Barcelona #4

My walking yesterday took me to Eglesia de Santa Maria del Mar and Museu Picasso, then to Placa de Cataluyna where I negotiated the metro to the foot of Montjuic. Climbed up past the Museu Nationale d'Art de Cataluyna to the Fundacio Joan Miro. Then funicular back down the hill and a further walk to Gaudi's Palau Guell. By this time I'd been on the hoof for 10 hours!

The 14th century Eglesia de Santa Maria del Mar was splendidly peaceful in the early morning. There was no entrance fee (unlike most other churches). My photos can't begin to capture its magnificence and simplicity (magnificent because of it s simplicity).

The Museu Picasso left me slightly underwhelmed. It concentrated on Picasso's early work plus his 1957 Las Meninas series, but seemed to miss a lot too. However I found a series new to me called The Doves which really made me smile. Not my photo as I didn't take pictures in either Museu Picasso or Fundacio Joan Miro. In the latter they were explicitly not allowed. Good thing. In Amsterdam photo taking in art galleries is endemic and so frustrating.

My climb up Montjuic in the early afternoon heat afforded these views down over parts of the city.

La Sagrada Familia in centre distance

This friendly fellow greeted me at Fundacio Joan Miro. 

I have never been very attracted to Miro's work but I now understand more about him and the influences shaping his painting and sculpture. The Spanish Civil War forms the backdrop to both Miro and Picasso's work of the late 30s. I certainly want to read biographies of Miro and Gaudi when I get home.

Final stop of the day (before dinner) was Palau Guell, designed by Gaudi for Catalan industrial tycoon Eusebi Guell, his wife and 11 children. Again it is impossible to photograph adequately. From the outside it looks like this... 

There is some wonderful domestic stained glass...

This is a ceiling...

And what was to become (later) a Gaudi signature, but is quite different from the rest of this mainly Arts and Crafts-inspired work - on the roof...

Finally, as I made my way back to the convent, a protest in support of gay rights (I'm guessing) in Placa de Sant Jaume. 

Barcelona #2

I don't know how to even begin to write about Barcelona... I need days and days just to convey everything that has been happening. I'll start where I finished - with the convent - because it is endlessly fascinating, like the city.

There is always an elderly sister on duty. I ring a bell at the door in the wall, there's a short wait and one of two sisters whom I've met opens it. Both are small, neither speaks English but they are just lovely, can't do enough to help (which often involves finding someone else who has a small amount of English to solve a problem). This morning I needed to wash some clothes (more than I could easily do in the bathroom sink). However to use the convent washing machine and dryer was going to take more time than I had. So Sister Nuria (phonetic) and I had a gestural conversation in which she showed me how to set up and pay for the wash and indicated that she would peg the clothes out and get them back to me. I returned home this evening to find a tray of perfectly folded clothes - more beautifully folded than I could ever manage.

Yesterday, once I had been greeted and initiated (no signing in as such) I parked my bags in my room and just went walking. Tired as I was from a fairly sleepless night, an early start and a fairly demanding sequence of transport changes, I managed to hang out on the streets of Barcelona from about 2.30pm until after 10.00pm. So what did I discover?

It's hot...

...but being in the shade makes a big difference and there's always a shady spot somewhere nearby.

Down near the waterfront

La Rambla - the pedestrian artery - is tree-lined

Big, old and gorgeous is everywhere...

Placa de Sant Jaume - the convent is about a minute's walk from here

The gothic Catedral - also nearby

Museu Nacional d'Art Catalunya

...so are the tourists...

Queue outside Museu Picasso this morning

...and so are the poor, who range from those sleeping on the streets and begging (whom I cannot bring myself to photograph) to those who have a job of sorts...

Shoe-cleaning (I think) on La Rambla

...or who like a smoke while walking the dog.