Gaudi architecture

If Barcelona is known for anything, other than the ability to make "c" sound like "th," it is the distinctive architecture of Antoni Gaudi, who lived until 1926 and used stained glass, ceramics, wrought iron and just about anything else he could find it seems into some truly bizarre houses, churches, parks and other structures.

Parc Guell

The most famous of these may be La Sagrada Familia, a church that is, 85 years after his death, still under construction and will be for 30 years. This huge church, gothic in structure, has some of the Gaudi touches, but doesn't really work yet as either a church or a Gaudi structure. We'll have to see it when done. It is the single most dominant structure in the Barcelona skyline, however. Click here to see a picture of the completed project: http://www.tonypapard.info/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/sagrada-familia-barcelona-projection.jpg

La Sagrada Familia from ... the back?

From the side

A church like no other

 Parc Guell is a series of small buildings set in a park that Gaudi designed in the early 20th century on a hill north of the old part of town. Hard to really describe it, so here are the pictures.

Gaudi also designed a palace (under renovation) and lots of houses and museums throughout the rest of Barcelona. They are really a treat and definitely worth an entire day if you have time.

Casa Batllo

I forget what this one was called, but it is a music school now.

Barcelona

The last, and longest, stop of the quick Catalan tour is Barcelona, the second-largest city in Spain. Like most European cities, most of the interesting buildings are nicely grouped together in a relatively small and walkable area of town. In this case the area is know as the Barri Gotic, a section near the harbor that includes La Rambla, a street with a wide pedestrian area down the center that leads to the harbor.

Barcelona from the Parc Guell (more on this next post)

 La Rambla is filled with outside dining areas, a waiter or waitress's nightmare as you have to cross the street from the restaurant. The other group of workers on La Rambla are the living statues, a fixture across European cities, but there is about one every 10 meters. At one point there were even dueling Johnny Depps -- an Edward Scissorhands and a Captain Jack Sparrow.

La Rambla, from the harbor end of the street

The streets in the Barri Gotic are wonderful -- narrow, crowded and filled with shops. The area is also home to a large cathedral and Roman ruins among other attractions. Just outside is the Picasso Museum, which had a good collection of his early, pre-surreaslist work and a very interesting collection of later paintings he did called Las Meninas based on Valazquez's work.

A bridge over a narrow street in the Barri Gotic

La Seu Cathedral. The repair of ancient buildings business is booming throughout Europe if you're looking for an investment.

Roman ruins

On a hill overlooking the Barri Gotic is a section of town called Montjuic Hill that houses an odd trio -- the Miro Museum, the Palau Nacional (National Palace) and the 1992 Olympic site. Like the Picasso Museum, the Miro doesn't allow photography, so I've included photos of the others. The Palau Nacional now hosts the National Art Museum of Catalunya.

The Olympic Stadium

The Olympic grounds

The walk up to the Palau Nacional

Palau Nacional, now the Catalunya National Art Museum

More Barcelona in the next post.

Montserrat

While the names are somewhat familiar, and both do involve mountains, it would be hard to find two places different in spirit and atmosphere than Montseny and Montserrat.

About 9:30 a.m., just as the clouds parted.

Santa Maria de Montserrat

While tourists have yet to discover Montseny, they have clearly not missed Montserrat. Part of that is the natural, magestic rock face that spreads distinctly across an otherwise flat area about 50km northwest of Barcelona. But also, Monserrat is invariably listed as the first day-trip from Barcelona. Even the typically late arising Spaniards (most sites, including those at the top, do not open until 10 a.m.) were swarming the rock faces well before noon.

The view from the plaza just outside the abbey.

A 20-minute hike leads to wonderful views of the complex

The rumor, or at least one rumor, is that the monastery near the top is one of the potential hiding places of the Holy Grail. If it is, they do not have it on display, maybe for fear of Indiana Jones (or Graham Chapman) swooping in and finding it. What it does have is a rather nice Benedictine Abbey and a spectacular view.

The Virgin of Montserrat. Visitors wait in a long queue that circles the inside of the abbey, then climb a narrow staircase to touch her.

