I'm collecting doors and door knockers (photographically that is) but Ed had an absolutely inspired choice of visual obsession: manhole art. Not every city has a great image, and some you'd expect to have great ones--hey Cadaques, you're so gorgeous; why the lame manhole?--were kind of meh. I'm not sure I found all of the images and some haven't yet been uploaded. We're up to Olite and San Sebastian which are both great, thus the Part 2 to come. Here are the cities for each manhole: Seville (is that a salamander?), Valencia (we think it's a bat on top of a crown!), Barcelona (I'm not entirely sure I pulled the right photo but so many symbols so little time) and Figueres (wouldn't you know it that Dali's hometown would just have a bunch of random F's floating around). Finally, we found this amazing graffiti in Zaragoza so it's in lieu of that city's manhole which is MIA. Anyway, more on Ed's collection to come in a future post.
Manholes definitely rise to an art form here. The one above with the gold middle? I'm not sure that's a manhole, but it may be a plaque. Lots of those around too. The chameleon one is actually for a regional cable company -- and one of the best of the bunch. Madrid had their signature emblem -- a bear leaning against a strawberry tree to get to its fruit. Granada -- the symbol of which is a pomegranate partly opened -- didn't have it on manholes, but all the bollards along the street were topped with the fruit. Cool bits of local pride. We're in Leon now; its manholes have the fierce lion. : ) -- Ed
ReplyDelete