Barcelona

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In July of 2000 Kate had a conference in Valencia, Spain. We made it a bit of an extended holiday visiting Barcelona first and Madrid afterwards. Kate's colleague Sam, who attended the same conference, travelled with us for a good part of this trip — Barcelona and Valencia.

The photo album at left is of Barcelona where we wanted to go to see some of the works of Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926). He was an important Catalan architect in the Art Nouveaux period of the early 20th century and he left a very big and unique mark on Barcelona. The Sagrada Família, an imposing Catholic Basilica, is perhaps the most famous. It was still under construction when we visited. But there's so much more to see.

We arrived late in the day having had problems in Toronto. Our flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems. Kate resolved that problem by insisting that the airline get us to Barcelona via some other route. We ending up flying overnight to Miami and arriving in Madrid late the next day (we were originally scheduled to be there in the morning). The airline had wanted to shunt us away, "come back tomorrow" kind of thing. But Kate stood her ground and insisted, we had only a few days in Barcelona and were not coming back the "next day".

We stayed in a funky little 3-star hotel just off Las Ramblas (Hostal R. Ramos on Plaza San Agustin, we were near the Liceu Metro stop). Our rooms were on the second floor, we had a corner room, and the interior of the building had a courtyard. There was a prominent sign in the lobby — "Beware of Pickpckets/Cuidado Con Cos Carteristas"). We can't say we weren't warned. The buildings in the neighborhood were quite old and more than a little worse for wear. 

The street, Las Ramblas, is a pleasant wide green avenue with shops and lots of cafes on a central green space scattered along the way. We enjoyed some Sangria wine with the many people who had gathered  on La Rambla to enjoy the pleasant summer evening. At the far end of La Rambla there's the Port of Barcelona and the Colon (Christopher Columbus) monument. His trips to the new world were sponsored by Spain but he was actually Italian (Genoa), his name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo, and in Spanish Cristóbal Colón.

We did a bit of wander around exploring the streets that evening, down to the port and back around through the neighborhood to the south and west of our hotel. Along the way we passed a local tavern and a young fellow came out to greet us. Kate and Sam wisely continued on. Reg, ever so trusting, let the fellow engage him and show him the "Barcelona Handshake" which involved a lot of gyrations and jumping about. After the fellow had done so, and had quickly disappeared, Reg discovered that he had just been the victim of the ever so common pick pocket scam. His wallet was gone, damn!!

The next morning Reg queued up at the local police station to report the crime. Along the way he stopped to take some photos of the wrought iron gates to the Güell Palace (1886-188) — it's one of Gaudi's creations and quite lovely. It was originally built as a private mansion with Gaudi as the architect. Reg didn't tour the palace, from the outside, apart from the gates, it looks pretty conventional. The police duly filed Reg's report (and the reports of the many others who had queued up with him) which no doubt was filed in the circular bin.

Our first Gaudi stop together (Kate, Sam and Reg) was the Casa Milà (aka La Pedrera) (1906-1912_. It was built as an apartment block and is a stunning piece of architecture. The architect has been given licence to really let go. It's amazing. It's now a museum that you can tour. The building bulges and flows like waves or some living beast. The many balconies are wrought iron and much like the gates of the Güell Palace from this morning. There was also a Goya exhibit going on. We did get inside the courtyard but didn't take a tour of the building. I wish we had but there was lots more Gaudi to see.

Our next Gaudi stop was the Sagrada Família (1915 - now) — Gaudi's unfinished cathedral. At our visit the cathedral was still open to the sky; there was no roof on it. But we were able to ascend to one of the spires for a view of the work in progress and the surrounding city. I gather there was some effort to implement Gaudi's intentions as plans had been lost along the way.

Our last Gaudi stop of the day was the Park Güell (1900-1914). This is a large green space overlooking the city with whimsical buildings; especially the gates. It's my understanding it was originally intending as a housing development but that never took off. It became a public park in 1926. The picture above is of the entrance buildings to the park. There's also another impressive wrought iron gate. For me the most impressive feature is the broken tile mosaics, we also saw the same technique at the Sagrada on the spires.

The next day we crammed in more visits closer to our hotel (the Museu D'Historia De La Cuitat) and in the late day took a train to Valencia.

— These notes composed January 3, 2023 from fading memories. Slides scanned during pandemic lockdown.