Barcelona - Palau de la Música Catalana and Park Güell

Wednesday 16 November 2022

Today we began with the Palau de la Música Catalana, another design by Lluís Domènech i Montaner (see Monday and visit to the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau).  This is an outstanding art nouveau building, and still a working concert hall.  The front terrace, decorated with mosaic'ed pillars, is wondrous.

But the most breathtaking part was still to come - the concert auditorium and its glass ceiling.  

Every surface was covered in glass or tiled mosaics.

Even the ticket office outside was decorated in style.

After lunch we were back on the Gaudi trail, this time Parc Güell.  It is sited north of the city and was originally going to be quite a substantial housing development, but planning regulations scaled it back and there are clumps of buildings surrounded by wooded footpaths.  

It was also very busy.  The busiest part, near the coach park, was full of tour groups and it was impossible to get much space to oneself: goodness knows what it's like in the height of summer.  The tiled walls and seats were beautiful as expected (even if full of people, including me).  

And underneath is a classic Gaudi pillar ensemble with beautiful mosaics.  

I managed to get a reasonably people-free shot of the iconic lizard.

We sat for a drink and watched the seagulls fight for scraps as soon as a customer left their table - although, gulls being gulls, they didn't necessarily wait until the person had gone and some had to shoo them off.  We left the crowds and wandered up around past the viaducts and other Gaudi constructions (this was a path of high pot plants), admiring the view before we headed back to the city.

Barcelona - Historic Buildings and the Cathedral

Tuesday 15 November 2022

Today was the historic/gothic quarter day, although we kicked off by visiting the Mercat la Boqueria, the famous market on Las Ramblas.  Like markets the world over, this was a cacophony of sights, sounds and smells.  We bought ourselves some breakfast and wandered around enjoying the hustle and bustle.  I was there when Caitlin landed in Bangkok airport so in between the salami and cheeses I was giving her advice (or that's what I called it) on navigating one's first arrival in Asia.

This is a beautiful, tiled pharmacy!

Next up was a visit to the old 'antic' hospital, Old Hospital de la Santa Creu, which housed patients from the 15th to 18th Centuries, closing when the Sant Pau one was built (see yesterday).  A beautiful, quiet courtyard.

JC has a knack of sniffing out old sites, and mentioned the Monastery of Sant Pau del Camp which was a short walk away.  It is one of Barcelona's oldest surviving churches and parts of it date back to the 1st Century.

A bit foot weary, we plonked ourselves in the vibrant Plaça Reial where the great excitement was me finding a place that served black tea with milk.

Once rested we headed for the Cathedral.  It's not the most awesome one I've seen, not helped by the the scaffolding both inside and out, but, again, the audio guide brought it to life.

We went up onto the roof terraces which were fun (and windy).  We could even spy the Sagrada from our vantage point (to the right hand side of the horizon on the portrait image below).

The cathedral cloisters contain numerous graves acknowledging the many craftspeople that worked on this building.  There is also a tradition of keeping 13 geese in there too - the number 13 being the age at which, according to tradition, Saint Eulalia was martyred.  

Last for today was a walk around the back streets of the gothic quarter.  We found ancient tombs, the city walls and numerous quiet plaças but the light faded, as did our energy, and we flopped back into a tapas bar to end our day.

Barcelona - Sagrada Familia and Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau

Monday 14 November 2022

We visited the incredible Sagrada Familia today.  This world famous cathedral, still being built 140 years after its inception, is a masterpiece of design and craftsmanship.  Gaudi worked on this for over 40 years, and exclusively for the last 12 years of his life until his untimely death in 1926 (he was run over by a tram).  He left designs for the whole cathedral and the plan is to finish it on the centenary of his death in 4 years time.  

The original design, by Francisco de Paula del Villar, followed the prevailing guidelines of the time, with neo-Gothic elements: ogival windows, buttresses, flying buttresses and a pointed bell tower.   Gaudi significantly veered away from this creating a huge open cathedral, designed to be a forest of trees.  The pillars literally branch out as they reach the canopy of the ceiling.  And there are his much loved parabolic arches everywhere.  He used to design upside-down, creating his work using string/chain hung from the ceiling (creating the natural arch shape he was after) rather than building a 3D model from the ground up.

Light pours in from all sides through magnificent stained glass windows.

We took a trip up one of the towers and saw many mosaic'ed pillars and carvings galore.  

Everywhere there were beautiful designs, carefully and painstakingly executed.

We loved our visit there and I enjoyed the audio guide piped directly into my hearing aids whilst JC patiently waited for the crowds to clear so he could take his shots.

After lunch we headed for the former Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau. Designed by a Gaudi contemporary, Lluís Domènech i Montaner , he created a beautiful set of Arc Nouveau buildings.  

The corridors in the administration building are stunning.

And I adored the art deco tiled piece here and the tiled ceilings.

The mosaics on the exterior walls were beautiful too.

The sun was setting so we headed back down towards the Sagrida for night time shots.

Once we'd had our fill of the Sagrada we headed home, detouring to take some photos of the Arc de Triomf.  We found a local tapas bar and ordered.  After a few minutes the waiter returned and said "we think you've ordered too much."  It's sometimes a bit hard to gauge how much we should go for and it was helpful of them to prevent us over-stuffing ourselves!

Barcelona - Gaudi Number 1 and Nautical Delights

Sunday 13 November 2022

We decided to have an Autumn break in Barcelona as it's always been on my 'to do' list and JC was keen to revisit after a childhood trip.  JC is a consummate travel planner - the guide books come out and a huge list created, which we whittled down to two main sites a day.  Schedule in hand we landed in Barcelona Saturday night, made our way to our superb apartment 5 floors up (no lift so, yes, that was good exercise!), then found a wonderful local tapas bar and on Sunday we were ready to roll.

We orientated ourselves by finding the cathedral.  It will not surprise anyone that this was one of the many items on JC's list to photograph, preferably at night.  But he got a few day shots in too (you can see him up the alley way here).

In Barcelona on Sunday many palaus and museums are free so we stuck our head into Palau de Lloctinent quickly to see the lovely architecture.

Our first site for today was Casa Battló, the first commission Gaudi received from Güell.  It's a magnificent array of wood, glass stone, iron and mosaics.  As this was the late 19th Century, horses were the main mode of transport - we started in the basement, where the horses were stabled, and worked up.

There are reflections of gothic architecture here which I find a bit heavy/dark, but it's still an awesome place.  You can see a very Gaudi feature here, the parabolic arches: this is the first time he used them.  And the window design is truly magnificent!

The rooms are amazing although the best was definitely the roof top.  How whacky is this?

Our first Gaudi ticked off, we headed to the waterfront for the Maritime Museum.  This is a model of  Ictíneo, the first submarine designed by Monturiol and launched in 1859.

Inside there is a life sized replica of the Royal Galley inside. With 59 oars it required 236 rowers, a mix of prisoners and conscripts (they were chained to their positions so I doubt it was a very voluntary occupation).

We then ambled down to the waterfront (Port Vell) for sun-downers - which tends to involve me having a glass of wine and a doing a crossword whilst JC has a coke and hops up and down for photos!

Then it was tapas time again.  Tonight we headed for Barconletta where we munched on padron peppers, machego cheese and a daily dose of ham/salami for JC.