Voyages of the S.S. Whalen: Beautiful Barcelona

Welcome to Barcelona!! Home of Antoni Gaudi, master architect and artist.

For our final farewell to Europe, we took a weekend trip to Barcelona, Spain. What an amazing city!! This jumps to my top five cities of Europe that we visited. Seeing Gaudi's works of architectural genius blew my mind. What an extremely talented man!

For the end of January, we were pleasantly surprised by the weather. It was sunny, and beautiful, and all that was needed was a light jacket. We started our day by walking about, and heading over to the Teleferic de Montjuic, the cable car that brings you to the top of a small hill...if you are thinking of going to Barcelona, this is something we don't recommend doing for the cost of it. It was 20 Euros and took about 5 mins. to get to the top, where there wasn't much to see at the top. It looks like walking up would have been a more economical and beautiful way to go.

Barcelona from on high.

Enjoying the ride :)

We were so excited to see Sagrada Familia (Antoni Gaudi's masterpiece of a cathedral that he spent the majority of his life building) from afar. Construction is still ongoing!

A fort at the top of the hill.

The park on the hill leading to the top that looks like it would have been lovely to walk through.

We had purchased the Barcelona pass, which basically gives you free or discounted admissions into a lot of the main sites. After purchasing it, we realized that we had read the discounts wrong - the listing for a museum was 2 Euros. We thought that we would only be paying the 2 euros to get in, when in fact it meant only 2 euros off of the actual price... oops. You live and you learn. With that in mind, we decided we would stop at any museum that was on the list (and free) as we passed by it.

One of the museums where we stopped in, was the Olympic Museum. This was surprisingly one of our favorites, and we are glad that the pass compelled us to go into it. They did a great job of displaying the Olympics that was held there, as well as other Olympic moments throughout history. It was pretty cool.

The Modern Art Museum :)

Saw some...interesting...work here. Who knew a large pile of tires could be so inspirational and speak so strongly to people. Or that the slow, slow motion film in the basement that drew a crowd of children probably wasn't the best place to visit. I suppose the title, "The Nipple Slip" should have given that one away...but there were kids going to see it!!

The National Art Museum of Catalonia - This museum was gorgeous. The building itself was lovely to walk around in. Wouldn't necessarily have stopped in here without the pass, but I was glad we were able to.

Beautiful view of the city from the steps of the Catalonia museum.

The Palace of Catalana Music. We found this one by accident, I think we accidentally joined a tour of the museum. It was beautiful and fascinating to walk through, though!

The concert hall was ornate, and beautiful. The back of the stage is covered with the Greek Muses coming out of the walls.

Amazing.

Barcelona Cathedral

We took the elevator to the roof, and while it had beautiful views, the walkways were rather sketchy to be walking around upon. :)

Random cool art seen as we walked through the city.

Now for the disappointing part of our trip. I'm pretty relaxed about what we see when we go places. I'll usually defer to obvious tourist sites, or to what Sean wants to see. But there are times when I have my list of must sees that we had better to see or else. One of these sites was the Magic fountain. I read that a fountain was on top of the Montjuic hill, and at limited times lights and music came on, and it was beautiful to see. While we were there, there was only one or two times that the lights and music were scheduled, so we made sure on that first day that we went to see it. We were quite sure where it was, but as we walked, tired and hungry, to where it was supposed to be, we waited for the light to guide the way.... But the lights never came. As we approached the fountain, we read that it was closed until the end of February. I was so sad that we didn't see it, but what do you do? Well, you hail a taxi and you go back to the hotel instead of taking the many, once exciting steps back to the place. You win some, you lose some!

But we did get to see some random lights behind the National Art Museum of Catalonia! Those were kinda cool :)

The next day was all about Antoni Gaudi - Yay!

Our first stop - Gaudi's Sagrada Familia

What more can I say about this place then - Wow!

Of all the cathedrals, or even other buildings that we have visited, this is in my top five. What an incredible cathedral. Sean went to Barcelona about 10 years ago while there on a study abroad, so he was excited to see how much work they completed in that time. It was a lot! But they still have a long way to go. I believe they estimate they will be completed by 2030. Only 17 more years!! Perhaps that will be the next time we make it back to this amazing city.

I love the outer facades. This side reminded me of Picasso, even though it was neither his nor Gaudi's work, but a more recent artist. Still beautiful.

This is the façade that focuses on the Nativity. Very Beautiful.

Now for the best part of Sagrada Familia... The interior.

Again - Wow! It was modeled after trees supporting the canopy of the wilderness. Gaudi took elements of nature and incorporated them into his architectural designs.

We were so lucky to be there on a sunny day and to have the light streaming through the stained glass windows. The windows themselves are amazing. The progression of changing colors leaves such a lasting impression of peace and beauty in nature and the world around us..

The reflections of the colors made for such a warm, happy place. I'm so glad we were able to visit this place - the interior wasn't finished the last time that Sean was here.

The art in the walls and on the ceilings were symbolic and impressive.

We were able to go up into the spires and look out over Barcelona.

Going up and down these stairs made for a little dizziness...Sean got a bit of vertigo, but it was well worth the trip up there.

After we went to the top, we went to the basement where they have a small museum showing the different stages of building, as well as showing an office where the actual architects and builders continue to work. It was pretty neat to see that.

The night before, we stopped by to see the cathedral at night. Still beautiful!

This is a model of what it will look like when it is completed:

File:Sagradafamilia-model background adj.jpg

Our next stop was to Gaudi's Park Güell

This park was originally part of an estate whose owners commissioned Gaudi to landscape some of their property. Nowadays it is a public park known as Parque Güell, and again, it is a nice, artistic park to walk through.

Another stop of the day was Gaudi's La Pedrera (we stopped by the night before as well)

While this wasn't our favorite place, and probably would have chosen another Gaudi site over it if we had known better, it was still cool to see. Gaudi's aversion to straight lines and conventional architecture is readily apparent in this apartment complex - many of the apartments are still in use today. We went through one apartment that was set up as it looked back in the day, it was okay.

La Pedrera Model

Of his residential projects, Gaudi's Casa Batllo was my favorite. Every part of this building was unique, and thought out in his Gaudi way. It was inspired by the ocean (you can see the fish scales on the façade and the different blues). I highly recommend seeing this site!