Barcelona - Gaudi Day continued

Aquainting ourselves with yet another Barcelona hill/mountain, we rode the metro (and had to walk a mile uphill) to Gaudi's Parc Guell. Fun park, way too crowded with tourists though - clambering over the hills was delightful. got to leave the paved paths a little into mini-sneak through woods paths... refreshing to feel somewhat away from the city. only could get away from the scottish boys singing the beatles for a little while though. Great views of that hill and last night's glowing church again, and Norman Foster's sattelite tower. Another fantastic Gecko in the park... the crowds really did take a lot of the wonder out of it, i think i would have been more spacially impressed without masses of people in the way.

Casa Mila was the next Gaudi find, first tour i've done an audio tour with - don't quite like it. I read too much faster then I hear, and it made me miss most of a fantastic sunset on this crazy roof of the building. Also was quite propagandized by the audio and swelling music - yuck. crazy roof though, was crazy... everything had the functions though - these are the ubiquitous chimney pots, done up lovely-like... they're about 8 feet tall... inside was cool, murals, openish floor plan cool... hmm was seriously so annoyed by the talk over that i don't remember being very positive about it while i was there, though in memory the spaces seem cool. i will opt to not listen next time i have the option i think. Also was quite tired at this point 6,7 o'clockish.... this trip was a ton of walking.

Saw the Casa Batallo just down the street - crazy monkey skull railings and a fairy-tale sparkling facade, all we got to see of it. long subway transfer, but we got close to the train in enough time to peek into the church of Santa Maria del Mar - so refreshing - a Gothic church structurally without all the decorations - very solomn and grand without the distracting frillies. Also picked up a bottle for cava for the uneventful ride home... made for a pleasant start and a good sleep home :). Yay Barcelona!

ha missing big picture overview.... will add shortly

Barcelona - Day 2

So - Sagrada Familia was as mind-blowing as promised - not nearly as done as expected, but a beautiful piece of work already containing more effort then most other buildings i've seen -
huge towers that everyone knows were less exciting because of it, but the sculptures around the opening were quite nice, told the Nativity story with more expressive emotions in them all then i've seen. the addition of geckos was also key.

inside was a bit of a wonderful mess with scaffolding all over - no idea what the ceiling of the nave is like... but the entire transept is nothing but wonderful. sunburst corduroy texture concrete shaping roof above multiple rose windows (bare now, i dont think they'll be quite as good with stained glass, but still cool) and a nearly-literal forest of columns ending at more concrete oculi suns... awesome to see it less then half-done.

the glory facade with sculptures in a half-cubist style was more intriguing to me then the other - simpler and less gothic, more effective inho... previous picture from there. the brass doorways were inspiring - made me want to try that kind of collage/scuplture.

climbed the steps up the front facade - highly recommended, the lift would be so much less interesting, and there's stops to rest and look around the city pretty frequently. the sun came out while we were up there, cool, and seeing the detailed decorations close up was unbeatable.

ok, done with that.... walk to the miro museum copied the triumphal walk to the pavillion last night, being able to see the gardens in the sun was very lovely (i feel like i'm running out of positive descriptors...) and that museum was fantastic in every way the picasso was not. go there first, or only.... great overview of modern art with most major movements well represented with prime famous pieces, and then miro is much more impressive then i knew. the building was also lovely, the white curves and sun and city view.... wee... picture is with a miro sculpture.

Barcelona Evening one

Hmm continuing walk here... castle at the top turned out to be a modernist restaurant, with a gorgeous view over the nighttime city.

We got lost after this and took off on a road at the elevation of the restaurant that ran along the coast - SO beautiful. dusk/dark sky that was actually a purple-red due to the city, contrasted with wild lush vegetation (lit very well by street lights) and then the sea... it felt like it could have been hawaii. we weren't really in a tourist area at that point, just a sidewalk beside a highway, and eventually the wonder wore off and we realized we were in no way going the correct direction. headed through a scary freeway tunnel through the mountain, 18 inch sidewalks, but it turned out well.

we had to head out of the park into the city to get our bearings, walked through some 'real' barcelona neighborhoods, which was nice. Not so preserved-touristy, still very much a metropolis, 7 or 8 story apartment blocks or buildings.

