Is This Spain? (Barcelona: Part Tres)

After I awoke the next morning and had breakfast the next morning I went to the Museu Picasso. Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga, but spent many of his formative years (before joining the Parisian art scene) in Barcelona. He produced most of his early artworks here, which were far from the cubist, surrealist, and abstract paintings he would later produce. Picasso returned to Barcelona many times in his life and painted scenes of the city. The museum housed many of his early works as well as his later cubist copy of Velazquez's Las Meninas. The museum itself was housed in a medieval palace. Here is the courtyard:

After the museum, I went down some side streets and came across a restaurant called Els Quatre Gats (The Four Cats), which Picasso and Ramon Casas used to frequent:

I ate at a restaurant next door called Set de Gòtic. It had an old-style interior with columns and candelabras on the walls. The owner sat at a table near me and spoke to his employees about their schedules while an old man drank a beer and smoked a cigarette while reading a newspaper. I ordered a fuet sandwich. Fuet is a thin and savory sausage from Catalonia which you can find throughout Spain, but this was the best I've had.

Down Passeig de Gràcia, I took some pictures of the fourth of the great modernisme apartment buildings, Casa Amatller, which is next to Casa Batlló and was built by Josep Puig i Cadafalch in 1900:

I also walked past Fundació Antoni Tàpies, which is dedicated to the contemporary Catalan artist who designed the structure atop this building:

On my way to Sagrada Família I saw this college:

Sagrada Família was probably the most impressive unfinished building I have ever seen.

It was begun in 1882 and could be finished sometime around 2026. Gaudí never planned on seeing the building's completion and the project went through many setbacks following his death, namely the Civil War and the economic turmoil which followed. Today, construction of the church is financed by the tickets visitors buy to tour the interior and Japanese investors. When it is complete, there will be a giant central spire, towering over the others, with a four-armed cross which can be seen in Gaudí's other works. This facade of the church was not designed by Gaudí, but by a later architect and is known as the Passion Facade:

As you can probably tell from the pictures of this side of the church, there are so many details, you are overwhelmed. The other side, designed by Gaudí himself, is even more spectacular. Before visiting it, I took the tour of the unfinished interior:

Here is the amazing Nativity Facade, designed by Gaudí, complete with various creatures:

In an adjacent building, now used as a Sunday school, Gaudí's original office is left as it was when he died in 1926:

After Sagrada Família, I decided to go to a hospital. That may sound strange, but this is a work of modernisme architecture built by Lluís Domènech i Montaner between 1901 and 1930. The hospital is called Hospital de Sant Pau. Domènech i Montaner believed that nature and beauty would expediate the healing process and placed many open spaces on the hospital grounds. The sound of tropical birds sounded from everywhere in the otherwise silent campus:

I left Hospital de Sant Pau and headed to the area of Montjuïc, a hill in the southwest of the city. Atop the hill is the Palau Nacional, which was built for the 1929 World's Fair and now houses the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya:

From the top of the hill, there was this great view of Barcelona:

Behind the Palau Nacional were many structures built for the 1992 Olympics. The most iconic of these structures is the Montjuïc telecommunications tower built by Valencian architect Santiago Calatrava:

There was also this lucky cat:

Also on the hill was the Museu de Joan Miró. It was closed and I later learned that Woody Allen was having a private tour of the collection while I was standing outside, looking at the schedule and taking pictures of this Miró sculpture:

I took a funicular back down the hill, then took the metro back to the area of my hostel where I saw this:

This is one of the paintings of Pez (which means "fish") a Barcelonan artist who's graffiti is all over town and is sought by art collectors. Not far from here is the Palau de la Música, built by Domènech i Montaner in 1908. Since it's crowded around other buildings it's difficult to photograph:

The Arc de Triomf was about a ten minute walk from here. It was built in 1888 as the entrance to the Universal Exposition:

The pathway which leads from the Arc de Triomf to the Parc de la Ciutadella offered some great night shots:

On my way to see the skyscraper Torre Agbar's illuminations, I came across this great, but confusing color-shifting window display:

After a long walk:

I finally got to Torre Agbar:

On my return I saw another Pez painting:

and back in the Medieval district, near my hostel, I came across this:

the remains of a Roman wall, among which was later built the Medieval palace of the Catalan king. This statue of Ramon Berenguer III, one of the Counts of Barcelona stood outside:

Is This Spain? (Barcelona: Part Dos)

The next morning I had breakfast at a café near my hostel, some pastries and a coffee. I then walked down Las Ramblas toward the sea. I walked past this mosaic, a symbol of Las Ramblas made by the Catalan artist, Joan Miró:

