Monday 3rd April 2023, 2.40pm (day 4,239)
On the hill of Montjuïc, which rises between Barcelona’s city centre and the port, there is the site of the 1992 Olympics, much of it feeling rather neglected these days. When we first saw this place my initial thought was that it was something to do with the Olympic village, rows of concrete blocks with what seemed like dark windows in them, all looking strangely moody. Closer inspection revealed why: in fact they were these mausoleums, piled on top of each other like apartments arranged into streets and avenues, with stepladders here and there so families can reach the highest. I’ve never seen anything quite like this before except, to some extent, at Novodevichy in Moscow, but even that doesn’t quite reach this level of stacking.
