I still love you, Barcelona

I connect with cities in different ways. I liked Lisbon for its rough-around-the-edges gaiety. Coimbra had an huge and bustling student population and Harry Potter indoctrination feel, with students in black robes and bats in the library. But Barcelona? Barcelona is the prom queen of cities, with surprises on every block and thousands of outdoor cafes filled with people relaxing over coffee. This city is just a lively, thrilling architectural mecca. Every street is filled with Modernista touches – the windows, balconies, streetlights…Here’s a few shots from our strolling:

We’re hanging out with some friends – Kris and Jim – here in Barcelona and, because of this, although I can provide this picture of the first Taco Bell I’ve seen in a month, I cannot give you any details about the Bean Burrito I desperately wanted to eat. The reason for this is fear of ridicule from Jim, who seems like he might have a more cultivated palate than I do. This created a lot of angst for me – I had to walk by, but not enter, a Burger King, KFC, and a McDonald’s, in addition to that Taco Bell.

Notwithstanding the food difficulties, we’re having a great time here. Kris and Jim were totally game for undertaking one of my over-planned city hike days, even after I got them lost the very evening we met, trying to get to an Italian restaurant. (Even I notice the theme at this point: meet people, get them lost within the first hour, hope they still want to travel with me).

We started out at Sagrada Familia, Anton Gaudi’s still-unfinished church. The groundbreaking was in 1882 and there’s talk that it might be finished by 2026. This place is massive – it can seat 9000 people. It’s beautiful inside – but it doesn’t wow me like the cathedral in Leon with the stained glass and I’m probably cementing a few people’s low opinion of me, what with the Taco Bell obsession and the ignorant comments about Sagrada Familia. But here’s a few pics, starting with the outside:

And then moving inside:

From Sagrada Familia, we moved to the highlight visit of our day: Hospital Sant Pau, which was a hospital “campus” in the city. It was built between 1901 and 1930 and consists of 12 building, linked by underground tunnels. It functioned as a hospital until 2009 and now sits open for us to wander. It’s a massive park of art nouveau buildings and tile. Ron was so smitten with the mosaic tile work in this place that he spent a LOT of time telling me, Jim, and Kris about his new plan to take up mosaic tile work when we get home. Here he is mid-lecture about this piece of wall art that really moved him, which he plans to re-create, somehow, and adhere to a wall or window of our condo:

Here’s a full view of the Sant Pau campus:

Here’s Kris and Jim, looking pretty happy to be touring Barcelona with us, but I had not made my disappointing pro-Taco Bell comments yet:

This is the ceiling and stairwell in the atrium with Ron, just moments before he discovered his new passion for mosaic tile and started listing the purchases he is going to make when he gets home and his plan to “repurpose” our garage as a tile-cutting workshop or maybe a stained glass shop, he is not certain yet, but he is surely surely surely excited about Modernista art:

Here’s what it looks like from the street in front:

And last picture, I promise – the amazing pink ceiling of the administration building. If you’re in Barcelona – go here!!

From Hospital Sant Pau, we headed down to another well-known Gaudi building – Casa Batllo – from 1877:

Ok, bedtime here. We’ve got a big day tomorrow. Much like in Lisbon, with the Pena Palace/Ron head injury disaster day, I’ve planned a day out with Spanish Trails, a highly-rated Barcelona company. They’ve got a standard Salvador Dali and Girona driving tour that I altered in some way. I can’t recall what I changed – this was about nine months ago – but surely it will go awry and Kris and Jim can join all the other people who are (rightly) wary about traveling with me.