A little post about Tarragona

There will be no pictures or descriptions of monasteries in this post, though that has more to do with the Spanish having an incredible number of roundabouts and no sense of posting directions to tourist destinations that are less than 10 km away.

So instead I will post a few quick pictures from the nearby town of Tarragona, a pleasant but crowded little city about 100km south of Barcelona along the coast. Tarragona still boasts a few ruins that date back to the Roman Empire when it was called Tarraco and was an important port on the Mediterranean.

The Forum, a smaller but similar version to Rome's.

A part of the city wall, some of which is thought to predate the Romans

This mini colosseum was beautifully situated along the water and still is in pretty good condition.

A little post about Girona

OK, not a lot of info here, just a few pictures from the city center of Girona. Only spent about an hour wandering about, but the city is spectacular. It is the capital of the state of Girona (Gerona in Catalan) and was nice enough to be attacked 25 times and captured seven times.

Montseny

If you look at the maps of Calalonia in the Lonely Planet or Frommer's, each will show both a town and a National Wilderness area with the name Montseny less than 100 km north and maybe a little east of Barcelona, but neither singles it out as anything worth going to see, at least in the editions I have. Even Wikipedia's entry gives little indication to the treasures that await.

Parc Natural del Montseny

The view from the hotel in Monsteny

As it turns out, these are glaring omissions as the area is filled with beautiful vegetation, spectacular mountain views, ruins of castles and monasteries and friendly people (not always the rule among Catalans). The town of Montseny, which is little more than an old monastery, a couple restaurants and a hotel, is halfway up the mountain and nicely situated between three other stone monasteries, each in different stages of repair.

The monastery in Monseny

The ruin of a nearby monastery

At the base of the mountain are a pair of towns, Sant Esteve de Palautordera and Sant Maria de Palautordera and, nearby, the ruins of a medieval castle and a more complete and more recent palace now being used as an area for children's camps. Castell Montclus is a little more difficult to access, but easily viewed from the road. Getting there requires crossing a small, fairly cold stream and a 15-minute hike up a steep path, but very much worth the effort. These ruins by themselves should have been enough to make the travel guide writer drool.

Castell Montclus

Castell Montclus' upper floor

Castell Montclus' upper floor

Within a kilometer, as the crow flies, was the palace, which seemed newer by several centuries and Moorish in style. Many other monasteries went unexplored. In summer, with a tent and sleeping bag, this area could easily justify two week's exploration, not just a day or two.

As it turns out, there's an even bigger castle further up the mountain. Check out the pictures here:
http://www.montsoriu.cat/en/category/1.html

Salvador Dali

Not really sure where to begin, or what to say, except to explain that between his museum in Figueres and his home in Port Lligat about an hour's drive east, it is pretty easy to see that Spanish painter Salvador Dali was just as surreal in his real life as he was in his painting.

The museum, which Dali said he hoped visitors would leave baffled, is three or four floors (it can be hard to tell) of drawings, a few paintings, and an odd assortment of sculptures, murals, jewelry and just about anything else he could think to throw in there. Dali was buried in a crypt in the museum in 1989. The pictures below are more to give a feel for the museum. For a better look at his work, click here: http://www.google.com/search?q=Salvador+Dali&hl=en&prmd=ivnso&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=prOtTaS_G43dsgaL8qnXDA&ved=0CDgQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=647

The picture of Lincoln is pixelated in real life

The picture is designed to be looked at through its reflection in the bottle

The camera had difficulty with the focus, unfortunately

 As strange as the museum was, his former house was strange on a whole new level. You are greeted in the first room by a huge stuffed white bear and wind your way through his bedroom, which is on two levels with mirrors propped up so he could view the sunrise from bed. It also features a cage to hold birds and a much smaller cage in which he kept a cricket. Later on there is a stuffed rhino head with eagle wings behind it. He has a swimming pool kind of in the shape of a penis with random Michelin tire men around it.

But no point in trying to describing it all -- here are the pictures.

Welcome home

Note the cricket cage on the wall behind the bird cage. This is the lower tier of his bedroom.

Again with the eggs

Jesus of the Rubbish

If Rhinos could fly

The pool