October 7, 2022: On a rainy day, after a quick breakfast at Cerveceria Piola, we visited Park Guëll then spent the afternoon at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, and the evening at the Caixa Foundation museum and at the Magic Fountain.
We had breakfast at Cerveceria Piola and were attracted to the Galician beer casks.
Entrance to Park Guëll, an experimental, never completed, planned community for rich people.
This area is the roof of the Sala Hipòstila, a grand open concourse supported by 86 Doric style columns below.
Elaine on the Sala Hipòstila.
Detail of a bench on the Sala Hipòstila
From the Sala Hipòstila we could see the residence of the groundskeeper on the left and the gift shop on the right.
Gargoyle.
The Sala Hipòstila
Some of the columns supporting the Sala Hipòstila
The beautiful ceiling of the Sala Hipòstila
A dragon near the exit from the Sala Hipòstila
The gift shop as seen from the groundkeeper’s residence.
The staircase to the Sala Hipòstila
The cimbalo is similar to a hammer dulcimer. She was Elena Shastak, and sold us a copy of one of her CDs.
While wandering under a walkway shelter we ran into a busker playing a cimbalo.
Another of the winding elevated walkways throughout Park Guëll
A view the Barcelona harbor.
View of Montjuïc from Park Guëll
View of the Sagrada Familia from Park Guëll
Gaudi House museum at Park Guëll
Portico of the washerwoman.
We took the bus to the Montjuïc neighborhood for lunch and to visit some museums.
On the bus to Montjuïc.
Lunch at Petit Montjuïc, a middle eastern restaurant.
We visited the Catalonian museum after lunch.
The museum has a great hall for meetings, but it also has this pretty organ.
Don Quixote, by Ismael Smith
4 cats shadow puppets by Ramon Casas. He was a friend of Picasso’s in Barcelona, and hung out with him at the 4 Cats cafe.
The museum posed a stuffed deer looking at art. Here the deer enjoys Miró’s Mural for IBM
The museum dome.
Spanish civil war posters
View from the Catalonian museum, over-looking Plaça d’Espanya. The columns here were destroyed by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in 1928, as part of his suppression of Catalan culture, and were restored in 2010.
While waiting for darkness and the Magic Fountain show, we visiting the Caixa Foundation museum and saw an exhibition about the history of comics.
The Caixa Foundation museum is housed in a former factory.
William with René Goscinny and Asterisk, popular comic book characters.
FInally the Magic Fountain show at Montjuïc begins.
Lots of people came to see the Magic Fountain.
Plaça d’Espanya
Waiting in line for dinner at La Flauta
We had dinner at a wonderful tapa restaurant called La Flauta, recommended by our AirBnB host.
Fresh ingredients for tapas at La Flauta
October 8, 2022: Today we toured the Palau Guëll, an early example of Gaudi architecture. Lunch at the Boqueria was a real treat. We followed that with a trip to the Barcelona cathedral, and finished the day with a Txaikovski concert at the Palau de la Música.
Palau Guëll exterior.
The stables.
Spiral horse ramp leading from the street level entrance to the stables below.
Horse hitching ring
Visitors and carriage entrance. The wooden floor helped suppress noise from the horses’ hooves.
Stairway to the main living level.
Coffered ceiling
The central hall, which features an organ and an oculus in the dome above.
We think this is in one of the bedrooms.
The conical spire on the rooftop.
Chimneys!
Chimney with visitor.
Chimneys!
Chimneys!
William among the chimneys!
A friend from high school, Sarah Lancaster Henshall, recommended that we have lunch somewhere at La Boqueria in La Rambla. So we did!
Our restaurant had the best fish and seafood of the Boqueria.
Everything was fresh and delicious.
We finally got a seat at the counter.
William’s lunch.
The gothic cathedral of Barcelona.
Eleven of the 13 geese in the Barcelona Cathedral cloister.
View of Sagrada Familia from the Barcelona Cathedral roof top.
Another view from the cathedral rooftop.
The Palau de la Música Catalana, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Arcade in the Palau
Detail in the balcony of the concert hall
Organ pipes in the concert hall
We came here to see the building as much as to hear the music, but both were wonderful.
October 9, 2022: The Botanical Garden and the Miró foundation museum in Montjuïc filled the day.
