Up in the Air: Barcelona to Tel Aviv

Up in the Air: Barcelona to Tel Aviv

ISRAEL-CATALONIA CONNECTION:  Spanish Catalan surrealist painter Salvador Dali created the Candelabra of Peace, pictured above, which is displayed at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion International Airport. 
July 27, 2011 -- After traveling around Europe on high-speed trains for two weeks, my next destination was Israel. I flew from Barcelona El Prat Airport to Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport on Spanair. The flight across the Mediterranean Sea takes around four hours.

The two airports have a lot in common. They have both undergone renovations and expansions -- Barcelona added Terminal 1 in 2009 and Tel Aviv added Terminal 3 in 2004. Both airports are also accessible via commuter rail, although the train at El Prat only stops at Terminal 2 so you need to take a connecting bus to get to T1. It is about a ten minute ride from the T2 train station to T1 on the connecting bus.

Renowned postmodernist architect Ricardo Bofill designed the new terminal at El Prat and it is impressive. The layout brings in the natural light from a region blessed with lots of sunshine. And everything feels very open and expansive so passengers never feel claustrophobic or constricted, even while waiting at the check-in stand or security line.


Here are passengers at Sants railway station waiting to board the Rodalies commuter train bound for Barcelona El Prat Airport. Rodalies is the commuter rail service that serves Barcelona, and its metropolitan area as well as other parts of the province.


One big difference between El Prat and Ben Gurion is the level of security. It took less than five minutes to pass through the security checkpoint at El Prat with no tension or feeling of suspicion. Ben Gurion on the other hand is the most secure commercial airport in the world. With enemies of the Jewish State all around, the Jewish State's only international airport has no alternative but to be the safest place to fly to on the planet. That's why it can take a long time to get through Ben Gurion Border Control and it can take even longer to exit Israel. They don't take chances. It can be a maddening experience for a Jewish American like myself or any visitor to The Holy Land for that matter. Who wants to be looked at with suspicion? Who wants to be singled out? Who wants to feel uncomfortable or make other people feel uncomfortable because they were born with darker features? It is not fun at all. But it is a necessary evil that millions of innocent people have to go through humiliating security procedures because of the very real security threat of a handful of medieval-minded Muslim fanatics.

Before going through passport control, international travelers walk through the concourse at new Terminal 3. Visitors are greeted by Jerusalem stone on the walls and biblical mosaics. It is an impressive entrance to Israel.


And after sitting for twenty minutes and then being asked questions by the border control security (something I've gotten used to when traveling abroad alone) and getting my passport stamped, I was officially in Eretz Yisrael, the Land of Israel!


Israel Railways operates the Ben Gurion Airport Railway Station, located in the lower level of Terminal 3. The commuter train station is easy to get to from the other terminals and zips you from Ben Gurion to central Tel Aviv, Haifa or Modi'in. Here is the train at Tel Aviv Savidor Central Railway Station.


Since it was late at night and the buses stopped running (Tel Aviv does not have a subway system) I hopped in a Sherut (shared taxi in Hebrew) for the fifty shekel ride to the Florentine district where my hostel was located. The taxi ride was a real adventure, but that is a story for my next blog post on Tel Aviv.

Here are more photos of the trip from Barcelona to Tel Aviv. Click here to see the set on Flickr.

Summer 2011: Barcelona, Spain

Summer 2011: Barcelona, Spain


July 23-27, 2011 -- Barcelona was the sixth and final city in Europe I visited by train before flying to Israel for a month.

The capital of Catalonia is a fiercely independent, vibrant, progressive place with loads of history. Barcelonians love their Barca football club, tasty tapas and pinchos, biking along the beach, and living life to its fullest. From Franco to the Olympics, this city has seen it all.

Speaking of those mouthwatering tapas. And yes, they taste as good as they look.


And the pinchos are just as tasty.


I have to give a hearty recommendation to Hostel One Paralelo. The location is amazing -- in a quiet residential area near the Olympic Village on Montjuic and an easy walk to La Rambla. The gracious hosts cook a free dinner for the guests every night. There is also a jacuzzi to relax in.