The approach to the Barcelona was more... impressive then I anticipated. the current Museum of National Catalan Art was obviously an old palace with a huge street promenade with fountains aiming up a huge waterfalled and fountained and gardened hill to the vision of glory itself on top, complete with spotlight-ray halo. was a little over the top, actually.

we were treated to a enormous fountain light&music show on the way up, would have been better had it not been wonderful American music being played - Destiny's Child was not what i wanted to hear at a glorious Spanish monument... the barcelona pavillion was off to the side, we got there 20 minutes before close (our adventure had taken awhile). It was Mies, very spacially interesting although simpler then I had anticipated. Courtyard with statue and reflective water and marble lovely, homey meis chairs.... felt like being back at crown, with more expensive stone. good to have seen.

obliged to finish the walk up the hill to the palace/museum, rewarded with a different glorious view of the city. a glowing church seeming to float on the top of a distant hill was enchanting.

um - long walk home, half sketchy though cheap and volumous meal with good sangria, saw the Placa Reial with it's yuppy-ish bars (apparently was the place where Columbus met his king with the news of america). walked around a lot looking for a bar with the right ambiance, the one we found ended up being just a block from our hostel. very chill, sweet eclectic decorations, and excellent cava (spanish sparkling wine) cocktails. then to bed :)

pic is of sagrada familia.... and i'll tell about that in the next post, or rearrange them so this works. don't want to put too many pictures/posts in to keep loading times down, don't want to have so solid of text blocks... oops too late...

Barcelona Day One

Well, initially getting into Barcelona was less fun then it should have been. Due to a crappy train station error, my ticket was for the wrong day, so i had to buy a new one while on the train, and only got half of that money back. frustrating. And the train was 5 hours late getting in, due to a huge snowstorm that apparently just stopped everything in southern france. meh.

First stop picasso museum... because it was raining and we wanted to not be outside. got quite intriguingly lost on the way... didn't realize how small it was and how not-far distances on the map were, we made it across the old downtown to the Ramblas before figuring out where we were. Had to buy shoes on sale, happy cool real leather euro shoes, cheap :P. Wandered path the main Barcelona cathethdral on the way, had to go it. It was cool - in the cloister there was a large courtyard with palms trees and geese - very lush, intriguing with the frilly gothic architecture. otherwise, another gothic church, and the steps up to the top were closed due to the rain. meh. but we saw plenty of amazing views over the city later on - i don't think we missed too much.

cool interior market with sweet arcing metal and wood structure - much smell of fish and meat, probably 15 each of fruit stalls, fish stalls, butcher stalls, and food/salad stalls.

The Picasso museum (now third stop) was something of a letdown - covered his developement very well, and just when you're expecting it to open up and give you a huge outpouring of his real work.... it's over. i don't think they had enough money to buy any pieces of importance, or many from even the time of his importance. And the explanation given with the exhibits meshed poorly with the work shown, and didn't give you any sense of his place in art history or reference works you might have known... eh. i'd go to the miro museum over this one, and i'll check out the picasso museum here - apparently it had a larger collection. The bottom of the houses were sweet arched bricks - i would just visit that and skip the museum - and check my bags in the free luggage check before heading out elsewhere ;).

decided to find a place to stay - the hostel we had picked out right by the Arc d'Triumph turned out to be closed, we wondered the old streets where we had seen a few hostels, picked one called Hostel New York. It was fine, unremarkable (although we did get a good breakfast), fifth 10-foot story - sigh. double room for 30euros though, cheep. on our wanderings we went through an amazing park and saw the Parc de la Ciutadella with it's oversized folly monument - all the tropical plants were soothing after austere Paris. very nice spaces.

So - decided the walk wouldn't be too long to the Barcelona Pavillion from the hostel.... but... got a little lost. fun walk along the sea shore, really developed, large swooping/jumpy structure/sculpture impressive. Got to a large hill we assumed was the park on the map, and of course had to climb it to the tantalizing castle-thing on the top.... the hill we climbed is the one in the picture - this is about 3/4 of the way there from the hostel - i guess we're really used to walking by now, it didn't seem too far at all