The Blue Line

Published in BCNWEEK
Issue # 9
July 14 - 20

All I knew about Horta and Cornella, the two ends of the blue metro line, was that they exist. Not that I know much about the rest of line number five. It’s like the Myanmar of metro lines. You know it’s out there, somewhere, but what is it really?
Well, I got on at Sagrada Familia and rode that sucker all the way to the end, to Horta. The first impression was that it’s like a different country compared to the center. There is more grass, more trees, and more green in the first eight steps than in the entire center. I suppose the name Horta (huerta in espanyol and orchard in English) has something to do with it. They even have garbage bins dedicated to organic materials. Barcelona + compost = WHAT?
Anyway, I feel like I am in a different pais. This is more like a relaxed, small town than BCN. Of course, ugly, large, typical Spanish, mass-produced apartment buildings are here and there. And the shops are similar, the bars, the fruterias. But there are also sections of single planta houses. Houses! There are little fenced-in gardens. Gardens! There are white wrought-iron tables and chairs waiting for their owners to sit and pass the afternoon amongst the potted flowers.
I come across one home owner outside painting his door jam. His door’s wide open. The street’s virtually empty. Can you tell me a little about the neighborhood? I ask him. He tells me to go down the street to number three. “Knock and ask for Antonio. He knows eveything about Horta. He loves talking about the neighborhood.” So I do. Antonio, his wife, and his grandson invite me inside. Inside! As soon as I cross the threshold, I realize that in the city center, these things don’t happen to random guiris who knock on random doors.
This old Spaniard, originally from Andalucia, loves this area with his heart and soul, and tells me everything about it. Photo albums in hand the lecture begins and I’d be able to tell you a lot if I had understood half. Fortunately, I am really good at nodding appropriately. The fact that he was missing his front teeth didn’t help.
So if you wanna know about the bar scene in Horta, or the clubs, or where to find the best botifarra, then I’ve failed you. I spent the afternoon there in Antonio’s precious garden, gazing over his fish pond and at photos of the long dead heroes of Horta, and left with the distinct impression that this part of BCN has somehow maintained the small-town feeling of what actually used to be just a pueblo next to the growing city of Barcelona.
But the journey didn’t end there. I escaped from Antonio’s sermon, por fin, and got back on the bliggity blue line to take a nap while I rode from end to end. A woman tapped me on the shoulder and I shot awake. We’re here. Cornella.
There’s something immediately reminiscent of Horta. Tranquility. As soon as you leave BCN and head for the afueras, everything’s more chill. When you leave the metro station in Cornella, you can choose from six different typical bars in the first block. So that’s nice. A look to the right will reveal a massive Eroski commercial center. The golden arches of McDonald’s grace the sky, along with a 14-screen cinema. So that’s nice.
The Rambla d’Josep Anselm Clave begins at the corner of the plaza a block away from the metro stop. There’s a traditional granja bar called Bao-Bab in the plaza with a nice terrace from which you can watch little Cornellanians play on the swing set.
A stroll down the rambla reveals a whole lot of nothing, so I stop a middle-aged woman and ask if she lives there. She does, in fact, so I ask if she could direct me to a nice park or an original bar, or a beautiful building. A half-sour laugh slips past her lips. No hay mucho ambiente aqui, she tells me. There isn’t much of anything. There used to be some nice macias (traditional Catalan farmhouses) but they’ve been torn down to build these (shitty) apartments. The people here esta acostumbrada to going into Barcelona for their ambiente. At least it’s bien comunicado (metro, tram, bus and renfe).
More walking doesn’t prove her wrong. Even the castle in this place is relatively bland. The buildings are typical, which is to say ugly modern-industrial. Almost every bar is just like every other. If you turn right at the end of the rambla, there’s one original bar called Pachanga. Copas and latin hip shaking in a cool atmosphere. There are three discos, Malalts de Festa, Bora-Bora, and another. They’re all, according to one resident, normal, commercial Spanish clubs. So that’s nice. Oh, and there’s a Corte Ingles tambien. So that’s nice. Or is it?