The Arenas de Barcelona at Plaça d’Espanya. Built in 1900 for boxing matches, later used for bullfights. Redesigned as a shopping mall in 2011.
At the Botanical Garden we had a nice view of the torch from the 1992 Barcelona Olympics
Not much was blooming at the garden, but the little splashes of color that we found were really special.
We enjoyed the bonzai display.
Bougainvillea bonzai
Yew tree bonzai. Prettier than the yews in our yard.
Gnarly cork oak bonzai.
Another Bougainvillea.
Walking in the garden.
We found another blooming plant.
The Botanical Garden was set up according to regions around the world. This obviously was a region with cacti!
Elaine poses next to some unidentified foliage.
Canary Sea daffodil. From the Canary Islands
The entrance to the Miró foundation. CEAC stands for Centre d’Estudis d’Art Contemporani.
Sculpture outside the Miró foundation.
We had lunch at the Miró foundation café, and this was our placemat.
Sun, Moon and one Star study for a monument offered to the city of Barcelona.
The full sculpture based on this study was never constructed.
Pair of Lovers Playing with Almond Blossoms.
Funicular to Montjuïc
People wait in line to get in to the Cerveceria Catalana, which our niece Xanthe Asher had recommended to us for dinner..
The Cerveceria Catalana
We had roast suckling pig – our first such culinary treat in Spain, but not our last. Delicious.
October 10, 2022: Mostly Sagrada Familia. A little bit of Casa Mila.
Approaching Sagrada Familia
The Nativity facade
The Nativity facade – you can see the nativity itself in a niche near the center.
The forest of pillars supporting the church. The different colors are a result of using different materials that supported varying amounts of weight.
Statue of St. George in the Sagrada Familia. By Josep Subirachs, who also created the crucifixion on the Passion facade (below).
Natural light filtering into the Sagrada Familia.
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There are pillars representing the four evangelists. These two have the crests of Mark (the lion) and Luke (the bull).
The forest canopy.
View from a tower on the Nativity side of Sagrada Familia
Architectural detail up near the sky.
Looking down the interior of the tower. We had been pulled to the top in an elevator, and walked down.
Walking down the tower. Not getting claustrophobic. Yet.
The view to the inside of the stairway. Featured in an exciting fight scene in Origin, by Dan Brown.
The spiral staircase from the outside.
The “Judas kiss”. Note the magic box of numbers.
The central sculpture on the Passion facade. By Josep Subirachs.
The passion facade is much more austere than the Nativity facade.
The architects’ workshop at Sagrada Familia. They’ve been using 3D printers to create models from 2D Gaudi designs, which is helping them complete the facility, which should be done a just a few years.
We visited Gaudi’s Casa Mila (also known as La Pedrera), and amazingly didn’t take a picture of the facade. But we did get this 3D model in Casa Mila’s attic.
Attic of Casa Mila, an apartment building. The attic was featured prominently in Dan Brown’s Origin. We learned that each of the arches was slightly different.
Casa Mila rooftop. An apartment on the top floor was open to visitors.
October 11, 2022: Today’s highlight was visiting the Picasso Museum in Barcelona. We also did some laundry. For dinner we went to Els Quatre Gats, where Picasso and Barcelona artists hung out.
We went to breakfast at the bakery at the Hotel Praktik. We had hoped to stay at the hotel (above a bakery!), but it didn’t work out.
The Picasso Museum in Barcelona concentrates on his work when he lived in Barcelona, which was early in his career. It heavily features his many interpretations of Velázquez’s Las Meninas. We went to see Las Meninas by Velázquez in Madrid, later in our trip.
Courtyard of the Picasso Museum. The museum is housed in five adjoining medieval palaces in the Gothic quarter.
The museum features other artists as well as Picasso. This is from an exhibit of works by Barthélémy Toguo, of Cameroon.
Iconic photograph of Picasso.
Street in the Medieval quarter.
Lunch at Nou Cellar. We were strong-armed into the restaurant and didn’t regret it.
Our home-away-from-home in Barcelona – the pink building above the pharmacy, on the fourth floor. (Thankfully it had an elevator!)
For dinner we returned to the Gothic quarter.
Picasso hung out at this restaurant with his artist friends and contributed the cover picture for the restaurant menus.
Els Quatre Gats is probably more fancy than it was in Picasso’s day, when it was basically a beer hall.
Dinner was served. Delicious.
