  There arched windows and doors and straight ones and curved ones and circular ones.  There are peaked roofs, flat roofs and curved roofs.  There are fancy gates and walls as well.  You could trip a million times walking down the sidewalk because all you wanted to do was look up!

There were also other squares and fountains and statues in Reus, and other interesting streets but I can't write about them all.  In the older part of the town there are lots of pedestrian streets that are narrow but still wide enough for cars to get through.  and the old area is reasonably well laid out so not a lot of the usual winding "easy-to-get-Jayne-lost" streets, which was nice.  Reus is also known for its vermouth and there are several museums, demonstration, tastings related to the vermouth.  I didn't go for any of these aspects as I had no time, but also because I just wasn't interested. 

Eventually it was too dark to see much of anything so I walked back to the bus stop and caught the bus.  I was on my way home and hungry as I went past Burger King and I just couldn't resist.  It was fast and it was familiar and I enjoyed it so there you go.  We have had a running conversation all through our travels complaining that no matter where we are McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, etc. are always there and we vowed not to eat in them.  Oh well, I'm on my own now so I guess it doesn't matter.  Eventually I made it back to the apartment, did a bit of computer work and then called it a day.