Not Sweating the Small Stuff

Friday, October 16, 2009

Barcelona - Potentially A Very Bad Travel Post

(Not my Image)

A few days ago in a Comment, someone talked a bit about Barcelona and its Antoni Gaudi architecture. And, because I'd had such a great time there a few years back, I threw something (rather over-enthusiastically) into 'conversation' about doing a post on this French-looking city near the eastern border of Spain.

But when I looked over the pictures I'd taken, the joy at the prospect slowly seeped away - not good photography, at all at all!

But undeterred, I'm going to use whatever creative skills I possess to try to make this post as good as the experience in fact was. Aided and abetted by a couple of images from the net.

We were staying with an ex of mine in a very rundown apartment in the trampy part of town - where the hookers live and work ...

... which is exactly where I usually like to stay.

The area's the old part of the city and endlessly draws you out into the streets, just to walk about ...

... and, being serious foodies, there're always stops along the way ...

The main action, particularly at night, is Las Ramblas, a broad avenue down the center of town to the sea ...

(Not my Image)

... unto which the famous Gran Teatre del Liceu fronts ...

The seriously big deal in Barcelona is of course Gaudi's quirky twist on Art Nouveau architecture, in particular his La Segrada Familia ...

... which, begun in 1882, is still under construction ...

There is in fact a second seriously big deal in Barcelona - Mies van der Rohe's German Pavilion for the International Exposition of 1929.

(Not my Image)

In stone glass and steel, it's prototypical of the 1920s International Style in architecture, where the traditional separateness of rooms is dissolved and screen walls guide space to flow through the building....