A Place in the Sun

The Easter holidays gave my family the opportunity to get away from it all.  So to sunny Barcelona we did travel.

The stay was all about the culture, architecture and food.  So, it was cava, tapas, street festivals, Gaudi and modernism throughout.  Alas, hardly anything military or hobby related.  However, here are a few photos that I slipped in.

This first one is taken from Montjuic.  It is a significant hill overlooking the city from the south.  With a wargamers eye I noted (and had an internal monologue about) how control of the heights all around Barcelona would be vital for its defence.  I should say that I know nothing about events during the Spanish Civil War.

On top of Montjuic is a fort, obvious position really.

And by the fort was this beast of a gun.

Carefully placed overlooking the port below.

Lastly, and rather sadly, we passed through the small square of Sant Felip Neri.  This square is both a public thoroughfare and the playground for the primary schoolchildren whose school entrance you can just make out on the extreme right.  You can also make out the damaged and pock marked brickwork along the walls.

As the memorial plaque below reveals, on the the 30th January 1938 a bomb from an air raid fell on this square during the children's break killing 42 people, most of them children.

A grim reminder that war is ugly and no respecter of the innocent.