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Barcelona, Spain
Jane says she's going away to Spain when she gets her money saved, she's gonna start tomorrow
Only a short hour and a half plane ride from Brussels is Barcelona (on a chaotic, open seat Virgin Express plane), an architectural wonderland of fun Antonio Gaudi buildings and parks.
We start are all Gaudi all the time Barcelona day with the rooftop at Casa Mila, or La Pedrera, where the chimneys each seem to have their own personality.
Another view of La Pedrera (or Casa Mila), with the courtyard and the chimneys and the people on the roof enjoying them all.
One of the few places that I returned to that I also visited on my first epic European trip two years ago is Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Construction still continues on Gaudi's unfinished cathedral and is progressing nicely (there was a lot more built in the last two years than I expected), still I can't imagine it finishing up in my lifetime. But one can dream I guess.
Fruit!
A quick story: I overheard two Americans at the cathedral (although I guess they could have been Canadians or unaccented Australians) talking about the fruit mosaics saying that they were ugly because they looked all "cracked."
None of this was here two years ago. In 1997 there was no nave at all, and now instead of open sky there are walls and some promising looking columns already up.
For some reason this is my favorite picture of the cathedral. Of all the big European cathedrals I've visited (Milan, Florence, St Peters, Cologne, St Paul and Westminster in London, Strasbourg, Notre Dame, Chartres, the one in Sweden) no other one has turtles as bases for columns. Their loss.
From Sagrada Familia, I took the Barcelona Metro out to Parc Guell, which it turns out is nowhere near the actual Metro stop (it’s a long 20 minute walk away). I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but whatever it was, what I saw instead was most certainly better. Fun. Magical. Good job, Gaudi.
There was a couple taking wedding photos, some kinds happily playing and people (including me) just walking around and taking pictures. It was all just so terribly fun- the forms, the mosaics, the landscape. I’m not sure that I’ve ever been to a better park.
