Barcelona streets

The street where I stayed.

There are lots of pharmacies in the gothic quarter - don't know why this jumped out at me. Inside they have gleaming tile floors, modern lighting and displays of nicely packaged stuff.

Grafitti is everywhere! This is a wall behind the cathedral with tags that are more elaborate than usual.

I took loads of balcony shots: balconies filled with laundry, with potted plants, with bicycles and rubbish. I imagined myself living in each and every one.

A friend of mine compares the Boqueria market to an art gallery for fruit and vegetables.

The Ramblas is a pedestrian walkway lined with cafes, flower stalls and people selling birds, rabbits and lizards. Some of the buskers on the Ramblas have elaborate costumes and stand on pedestals like statues. I saw Don Quixote, Atlas with the world on his shoulders, a centaur, a man with dreadlocks painted completely red sitting on a foam elephant, an angel, a tramp, a cow, a person dressed as a fruit stand.

I liked the buskers dressed as statues because they were so unstatue-like. They chatted with each other. They gesticulated with their silver or bronze or green painted hands, twirled keys in their fingers, smoked cigarettes. When they were discouraged by the lack of tourists posing for photographs with them, they shook out their legs and massaged their ankles. They sat slumped on milk crates.

Gaudi

Casa Batlló

La Pedrera

Lobby of La Pedrera (much of the building is occupied by residential and commercial tenants).

Chmineys on the roof of La Pedrera

Detail of Chimney

La Sagrada Familia

Below are some photos of the inside of the temple. (The outside is wild - the east entrance looks like the cast of religious history has been poured in mounds over the door. Then there are a bunch of towers that look like something out of a fairy tale.)

At the top of the walls there are flower shaped windows (walls remind me of plant stalks).

Then in the centre of the cathedral are all these elegant, slender columns that reach up to a ceiling covered in star-flowers. The central panel of star-flowers is gold and amber/orange.




Apparently, as a child Gaudi had rheumatism. His illness prevented him from playing with other children and he spent a lot of time alone, observing nature.




During the last years of his life Gaudi lived in his workshop on the temple site. He never married and his closest family members and friends (as well as his patron, Guell) all died within years of each other, and Gaudi was left alone. His finances took a turn for the worse and support for the Sagrada project was diminshing. He was struck by a tram one day in early June (just a couple of weeks before his birthday). He died in hospital a few days later. He was 72.


The temple is still under construction. Visitors crowd into narrow pathways that follow the outer walls around part of the temple.

Park Guell

Gaudi started work on this park at the request of Guell. The idea was that he'd create an urbanization in harmony with the natural surroundings of the site. The park is filled with stone pillars, walkways with scalloped borders, gingerbread houses and undulating mosaic benches. The park sits on a hill and has views of Barcelona and the sea. Lots of tourists.


Happy honeymoon Yanis and Sonia.

Netting

Barcelona

The place I stayed was on a narrow street. With a good running long jump (old track and field days) I could probably land on the balconies across from me

The buildings on the street were about five stories high. Everything was made of stone, and footsteps and voices echoed up to my window.

The first day in Barcelona I visited the cathedral.

And went up on the roof.

Begin

Managed to sidestep my usual routine. Used up the overdraft at the bank and bought a plane ticket to Barcelona.