We had breakfast at the hotel’s breakfast buffet – all sorts of interesting things. Quail’s legs (teensy little things), salt cod (they do seem to like cod around here), plus lox! Yummy. And delicious fruit – and pecan pie! There was a separate corner for “organic and dietetic”, where I was able to find my skim milk. Otherwise, the "organic and dietetic" food looked completely unappetizing.
Our plan for today was simple – the Picasso Museum and the Sagrada Familia church. We walked to the Picasso Museum – this, of course takes forever at the pace I go. We took all sorts of interesting shortcuts, taking us through stereotypic European narrow streets that are not much wider than a small car, with no clear demarkation between street and sidewalk. And the cars drive through anyway. By the time we made it to La Rambla, it was lunch time. Yes it was far and yes I walk that slowly.
So we stopped at some random place – I had vegetarian paella and a salad. It’s been a long time since I’ve had paella. Good stuff.
We continued on our way to the museum – passed through Plaza de Sant Jaume. Shortly after that some realllly interesting stores popped up, and we just had to stop. Saw some beautiful hand painted silk fans (traditionally, young women hid their faces behind a fan. Also, sure helps when it’s hot), and object d’art using Gaudi’s tiling technique (breaking the tiles to conform to curves, rather than destroy the curve). But it was actually getting late – our guidebook said the museum closed at 3:00, and it was after 2:00. Of course, this did not stop me from making note of interesting stores along the way, so we could back track afterwards.
Once we finally got to the museum, the line for tickets stretched into the distance. Turns out, the museum doesn’t close at 3:00 – tickets AFTER 3:00 are FREE. Well then, for once running late paid off. The line was atrocious though – must have waited an hour just to get in. A museum staff member saw me leaning on my walking stick and offered to let me jump to the front of the line, but I felt that would not be right – I don’t depend on the walking stick like a cane, it just helps on days with lots of walking.
When we finally approached the ticket booth, I spotted the entrance to the museum – up a flight of stairs! Stair climbing is a bit of a chore, so I was not looking forward to this. Then suddenly another museum staff person beckons to me and Andy and we bypassed the rest of the line, and were escorted to the elevator (apparently operated only by a key and not available to the public), so I didn’t have to walk up the stairs. This I did not turn down!
The museum itself took about 90 minutes to go through – art mostly from his early years. It was amazing how traditional his early work was. It was interesting to watch the transition from traditional to cubist. The most interesting room was devoted to his study of one painting - Diego Velasquez' painting "Las Meninas" - he reinterpreted this painting many times, each time taking a slightly different direction.
Our next goal was the Sagrada Familia church, designed by Antoni Gaudi, the same person who designed Casa Botllo that we saw yesterday. Apparently, Gaudi was hit by a tram and killed before the church could be finished.
Anyway, on our to the Sagrada Familia, we of course had to stop in those shops we had seen on our way to the Picasso Museum. Uh oh, now that we could take our time, we found all sorts of interesting things to buy. The biggest – 6 ceramic tiles that together depicted a bowl of fruit. How we’re going to get this thing home, not really sure. There will be a major re-alignment of stuff in our bags to avoid an “too heavy” bag fee.
This ceramic thing was too big and heavy for Andy to schlep around for the rest of the day, so we took a taxi back to the hotel to drop everything off. Then we started walking to the Metro, which was just a few blocks away.
The metro stop was in Plaza de Espana. As we got close, we could hear New Age music blasting from somewhere, so we followed the sound. There at the end of this wide street was this HUGE building (turned out to be the Museum of Art of Catalonia).
Apparently today/tonight is the beginning of the Eurpean Athletic Championship and we were watching some kind of opening day performance (later Andy said he wondered if it was a rehearsal). We watched for a bit, but then we continued on to the Metro.
The Metro station had nothing but stairs going down, followed by stairs going up, and then stairs going down again. Arg, just agony. When we finally found the actual entrance to the subway, we had to figure out how to buy a ticket. A kind metro guy helped us – his broken English and my broken Spanish worked ok, after a fashion. The subway cars themselves have almost no actual seats, just places to lean.
The Barcelona subway system is HUGE – at least twice the size of DC’s system. We’re wondering how big Barcelona actually is.
We popped out of the metro station – and there it was, as large as life, this huge church. Unfortunately, even thought it was only 7:00 and the church closed at 8:00, apparently this would not be enough time to go through everything – and the towers were already closed. Disappointing, to say the least. This is now #1 on our list of things to do when we come back to Barcelona on August 2. We were looking for things we could do, since a lot of venues are closed on Mondays.
So I took a bunch of photos of the outside instead. Gaudi’s designs are always whimsical, and so was this church. It fairly looked like a cartoon. He was hit by a tram before he could finish it, and left behind no documented designs for the inside. However, private donations are keeping the construction moving forward – the current goal is to have it completed in time for the 100th anniversary of his death in 2026 (according to wikipedia).
Andy tried to help out this young woman by taking her photo in front of the church – she really wanted to include herself in the photo, but the church was too big and we were too close, and her camera too dinky. But we had a nice conversation with her – she comes from Ankara, Turkey and is studying genetics.
Afterwards, we wandered around aimlessly looking for a place to have dinner – most of the restaurants down one street had only tapas, so we wandered down another street, thinking we would just head back to La Rambla. However, it was the street that had a really awesome view of the church, so there were lots of restaurants to pick from.
After dinner we thought we’d walk back to La Rambla then take a cab back. However, we got lost and spent too much time trying figure out where we were. Eventually we gave up and hailed a cab back to the hotel.
Monday is the big day – ALL ABOARD!
Andy tried to help out this young woman by taking her photo in front of the church – she really wanted to include herself in the photo, but the church was too big and we were too close, and her camera too dinky. But we had a nice conversation with her – she comes from Ankara, Turkey and is studying genetics.
Afterwards, we wandered around aimlessly looking for a place to have dinner – most of the restaurants down one street had only tapas, so we wandered down another street, thinking we would just head back to La Rambla. However, it was the street that had a really awesome view of the church, so there were lots of restaurants to pick from.
After dinner we thought we’d walk back to La Rambla then take a cab back. However, we got lost and spent too much time trying figure out where we were. Eventually we gave up and hailed a cab back to the hotel.
Monday is the big day – ALL ABOARD!
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