Photography, sightseeing, dachshunds …
I spent most of the month of September traveling to Spain, mostly around the Barcelona area. As with a number of my recent big trips, this one was initiated around a photography event, a Femme Nue retreat at a beautiful estate just north of Barcelona. My month was broken up into three basic parts, prior to the retreat, the retreat itself, and then my tourist stay after the retreat.
My First Trip to Spain
I left right after Labor Day. I flew in a few days before my retreat to try and acclimate to the time change. My hotel was in the Gothic Quarter, an interesting area with lots of ancient buildings and narrow passageways. This area was one of the primary tourist zones in the city. The hotel had a great breakfast buffet, and I spent a few days just wandering around the Gothic Quarter, taking a few pictures with my new travel camera, eating a few meals, and absorbing a little Spanish culture. This included walking around the Cathedral de Barcelona, the Plaça de Catalunya, the Arc de Triomf, and visiting the Picasso Museum, which featured influences and exhibited the evolution and breadth of his work.
The Photo Retreat
After a few days I joined up with our photography group. We had a meetup lunch at a nice hotel about a mile from mine. I walked with my luggage through the Gothic Quarter to kickoff the event. After lunch we had a couple of vans to take us to the property. It was a beautiful location with lots of interesting spots to shoot. We had a great team of models: Sienna Hayes, Vivian Cove, the organizers with whom I’ve shot many times, and Minh-Ly (France/Canada) who I’d shot with before in Tuscany, and a number of excellent models who were new to me: Hérodiade (Italy), Laetitia Channel (Spain), Kate Ri (Poland/Belorussia), Christall (Belgium/Russia), Sylph Sia (Australia). My days were full, but not overly full of shooting. We had very nice meals with some especially nice lunches and dinners featuring Spanish cuisine. It was a very enjoyable retreat. On the last day we headed back to the same hotel for a farewell buffet lunch. As we returned to the city we ran into crowds marching and celebrating Catalonia’s National Day. At this point I had already been in Spain for 8 days. A number of the people pealed out early. I hung around for a while since I had to wait a bit to check into my new lodging. Eventually I caught an Uber to the Airbnb where I would be spending the remainder of my vacation. I checked in with the owner’s parents (who basically spoke no English, but we managed to work it all out).