Barcelona August 2004

To start this little jaunt around Barcelona, we'll start with a little Gaudi (actually, it's a lorra lorra Gaudi.) No Rory for this trip, one of my old schoolfriends instead.

For a good, straightforward biography of Gaudi and a bit more on the buildings you'll see in this travelogue, click on this link.

Two good Gaudi-centric web sites are HERE and HERE for those particularly interested in his work.

On the left is is Castell Batllo, which was an exisitng building that Gaudi renovated over a period of 1904-1906. The building sits on the Passeige de Gracia, on the block known as "Mançana de la Discòrdia", because of the all the different architectural styles so close together..

Gaudi was inspired by nature and religion, and this is reflected in the shapes around the buiilding. Examples can be seen on the right. Gaudi was particularly interested in marine life and the sea, which is why there are a lot of curves and swirls.

The thing that cracked me up most was the free audio-commentary. Superlatives leaked from every button on the handset. It was a bit much, albeit very entertaining in a sniggering way. The greatest moment on the audio tour was walking into a room with a vaulted ceiling in the loft space, which was very nice and very inventive, but I'm not sure it was worth:

 

"This is the most extravagant and amazing room you have ever been in."

 

Er, yeah, right. Whatever. ;)

The roof at Battllo is also very interesting. There is a lot of mosaic tiling visible - this is visible in the detail below. Gaudi wanted the roof to be reminiscent of a dragon. The "backbone" of the dragon is in the picture on the right.

 

On to Casa Mila, or "La Pedera" - the quarry, to give its local name, as it wasn't very popular with the locals at the time of construction! This was one of Gaudi's final works before he focussed on the Sagrada Familia (see later). Construction ran from 1906-1910.

The building was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, the first in Europe.

There are reputedly no straight lines anywhere in the building. The roof is covered in sculptures, as can be seen in the pictures below and on the right.

 

Gosh, here's more Gaudi, and we were still on the first day. This is the big one, the Sagrada Familia (Temple of the Sacred Family), that Gaudi started working on in 1884 and continued until his death in 1926, when he didn't look where he was going and was run over by a tram.

On the left you can see the top of the Nativity Facade, the older of the 2 facades. The other is the Passion facade, completed in 1978.

The Sagrada is still a work in progress and is due for completion in 2026, hence some of the shots have scaffolding and cranes in them.

That was the end of day 1.

Day 2 provided a respite from the Gaudi in the form of Montjuic, lots of walking, the Miro Museum, more walking and finally down to Barceloneta for some dinner and food poisoning (more about that later.)

First, Montjuic, so anmed after the Jewish community that inhabited it several century's ago. We took the Funicular from Para-lel up to Montjuic followed by the cable car up to Castell, a fort that until the 1960's was still being used for executions thanks to Franco. (It's too easy to forget that Spain only started to recover from its very own Fascist dictator in 1975, when the Constitutional Monarchy was restored and a democracy reintroduced.)

The views from the top of Montjuic are stunning. In the middle of the far right edge of the picture on the left is the Sagrada Familia which really dominates the skyline, much more than this photo does does justice. The photo on the left gives a little impression of the grid system that much of Modern Barcelona is divided into.

 

My dad told me a story at dinner last night about a 5 year-old me in the Pompidou Centre queing to see the Miro exhibition, where I asked in a very audible voice if a child had painted the pictures I was viewing. This was greeted by sniggering from some of the english-speaking French people around us and much laughter for my dad. I think my art appreciation has improved a bit since then, although I'd like to think of my 5 year-old self speaking the plain truth!

The item on the left is one of Miro's sculptures. Some of the paintings are very good, some are a load of pretentious balls, especailly some of the stuff that isn't actually Gaudi's. There was a very odd room, a temporary exhibition I think, filled with McDonalds refuse mock-ups and mannequins with their insides hanging out. All very wierd, and we had to walk through it about 3 timesas we got lost trying to get to the Miro permanent exhibition.

Some of the titles of his works were quite unusual:

"Flame in Space and Nude Woman", "Man and Woman in front of a pile of excrement" and "Hair pursued by 2 planets". My 5 year-old self couldn't resist popping out at a later work with just white canvas and a line drawn on it - "Hair after it got away?"

The link for the Fondacio Miro is HERE.

We walked a load more down to the bottom of Montjuic, then up to Pobol Espanyol, a sort of Norwegian Folk Museum type-thing (see my Oslo 2001 travelogue) only Spanish. Very nice, lots of places to eat, and I picked up a couple of nice limited edition prints.

More walking and FINALLY the opportunity to get the metro. I had stupidly mentioned that I wanted to walk a lot to try and lose some weight/get some exercise. Cue well meaning but over-enthusiastic friend constantly hounding me the entire weekend into walking EVERYWHERE, and moaning if I even looked at a bar of chocolate. It came back to haunt me later...

On the left is Barceloneta, basically the waterfront with lots of restaurants. After some deliberation we decided on the one recommended by the Rough Guide. I then unselfishly offered to share a paella with friend as she was very keen to have one and none of the restaurants allow diners to have one to themselves for some reason. Very nice it was too, until exactly 6 hours later when I found myself doing an Exorcist Linda Blair into the loo. Of course, schoolfriend appeared to have no symptoms at all... Sod's law (not that I wish food poisoning on anyone!)

Sunday, and more f**king walking, despite my pleas that I'd rather have gotten a taxi down to the Picasso Musuem. Stil, it was a very good museum, especially the current exhibition - "Picasso: War and Peace". Here's a LINK. I haven't got any pics of this as I was feeling pretty crap at this point. At least I was allowed to get a cab back to the hotel and managed to totally conk-out for 2 hours on my own. Then it was back out walking along Las Ramblas, where we found a reasonable Tapas restaurant on Playa Catayluna, just off Les Ramblas.

Finally, Monday, our last day, which was spend walking all the way up Passeige de Gracia until it shrunk, abnd then up a heart-attack inducing hill (did I mention that this was supposed to a holiday?) to Parc Guell, ending as we had started with, with more Gaudi.

On the left is the entrance to the main part of the Parc, and on the right is its most famous resident, the ceramic tiled lizard (or is it a confused chameleon?)

Once again, UNESCO made it a world heritage site in 1984.

Can I go home now?