Barcelona in 3 days - part 1

Jim, Brian and Carol very kindly gave me a city break as a gift for my 60th birthday. Bundoran had been suggested as a possible destination but I was more attracted to Barcelona. As it is likely that I will be incapacitated for at least 6 weeks due to surgery being required to deal with various toe problems, we decided to take the Barcelona trip while I could still walk and before the temperatures in the city would have reached heights that we could not handle.

On Tuesday March 19th 2013 we set off, giving ourselves plenty of time for potential delays. The initial departure was a bit of a false start as I had forgotten to print out the hotel reservation. Not to worry - with Jim in charge of timing we had lots of time.

When I booked the trip and the hotel - Hotel Avenida Palace - the website had mentioned a shuttle bus from the airport. Fortunately I decided to doublecheck to discover that there was no shuttle bus. A car could be provided for us at a cost of 95 euros! A taxi would be around 30 and public transport - airbus - was around 7 euros. Public transport would be fine we thought but we would have the difficulty then of locating the hotel. As it happened we arrived around 8 p.m., starving, so got a taxi, checked in and were seated in a nearby restaurant ordering tapas by 9. We had time before going to bed to have a look at the Placa Catalunya and its fountains. In fact, the first thing I had noticed about Barcelona while we were in the taxi was the fantastic fountains. At one traffiuc lights the water poured over the sides of the fountain and was lit in different shades of blue, green and red.

 

We walked along to get our first views of Casa Batllo on Paseig de Graci. This was my first experience of Gaudi's work and I think it is absolutely fantastic. The balconies, lit up, give the impression of skulls or of the kind of masks worn at a masked ball

This is a close-up from outside of the gallery that looks out onto the Passeig de Gracia. I couldn't wait till the next day when we would do a tour of the house.










Our plan for our first full day was, as usual for us, to take the hop on-hop off bus in order to get an overview of the city and decide which sites we would visit. After breakfast in the hotel we set off for Placa Catalunya where we would get the Barcelona City Tour Bus for which I had already booked tickets for 2 days. There are 2 routes this bus takes - the west route (orange) and the east route (green). The east route included stops at the main Gaudi buildings so we decided to start with that. The buildings in Barcelona are really impressive.

The green route brought us past the Cathedral in the Barri Gotic and past the Roman remains in that area of the city.

 

En route we passed a piece of public art by Roy Lichtenstein - very colorful. This is at Port Veil, the old harbour which was completely redeveloped in the 1990s.

Cap de Barcelona

We also passed the Gold Fish by Frank O. Ghery at the Olympic Port. This sculpture was built in 1992 for the Olympic Games.

 

 

We also passed this sculpture but I didn't catch what exactly it was. However, I have checked and it seems it is "David and Goliath" by Antoni LLenas.

The Torre Agbar is a 38 storey tower designed by French architect Jean Nouvel. It opened in June 2005. It is situated near Placa de Les Glories Catalanes.

 

There were lots of trees like this with little fluffy balls hanging from them.

2 views of Museu Torino - a museum devoted to the memorabilia of bullfighting.

First views of the outside of La Sagrada Familia - Gaudi style now becoming familiar to us.

More interesting buildings.

First views of Casa Mila, more commonly known as La Pedrera, on the Passeig de Gracia. This is generally considered to be Gaudi's most accomplished work and the pinnacle of modernist architecture.

At this stage we were one stop short of Casa Batllo, the secondlast stop on our tour, where we were going to hop off for a tour. Jim went pale at the cost - more than 20 euro each. However, he felt a bit better when we got the senior's rate which was a reduction of over 4 euro each. We each got an audioguide and I had the brainwave of using our earphones from the hop on hop off bus to avoid having to hold the audioguide to my ear. It worked perfectly! In daylight Casa Batllo is equally as fantastic as it is at night. There are no straight lines - everything swirls.

Having entered and donned earphone a winding staircase wafts you up to the the Noble floor. We first enter Mr. Batllo's former study which has a mushroom-shaped foreplace, a perfect secluded spot for courting couples with a bench on one side for the couple and one on the other side for the chaperone.

 

No courting couple today but the chaperone has obviously other duties!

From there you enter the main suite with its three interconnected rooms. Gaudi created large oak doors with organic shapes into which are set panes of stained glass.

 It is interesting that the stained glass panes look different when viewed from the other side.

 The huge windows let the light in and allow a perfect view of the Passeig de Gracia below.

 

This is the gallery from inside that we looked at from outside last night. The ceiling is wavy in allusion to the sea.

 

The room leading to the courtyard features the above decoration in the ceiling - it is like the effect of dropping a pebble into water. 

Features of the courtyard.

View from the courtyard back into the room. Interesting positioning of the pillars!

View of the house from the courtyard.

Casa Batllo has a central well in order to supply light to all the apartments. It is tiled the whole way with tiles going from light at the bottom where there is less daylight to darker at the top. I don't think our photos have really captured that.

We proceeded to the attic with its catenary arches. They are painted a pure white and are set off by the shell-like tile flooring.

From the roof there is an excellent view of Barcelona but the roof itself is fantastic. Gaudi obviously let his imagination run riot here. The roof is dominated by what is known as the dragon's back. Gaudi represents the animal's back using tiles of different colours. The roof is decorated with 4 chimney stacks. I have never seen anything like it.

See the spine of the dragon!

Gaudi is known for this type of four-sided cross.

Finally we returned outside for another view of the facade. It is tiled with a mosaic of pieces of glass and ceramic discs giving an undulating surface - absolutely beautiful!

Right beside Casa Batllo is another example of modernist architecture - Casa Amatller, designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch.

And beside that is another - Casa Lleo Morera, designed by Domenech i Montaner, another of Barcelona's famous architects.

These 3 houses look like a competition between the 3 designers. They form what is known as The Block of Discord.

It was time to hop on the bus again in search of lunch in Barceloneta.