Barcelona

There is one somewhat curious story I do want to tell though, involving a bit of Geocaching around Montjuïc. We were trying to hunt down a cache near the Funicular, which we didn't find (well, not until a few days later anyway).

What we did find though was the diving pools used for the 1992 Olympics — something I remember doing a project on at school, but that didn't prepare me for the stunning view from the venue.

The pool was locked up tight, and our GPSr's were directing us “clearly” down below the complex. We went hunting for a path down, and found some public looking stairs on the eastern side of the pools. We were suspicious, but saw some people heading up and away from the stairs, so we figured it must be a pathway to somewhere at least close to the cache.

After 50 metres of steep decaying concrete stairs, we came to an opening with nothing more than a fenced off area below the pools filled with hundreds of bins and barriers probably used by the city to during large public street events, and some shifty looking girls probably in their late-teens. The GPSr was going mad, and with us searching around the area we were also starting to look pretty shifty. We spotted a path, and thought we'd follow it, but eventually it dwindled into nothing but thick weeds.

Upon returning to the clearing, the shifty looking teenagers had disappeared, and we started to psyche our-unfit-selves up for the hike back up the steep stairs.

We soon caught sight of the shifty teenagers, who were struggling slowly to carry one of the street barriers up the stairs. We decided to slow down to avoid detection — although if I'm honest, possibly more-so because we were dying from the stairs — and kept an eye on what they were doing.

Further up the stairs, a portion of the fencing for the pool was missing spikes designed to snag those attempting to climb over. The only challenge remaining for the would-be vandal was the height of the fence. The shifty teens were still struggling, but were trying to prop the barrier up against the fence on its side. They were building a ladder so they could go and swim in the closed pool; after-all it was a fairly warm and beautiful day for a swim, but perhaps not in the filthy green water lying stagnant in the pool. Each to their own, I suppose.

As we ascended and eventually passed them — with the shifties looking more embarrassed than shifty at this point — and along the way we noticed several other barriers left in the scrub next to the stairs, all of them with their spokes broken off. We can only assume this is an incredibly common occurrence and the “ladders” aren't exactly durable!

So if you're in Barcelona and the pool isn't open for the summer season yet, now you know how to get in. I wouldn't recommend it though, unless you're comfortable with the “swamp thing” look.