After the vacation part of the trip was over, my wife flew home, and I participated in the big trade show. These pictures are just various ones I took over those days. The one above is a random street picture I took just because of how interesting the buildings are. Coming from a rural area, I am amazed at this sort of city living with store fronts and restaurants at ground level and apartments above. I can imagine the convenience and excitement of living in such a setting.
In the evenings, I went out for dinner with colleagues from the trade show a couple times. In Barcelona, many restaurants close at 4PM and re-open for dinner at 8PM, so dinner ending close to midnight isn’t unusual. One evening, we all met for tapas at a place 20 minutes from my hotel, so on the way back, I detoured to Passage de Gracia, the big street with La Pedrera on it. Interestingly, the inside isn’t lit at night. I know they have nighttime tours, but nothing seemed to be going on that night.
I took this final image just after takeoff on the flight home. I was amazed at the large quarries just outside Barcelona. Click on the picture to get a better view.
Casa Mila is an apartment building designed by Gaudi for the Mila family and built between 1906 and 1912. It is commonly known as La Pedrera because of its resemblance to a stone quarry. As usual with Gaudi’s work, there are few straight lines and the curves are inspired by nature.
Within the building are two courtyards open to the sky. These allow for lots of light and ventilation, so the apartments have lots of windows both on the inside and outside of the building. The 2nd and 3rd photos above show a covered walkway up to the next floor, but the normal ways up are the elevator and stairwells around the building. We took the stairs because the wait for the elevator was huge. The ironwork on the interior balconies is also fantastic.
This model of the building shows the courtyards and ventilation shafts as well as the flowing architecture.
After climbing many flights of stairs, we got to the floor showing an apartment that has been restored for tourists. It also contained a gift shop. As you can see, the doorways are curved and the ceilings are decorated.
We the climbed the stairs to the attic, which was surprisingly roomy with its curved ceiling. The attic was set up with exhibits, including a large, detailed model of the building. As with Sagrada Familia, Gaudi used an upside-down model to design the structural components of the building. He also designed furniture for the building. It doesn’t look particularly comfortable to me, but the audio tour says it is.
Climbing from the attic to the roof gave us our first views of the “Warrior Rooftop” where the ventilation towers and chimneys have fantastic designs and shapes! Many are covered using trencadis to decorate and protect them with broken and recycled tile and stone.
Views into the interior courtyards. I imagine the fences are because of the tourists and probably weren’t original.
The exterior of the building has lots of curves even around the top.
Of course, the roof of La Pedrera has magnificent views of Sagrada Familia!
The final image from the roof of La Pedrera is towards the hills North of Barcelona. That communications tower apparently (according to the bus tour) has meeting rooms built into it, so people can have business meetings and events overlooking Barcelona, which would be spectacular.
After our visit to Park Guell, we went to the Arc de Triomf, built in 1888. You can see the 4 posts in front of it are topped with dragons, just the start of the dragon themes in the area. The 3rd pic is the road leading to the monument.
The then walked along the Passeig de LluÃs Companys to the Parc de la Ciutadella. The first pic shows the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia. The second shows a dragon-themed decoration along the walkway. Finally, the Monument a Rius i Taulet dedicated to a multi-term mayor who promoted the 1888 Expo.
At the entrance to the Parc de la Ciutadella is the Castle of 3 Dragons, currently closed, with 3 lizards surrounding an empty water feature out front. Barcelona is currently in a drought, so the fountains were empty. There were also some greenhouses with various plant exhibitions that we walked through.
Here’s a Catholic church in the park with a high school to the left. A pond had lots of people paddling boats.
We walked past a dance event in front of the El Carro de l’Aurora (Chariot of the Aurora). Knowing nothing about it, I’m guessing this is a Catalan dance called “sardana” where dancers hold hands and move in a circle. This is a movie, so click it!
A few pics from our walk back to the Metro stop, including the very ornate light poles along the path. As you can see, everyone is out on a nice Winter day!
Later that evening, we went out to a restaurant recommended to us for paella, but the sky was so spectacular I had to stop and take a picture!
After dinner, we took a detour back to the hotel via Passeig de Grà cia, a main street with several Gaudi buildings. As we approached, we saw lots of police and a huge crowd. They had a street concert with projectors on Casa Batllo, a Gaudi-designed house with dragon scale-looking roof. Another movie – click it!
The concert ended as we approached so we were among the thousands of people clogging the streets to clear the area.
On the morning of Day 3, we visited Park Guell in lovely weather that had no traces of the previous day’s rain. Park Guell was intended to be a planned neighborhood for the wealthy of Barcelona. It was commissioned around 1900 by a well-travelled entrepreneur named Guell, who was inspired by his overseas trips, and designed by Gaudi. It was a commercial failure, partly because it was fairly far from the city center, but perhaps also because Gaudi’s designs weren’t appreciated back then. The work “Park” in the park’s name is intentionally in English, not Catalan, because Guell thought that would make it more exotic.
