6.00 am: Barcelona Comedown

Andrea has just gone. Jon and Luz left two hours ago. Here I am staring out the window on this balmy morning, out towards the Sagrada Familia. Tired - shattered even. These heady five days have reached their slow-burn end, pleasantly disoriented in the Catalan heat. Watchless, wanderings through the city without awareness of time nor space and caring for neither. Late nights, early mornings, Estrella and espresso. Old friends, new friends, strangers, straw dogs, pickpockets, quick exits and long hours waiting. And Barcelona is a city for waiting.

Staring out the window, the towering cranes over the Sagrada appear as a shimmering Golgotha. But this is really a resurrection. Staring out the window - I have been for sometime now- only the remains of this trip are ahead. It lingers on - for me anyway. It's 6.00 am. I put on my sandals and grab my wallet. And leave the flat. No maps, no plans.

Fukuromachi Elementary School

The silence here was arresting, almost haunting. In stark contrast to the A-bomb museum, which was packed out on this holiday, the Fukuromachi Elementary School was empty. Empty except for myself and the elderly steward at the door. This was one of the few buildings to remain standing after the devastation, but now hidden away on a city centre side street.

I descended to the basement. A few years ago, plaster was removed from some of these walls revealing writing and desperate scribbling from the days after the bomb. As a standing building this served as a field hospital with people arriving for medical attention and in search of loved ones. The accounts provided by the doctors are harrowing reading.

The man who stands on his hands has the abyss at his feet

"Englishman?" the man asks. We are standing in front of the eternal flame at Peace Memorial Park. The flame and the fountain are designed to link visually to the Genbaku Dome in the far distance. He isn't concerned though. As tourists, photographers and guides come to this site of global importance, the retired professor pulls out his magnum opus. "This is a contribution to humanity and society". He spends the next hour talking us through the work, indifferent to the crowds trying to capture a view of the monument we are standing directly in front of. It is definately an experimental work.