In light of the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that have spread across the United States and around the world, it must be noted that last May the Indignant Movement in Spain began the first around-the-clock protest camps in cities and towns across the country. Spain has the highest unemployment rate in the industrialized world at 21% overall and nearly 40% for young people under 30 years of age. Here is an Indignant protest banner in Barcelona.


I'm going to now try to explain the passion Barcelonians and Catalans have for their professional football club, FC Barcelona. The roots of the club, founded in 1899, run deep, much deeper than their recent success as the current European and Spanish champions, although that is a source of great pride.


But the bigger picture is that FC Barcelona is intertwined with the Catalan independence movement and the fight against Franco's fascist dictatorship. When Franco ruled Spain he attempted to impose Spanish nationalism upon Catalonia, which has a distinct language and culture. After the Spanish Civil War, these restrictions included banning the Catalan flag and prohibiting football clubs from using non-Spanish names. To this day, the Catalan flag is flown in defiance all over Barcelona.


Catalonians and Spaniards in general are just recently coming to terms with the Franco regime, which lasted from 1938 all the way to 1975. In 1938, the Germans and Italians provided air support to Franco during a bombing raid of Barcelona. During the aerial bombardment, a bomb struck the offices of FC Barcelona. But more devastating was a bombing campaign earlier in the year that killed 42 people, mostly children, who where hiding in the Church of San Felipi Neri. In 2007, there was finally a memorial plaque installed remembering this horrific act at the hands of Franco and his collaborators.




Knowing the history of Barcelona's football club and its ties to Catalan independence and the resistance to the Franco regime, it is easy to understand the team's slogan --  mes que un club, more than a club. Here is a picture of me in front of Barcelona's home field since 1957, Camp Nou. With a capacity of 99,354 it is the largest stadium in Europe.


Now that bullfighting has been banned in northeastern Spain, going to an FC Barcelona match is really the best way to get to know the sporting passions of Catalonians.

Besides the brutality of the Franco regime, there is another shameful period in the history of Spain I'd be remiss not to mention, and it is not even the Inquisition. The 1391 pogroms against the Jews across Spain resulted in some 300 Jewish deaths in Barcelona when the Jewish Quarter was attacked and destroyed. In the years following the massacre, the Jewish cemetery on Montjuic (Jew Hill) was ransacked and the Hebrew-inscribed headstones were pilfered and used to help construct many buildings in the Gothic Quarter, especially at Palau Reial Major (Grand Royal Palace). This is a stolen Jewish gravestone on the wall of the Palau del Lloctinent (Viceroys' Palace).


From Joan Miro to Pablo Picasso to Antoni Gaudi, so many genius artists and architects have left their mark on this city. But the most impressive and wondrous structure I've ever come across has to be Gaudi's unfinished masterpiece -- the Sagrada Familia. It is breathtaking up close. Every perspective reveals new details. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world. It is a must see if you visit Barcelona


Click here for more observations of Barcelona on Green Center Blog.

Here are more photos of Barcelona. Click here to see the set on Flickr.



Here is video of a Barcelona street festival near the hostel.

Riding the Rails: Paris to Barcelona

Riding the Rails: Paris to Barcelona


July 23, 2011 -- After a brief one day visit to Paris, I hopped on a TGV high-speed train heading south from Gare de Lyon railway station to Spain through the French countryside and Mediterranean coast via Nimes, Montpelier-Saint-Roch, Sete, Agde, Beziers, Narbonne and Perpignan . After a transfer at Figueres-Vilafant to a Renfe high-speed train, I headed to my last destination in Europe -- Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia.

It is hard to describe the feeling of speeding past vineyards and palm tree-lined coastal villages at nearly 200 miles per hour. It is amazing. I hope one day Americans will be able to experience true high speed rail like what the citizens of France, Germany, Spain, China, Japan and other nations enjoy.


And I hope that on that beautiful day in the United States of America when our trains travel over 200 mph, that we can look out the window and see wind turbines like these near the France-Spain border powering our country with clean, domestic power.


Here are more photos and video of my train trip from Paris to Barcelona. Click here to see the photo set on Flickr. The 30-minute video shows scenes of the spectacular French and Spanish countryside and Mediterranean coastline.