Sartorially speaking, Barcelona is a remarkably casual city. I remember getting mild shock when I first saw opera-goers dressed in jeans, and most women think the idea of dressing up is throwing on a colourful scarf. But once a year caution and that famous Catalan common sense are thrown to the wind for the Passejada amb barret (Walk with a hat).

Inspired by New York’s Easter Bonnet Parade along Fifth Avenue, two local milliners decided to organise a similar event here. Now in its 12th year, the format is the same as when it first started. Everyone meets at the top of the Rambla de Catalunya and when the clock strikes 12, starts strolling the kilometre or so to the end of the boulevard. That’s it. No live music or beer sponsors. Just a gathering of happy adults, kids and dogs high on the transformative, feeling of expressing yourself, in a fashion, at the onslaught of spring. 

I first went to the Passejada about five years ago. Participants could have only numbered a couple of hundred and most onlookers thought we were part of a large wedding party. In 2015, over 1500 hat-wearers dressed the Rambla de Catalunya and this year there was probably double that. For the first hour or so we just mill around, taking shots of each other and strangers whose hat takes your fancy. Absolutely nobody is camera shy – that wouldn’t be the point.

From these snaps, you can see that there is plenty of gorgeously tailored headgear, but an old beanie or creation put together with plastic teacups and a glue gun is fine to. The Passejada is about feeling comfortable with and stepping out of your own skin - even just for a day. 

(Thanks to M-A Gallagher and Scott and Jane Riley for the pics!) 

In search for things to do around my new neighbourhood, a friend reminded me that the Carles Taché Gallery has moved to Carrer Mèxic – a blah street in the off radar barrio due west of Plaça Espanya. I had remembered reading so on the gallery’s website, and thinking at the time that this long established gallery, headed by one of the doyens of Barcelona’s art scene, had downgraded from his previous Eixample address. At the tail end of a very protracted economic crisis, who the hell was buying art anyway? How wrong I was, as the new Carles Taché Gallery is seriously cool.

But first you need to find it. Next to the Pentecostal Church, follow the driveway around to the rear to an industrial-type courtyard and garage doors to assorted locales. One is the entrance to the gallery, an old cotton factory of 1200 metres and triple height ceilings.

Taché represents some huge names in the art world; Tony Cragg, Sean Scully, Cornelia Parker, and others whose work is only within the aquisitional realm of Russian oligarchs and hedge fund brokers. The aforementioned are on display in the gallery’s inaugural show. (It plans to host about four a year.) And although I have always considered the idea of art works ‘creating dialogue’ with each other a bit wanky, there is something uplifting about viewing perfectly composed, large-format pieces against bone white walls in a cathedral-like space.
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No one breathed down our neck as we wandered around. Three ambiguously erotic photographs by Antoine d’ Agata caught my daughter’s eye – and the gallery attendant took the time to come over and explain the artist’s working methods and influences (though she still thought’ them ‘icky.’) Taché has said that he gets the greatest satisfaction from introducing young people to contemporary art. So, round up the kids and make your way to Carrer Mèxic for your next cultural sojourn. There’s a not bad curry house next door when you are done

Carrer de Mèxic, 19, Open Tues-Sat 11am-8pm. 

When I was young, and my father had itchy green thumbs, he used to bundle us in the car and head to the ‘nursery’. This was his antiquated (even then) name for a Garden Centre.

In suburban Melbourne, these were vast expanses of land, with row upon row of indigenous, young trees that were sold in plastic bags. My father decided to ‘go native’ in our family garden, having seen his previous English garden die through drought and high temperatures. It became so thick we had to fight out way to the front door and it was eventually declared a fire hazard.

Although some residents in Barcelona, including many of my friends, have beautiful, balconies bursting with colour and lushness, balcony pride has never been my thing. But new apartment, new leaf – and a good excuse to visit the Hivernacle Centre de Jardineria, which everybody who lives west of Plaça Catalunya seemed to know about except me
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There are some garden centres dotted on the outskirts of Barcelona, but this one is Les Corts, in one of the few miniscule pockets of this central neighbourhood that still retains a whiff of yesteryear.  (I can’t decide if Les Corts was one of Barcelona’s most lovely old barris because it was, or because only tiny teasers of the old bits remain.)

A bit like the florist scene in Vertigo that segues from a dark alley to saturated, stylised colour, Hivernacle is like stepping into a much brighter, much more fragrant world. It's located in an old textile factory dating from the late 1800s, suitably decrepit to let full grown banana palms peep through the roof and support creepers over its splendid trusses. The same family has run the business for 18 years  - and were very happy to advise me how to compose a low-cost, low-maintenance balcony garden. 

Hivernacle also has a little play area for kids, and a non-stop stream of regulars with dogs. In Melbourne or Los Angeles it would also have an organic café, or hold permaculture workshops. But all the owners really want to do is sell plants – and there is no finer place to buy them in Barcelona.  

Hivernacle Centre de Jardinería
Carrer de Melcior de Palau, 32-36
Tel. 934 91 21 78

With all the best intentions, asking children to appreciate modern art is a pretty tall order. I remember my regular trips to Melbourne’s galleries and museum as a youngster, where my father (a hobby artist) would patiently explain Cubism, abstract impressionism and the cultural significance of Sydney Nolan’s Ned Kelly paintings – all whilst I was hankering to get to the gift shop. I know my 12-year old does the same..

Which is why I was happy to find out about the MuMo (Museé Mobil). This tractor-trailer, supporting an articulated shipping container arrangement (work of Adam Kalkin, who specializes in such ingenious, quick-build structures) and topped with a gigantic Jeff Koons-like bunny has travelled over 12,000 kms across France, Belgium, Switzerland and Monaco as well as hopping continents to Cameroon and Ivory Coast. It is currently making its way across Spain.

The idea behind the MuMo is that, at least to children, contemporary shouldn’t be ‘explained’, but rather presented in fun, hands on way, without pretension. So far, the bunny-truck has displayed work by artists as of the calibre as the ‘Light and Space’ legend James Turrell, the fabulous and sensitive designer Sébastien Cordoleani, and the absurdist sculptor Paul McCarthy. For the Spanish giro, it will show ceramic pieces by none less than Miguel Barceló.

Unfortunately (or luckily for the students of Escuela Josep Maria de Sagarra) the MuMo has only one date in Barcelona, a closed event for the pupils of a public school. But inspirational the project certainly is. The fad for food trucks has now hit Barcelona. Perhaps the MuMo will encourage it to expand to the visual arts as well.