Gaudi surrounded the park with walls shaped to keep interlopers out, since this was intended to be a rich enclave, after all. He covered the stone with a mosaic of broken tile and glass to protect the stone and provide a slippery surface to deny handholds to anyone trying to climb the walls. This technique is called “trencadis” and Gaudi used it regularly.
At the park entrance to the South (towards downtown Barcelona), two unique buildings were intended to greet visitors to the residences. The wider one with the pine cone looking ornament on top was the porter’s house, while the smaller rounded one was where guests could wait as their coach was called (it apparently had a telephone, which was rare in those days).
Past the entrance buildings, the “dragon stair” leads to the centerpiece of the park, Gaudi’s community center with room for a market underneath and meeting area with conversation-inducing benches above. More on that later.
Climbing a path near the entrance provides a view of Gaudi’s final project, Sagrada Familia. Gaudi, who lived in a house at Park Guell, apparently walked to and from Sagrada Familia every day. Eventually, he moved into his onsite workshop to avoid the walk.
Guell had a house at the park, though he also had a mansion designed by Gaudi closer to the center of Barcelona. Guell’s house in the park was not designed by Gaudi, so looks “normal” with straight lines and such. It does have interesting diamond windows, and Gaudi added a rear deck. The palm leaf fence shows up at the park entrance too. Just next to the house is the central gathering place for the park, as can be seen in the last two photos. The Guell house is now a school for local children.
Underneath the central gathering place is room for a market. Gaudi envisioned vendors in the open areas where he left some columns out to make extra space. The roof is covered with trencadis tile fragments and some decorative centerpieces have glass and tile in 3D arrangements. The columns were designed to carry water from the open space above to a cistern below, so there would always be water reserves, but the great number of tourists has compacted the soil and sand above that the water no longer flows. The last two pics above shows the view out to the sea, which is miles away.
Above the market is a vast open area full of tourists and with spectacular views. It is surrounded by a continuous bench covered in trencadis. The bench is designed with many seating areas where people could sit and face each other to converse.
The open space meeting area has palm trees behind it and pathways leading up into the rest of the park. From here, we can see the two other houses in the park. The one with the green windows is the third house in the park (the only one sold and the last to be built) and was bought by Guell’s lawyer. It is still owned and occupied (I think) by members of that family. The taller pink house is Gaudi’s house and is now a museum.
Pictures of Gaudi’s house from below and above. The park has quite a lot of verticality.
To get people and carriages around the park, Gaudi designed trails and bridges with his usual style of no straight lines and use local materials. The use of angled columns is prevalent throughout these bridges. As you can see from the last photo, the limestone blocks need a bit of help in some places, but most other places, they’re doing very well.
The interior of Sagrada Familia is as impressive as the exterior! It is enormously tall with lots of light from the extensive stained glass.
The design of the interior is based on a forest of trees. You can see how the columns split into branches that support the very tall roof. The stained glass on one side is orange and red and yellow for summer and fall, while the other side has blue and green, representing winter and spring.
Gaudi modeled the structure with strings and weights to determine where to place the columns. He hung his model upside down – a remarkably ingenious approach to the engineering well before modern structural analysis existed.
The stained glass is all modern, and contains references to saints from around the world. In the 3rd picture above, you can see seating for the choir that surrounds the main area of the basilica.
The crucifix above the altar leaves nothing to the imagination, making it very clear how painful and terrible crucifixion was.
Lighted symbology on the columns around the altar.
Statues within the basilica. The last one is dedicated to St. George, the patron saint of Catalonia.
The crypt, beneath the main chapel was the first item completed and is still in use today for mass. Gaudi’s tomb is also in the crypt. The organ pipes were near the viewing area of the crypt. The plan is to add lots more organ pipes to fill the basilica with sound.
Furniture where accessories for mass can be stored.
The Basilica of Sagrada Familia is one of the most iconic landmarks in Barcelona. We had tickets for a guided tour and the trip up the Nativity tower for the morning of our second day in Barcelona. We’d seen pictures, of course, but nothing prepares you for the real view as we emerged from the subway station to see the view shown above!
The basilica has been under construction since 1882 and was Gaudi’s masterpiece. Gaudi died tragically in 1926, so he didn’t see much of it done. He created samples and designs for those that followed to use in his stead, but civil wars and uprisings destroyed many of them and damaged the building a few times. You can see the ornate designs in the images above. The fruit at the tops of the roof depict what was available in the holy land. Each of the large towers represents a member of the Sacred Family, including the Apostles, the Evangelists, the Virgin Mary, and the largest one in the center, Jesus. The plan is to finish the Jesus tower, the largest one, by the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death next year.
The tour group met at the base of the Nativity Facade, though we didn’t understand much of the symbolism at the time. We were just amazed at the ornate sculpture that made up the facade.
The tour guide took us to the model of the how the building will look when it is completed in 2033. Click the image to see it closer. You can see how enormous the Jesus tower will be!
The tour guide showed us how this Nativity facade showed the birth and life of Jesus. Animals also played a major role in the facade. We can see the two turtles that are supporting the columns as well as the two geckos on the wall. Then we entered the ornate doorway to the interior of the basilica. I have so many interior pictures, I will make that a separate post.