I walked to Port Vell, then turned to the right where this modernist sculpture stood:

Not far from this stood the Museu Marítim, which is located within the gothic-styled 13th-century former shipyards of Barcelona. I was pretty excited about this as I'm fascinated by naval history and sea exploration. The museum was under renovations, and most of it was closed, but I got to see the two main exhibitions which intrigued me. Here is the exterior of this gothic shipyard:

Outside the museum there rested this device, which I soon learned is a life-sized replica of the first submarine to use a combustible engine, Ictineo. It was used for exploration purposes:

The interior of the building was quite eerie:

The replica of a 16th century warship used by the Spanish against the Ottoman Empire during the Battle of Lepanto was on display:

This lantern from a lighthouse was also on display near one of the large windows. The light passing through created a preternatural glow:

The museum also had an exhibition dedicated to Narcís Monturiol, the Catalan engineer who invented the Ictineo seen outside. The story of Monturiol was interesting. He lived in the late 1800s and supported revolutionary ideas, being a supporter of the First Spanish Republic and women's rights. He also had a passion for the sea and believed humans should explore its depths to better understand our world. He thus invented the Ictineo in 1858and a following submarine, Ictineo II. The legacy of this exploration was shown with several modern submersibles on display:

An engineering team is currently building a new submersible device which will hold three people and be used to explore the Mediterranean Sea, Ictineo III, within the museum.

I had some coffee and a Iberian ham sandwich at the museum's restaurant before leaving to explore more of the coast. Back at Port Vell, I saw some awesome boats:

Past Port Vell is a street called Passeig de Colom, which revealed some interesting sights, such as this statue by American painter/sculptor from the school of pop art, Roy Lichtenstein. He also made the sculpture of the brushstroke found in the courtyard of the Reina Sofía in Madrid:

I also came across the Museu d'Història de Catalunya, which I visited. The museum featured many artifacts of Catalan history from Prehistory to the 21st century. The museum had many interactive displays, such as a model of a Muslim irrigation system, which allowed you to turn a wheel which opereated a water-wheel that pumped water into connecting channels, and a pulley which let you lift the armour and weapons of a Medieval knight, giving an idea of the weight these soldiers were burdened with. A replica of a bomb shelter from the Spanish Civil War was a highlight. At the end of the museum was a room with displays on famous contemporary Catalans like film director Isabel Coixet and revolutionary chef Ferran Adrià.

I then walked to Platja Barceloneta, Barcelona's most popular beach. This sculpture on display is dedicated to the small box-like restaurants which once lined the beach:

Here's some more of the beach:

I backtracked, walking back to Las Ramblas and then to Plaça Catalunya. From here I walked down one of the city's most famous streets, Passeig de Gràcia. This is where much of the city's most examples of modernisme architecture, such as the 1902 Casa Lleó Morera, built by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner:

But the crown jewel of the Passeig de Gràcia has to be Casa Batlló, which was completed in 1906 by Barcelona's most famous architect, whose influence is felt through his many projects in the city, Antoni Gaudí:

Gaudí was supposedly inspired by Jules Verne's Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea when he designed this house, which seems to hint at marine landscapes and creatures inside and out. The interior of the house was incredible. Here is a fireplace:

and a light which seems to serve as the centripetal force in an overhead whirlpool:

The interior had some other interesting features such as this doorway with a column before the entrance:

and several arched hallways:

This all led to the roof which held several twisting chimneys covered in mosaics:

I left Casa Batlló:

then walked further down Passeig de Gràcia until I came to Gaudí's other famous house, Casa Milà, built in 1910. It is also known as La Pedrera, which is Catalan for "The Quarry" because of its stony appearance:

The house had a very interesting courtyard with irridescent features:

One of the original apartments was open for tours with period furniture and household items on display:

The attic of La Pedrera was a series of snakelike arches which supported the roof. A museum of Gaudí was placed in this area:

The rooftop was one of the most beautiful areas in the city. Words cannot describe it, so here:

From the roof I was able to see another Gaudí building, the as-of-yet incomplete church Sagarada Família:

As the sun set, I walked back down Passeig de Gràcia and took some photos of Casa Batlló lit up:

I also walked to Sagrada Família to get some night shots of it. I'll say more about it in my next post:

I went to a nearby restaurant called La Muscleria and had some muscles cooked in cider and garlic. It was served alongside a traditional Catalan serving of pa amb tomàquet (bread and tomato) which is toast rubbed with tomato and garlic: