Barcelona Nights

As you scroll through the last installment of our week-long break, we invite you to sit back & enjoy being serenaded by Ottmar Liebert's wondrous Spanish guitar.  This song is a favorite of ours, and particularly suiting to this round of adventures... Barcelona Nights.

LAST STOP: BARCELONA

It was awesome to be close to the ocean again (meaning close to good seafood at last).  Delicious paella:

We enjoyed sampling different tapas - we often made entire meals out of the little servings.

Various random statues, lights and fountains made walking home (or anywhere) a foreign pleasure. 

Can you spot the shadow below?

The highlight was hands-down all of Gaudi's wacky architecture. Overall, we had the pleasure of witnessing four of his most famous masterpieces.

If Dr. Suess had an influence, it would be Gaudi

These buildings were right around the corner from our hostel

Natalie's favorite... the "Zebra" building

Casa Milà is another one of Gaudi's creations. Of course we wanted to go inside all of them, but long (up to 3 hour) lines and ridiculous prices made our choices for us. 

We'll go back.

Imagine walking out of your room onto one of these waving balconies! 

(probably still cheaper than an apartment in Manhattan)

Cool art graffiti in front of the building

Can we move in?

From Casa Milà, more commonly know as "La Pedrera," we headed over to "La Sagrada Familia," yet another one of Gaudi's wonders.

The beauty of walking everywhere, as we do in almost every city we go to, is that we don't miss a single thing. It often results in early bed times and tired legs, but also random pictures of beautiful off-the-map buildings like this one:

... definitely worth the extra miles.

Alas, we reached what was debatably the highlight of our trip... La Sagrada Familia

Although pictures do not do justice by any means, we'll try to show you a glimpse of Gaudi's Art Nouveau genius.

The first line we waited in was just to get into the church complex itself. Wrapping around the block, we thought we had it pretty bad, but then we found ourselves waiting in another line for 2 1/2 hours to climb one of the towers.  But don't get us wrong - every second of anticipation was worth it.  

The sculptures at the base have rigid, sharp angles.  Here is the passion facade:

The most amazing part is that La Sagrada Familia is still under construction.  When Gaudi died in 1926 (from being run over by a tram!) the church was only a fourth built!  It is predicted to be completed in 2026 - the centennial of Gaudi's death.  We can't wait to see go back and see it in its full glory!


Fun fact: the architect that took over the project imposed an image of what Gaudi's actual face looked like onto the figure on the left in the image above.

The stained glass reflected brilliant colors on the finely crafted sandstone.  

Spiral Staircase

Funky tree-like pillars support the roof

Symbolism is packed into every nook and cranny of the building

Hard at work:

We've both taken art history courses at NYU. We are quite familiar with structural elements of churches, but these "vaults" were definitely not by the book! Its like nothing we've ever seen before.

An elevator soared us to the top of one of the spires.  From there, we had an awesome view of not only Barcelona, but of all of the elaborate construction that was happening from the top up.

When the spires are all finished, it will make La Sagrada Familia the tallest church building in the world, and the church with the highest spire.

One of the many mosaic-covered pinnacles

Jesus, front & center

Here we were able to see fruit decorating the tops of the tympanums... other than the stained-glass windows, the only color on the church! Gaudi's original plan meant for almost every statue and detail to be in color.

Holding on tight. 

(...you can't look down in the picture)

Gazing down the longest spiral staircase

Arches and support beams from mid-level. Does this even look real?

Kind of hard to get the entire building in the background

Couldn't stop taking pictures!

Even the gift shop's architecture was cool

Through all of our travels, La Sagrada Familia remains one of the most wondrous experiences of our lives. The sheer magnitude itself took our breath away. (No.. really, when we looked down from the top, Natalie almost lost it) We were astonished by the detail that was able to be incorporated into such a large creation. We truly intend to go back once it is finished, or at least once the lines die down.

In other areas of the city, The Arc de Triomf stands out with its colorful brickwork. Despite the similarities, this DOES NOT make us miss Washington Square.

Our last evening on the town, we came across this magical building. The Palau de la Música Catalana is a concert hall. Today, more than half a million people a year attend musical events here that range from symphonic and chamber music to jazz and Catalan.

Santa Maria Del Mar was yet another amazement.

Lovely stained glass windows

Then it was time to head towards the beach...

Strolling along the boardwalk, we came across the construction of the most elaborate sandcastles.  Some even had running water (complete with fountain pumps) and FIRE!

This takes sand castle construction to a whole new level

Several were Halloween-themed... how cool are these lit-up jack-o-lanterns?

: )

Lazy time on the beach

Playing in the Mediterranean

Loving the sunshine

Luring in our agenda was venturing to Park Güell - Gaudi's attempt at landscape gardening.

It was a bizarre, enchanting place.  We felt like we were in a magical forest complete with Hansel & Gretel's houses...

The famous mosaic lizard

The view from this terraced area was sweet - you can see straight to the ocean's horizon

Elaborate mosaics adorned the surrounding benches on the promenade

Everyone at the park seemed to be having a grand time, this dancing band especially...

We sat on a bench for awhile and were greatly entertained by cheerful, chittering birds.  This colorful parrot was going nuts over these berries!!

Getting our dose of nature in

We found the best view when we hiked to Turó del Calvari, the top of the park.  

You can see La Sagrada Familia on the left:

Even the plants in the park seemed irregular in shape

We had such an awesome, memorable fall break!

Then it was back to Praha...