The tour then exited to the Passion facade, which we stayed pretty close to because of the pouring rain. This facade was done by a more modernist artist, so many angles and flat surfaces, but as stunning as the other side. The Passion facade depicts the stations of the cross. It also has a large statue of Jesus struggling with the cross in front of the stunning doors. Above it all, we see a gold Jesus ascending into heaven.
A few more pics, some from outside the fence. The amount of detail is incredible – everywhere you look, there is something meaningful. Notice also that Gaudi didn’t like purely vertical columns. He used columns with angles to help support the building.
Sadly, the rain started coming down pretty hard as we were inside the basilica, so we weren’t able to go up the Nativity tower. The towers have an elevator up, but the only way down is 400 steps, so they didn’t want to have people slipping. Of course, Apple’s Weather app swore that not only wasn’t it raining, but there had been no rain.
We arrived in Barcelona in the morning, got to our hotel, then, after a quick nap, set out to explore. Our hotel was in a fantastic location, half a block to Placa de Catalunya, often called the center of town. We walked La Rambla, a huge street from the plaza to the harbor. Because of all the construction and the huge crowds, not to mention the jet lag, I didn’t take any pictures of La Rambla. I’m not used to walking in such crowded conditions, so wasn’t thinking of pictures.
Columbus Monument
At the end of La Rambla is a monument to Christopher Columbus. He is beloved in Spain because he brought back lots of treasure from his voyage of exploration.
After a walk back up La Rambla and through a huge market full of stalls selling nearly any kind of food and ingredients, we headed for the Museum of History, which contains the ruins of the ancient Roman walled city of Barcino. Walking through the narrow alleys and around the 13th century cathedral was fantastic.
The History Museum is terrific and well worth a visit! First, we went through the “modern” history of Barcelona, where it was a textile manufacturing powerhouse and capital of Catalunya, involved in several wars and uprisings. From a viewpoint at the top of the museum, we could look out at the Gothic Quarter and beautiful nearby buildings. The plaza shown in the 4th picture turns out to be more important than it appears. The Roman ruins, roads, and city walls of ancient Barcino were discovered under that plaza. Each generation in Barcino built over top of what existed before, then as the city expanded, a church and much more were built on top. The ruins were excavated early last century, so from the museum, we went down underground and saw the ancient roads, shops, and more. The laser lines in the photos show the road boundaries, while other photos show wine-making vats and walls of 2000 year-old buildings.
The patterns and tiles were still clearly visible in some areas, which is remarkable!
Placa del Rei
As we left the museum, we exited into the plaza above the ruins. The plaza took on a whole new meaning for us once we saw what was underneath.
I went to Barcelona for business but took some time to be a tourist with my wife beforehand. I’ll post pages with pics as I get to it, and all will be linked through this post.
The last stop on our Autoventure was Cedar Breaks National Monument. We stayed in Cedar City, UT, and took the short 20-ish mile drive up to Cedar Breaks with a bit of road construction to slow us down. The park seems not to be very well known despite the spectacular scenery. It looks a lot like a mini Bryce Canyon, yet all above 10,000 feet! It is closed in winter, and nearby Brian Head has several ski areas which looked nice. The main visitor center was closed, but a temporary visitor center and store was set up just near the park entrance.
We stopped at the Sunset View Overlook for our first view of the amazing geologic formation below.
We then drove through an alpine meadow to stop at Chessmen Ridge Overlook for even more spectacular views.
We went on to the North View Overlook to see everything from yet another angle.
After a picnic lunch at the campground, we headed back to the Chessmen Ridge Overlook parking to take the Alpine Trail, a loop that took us to an algae-filled lake. We took the upper trail first and got to walk on snow for the first time in many years. The upper trail was fairly easy, but a number of trees had fallen and were blocking the trail, and the path down to the lake and lower trail was steep, muddy, and had lots of snow.
The lower trail was a fair bit more treacherous than the upper trail, with more fallen trees, more snow, and lots of mud. But, it was close to the edge of the canyon, so we got amazing views on the return journey.
We left Zion Canyon and Springdale and drove North on I-15 to Kolob Canyons. This is a lesser-known area of Zion National Park and was not at all crowded but is beautiful and offers nice hiking and picnicking. Our first stop after entering the park gave us great views of massive rock faces and deep valleys. Unfortunately, with all the sunscreen I was applying, I seem to have smeared the lens on my phone, so many of my pics from Kolob Canyons have artifacts, as can be seen in the right pic below.
From this viewpoint, we could see the road heading up and around.
We drove quite a distance along the road, past trailheads and small overlooks to get to the Kolob Canyon’s Viewpoint. Here we got spectacular views of enormous rock faces, as this panoramic view shows.
We then took the Timber Creek Overlook trail, a short, not too difficult trail that led to a high point with great views for many miles.
While it wasn’t nearly as hot at Kolob Canyons as it was in Zion Canyon, it was still pretty hot, so shade was important!
Ahh, relief!
Once we reached the end of the trail, we could see distant ranges, but also could look back at the rocks across the valley from the trailhead. It was a beautiful hike!
