¡Barcelona!

 On Tuesday, June 24 Bill and I flew off to Barcelona via Calgary. We had a long layover in Calgary, but didn't leave the airport. The interesting thing about the flight from Calgary to Barcelona was flying so far north. We crossed over a bit of Greenland and saw a beautiful sunset, but within about an hour, we were watching the sunrise! It was a bit confusing at first. I really enjoyed the two 787 Boeings that we flew on there and back.

Barcelona was all about Antoní Gaudí for me, but I was interested to learn a few other tidbits through some guided tours as well. We stayed in a hotel called One Shot Aragó that was just around the corner from Guadí's Casa Batlló. It was in between La Rambla and Passeig de Gracia, which was a fantastic location for me. The day we flew in we went over to Parc Güell. I took so many pictures in Barcelona. Too many. I teach my students about Antoní Guadí and I will use some in my presentation.

Parc Güell

The park is not that close to a metro station, so there was a bit of walking up the hill to get there, and then seeing the whole thing there was a lot of walking too. We got plenty of steps in this day! We went pretty late in the day, which was good for a few reasons: the heat was bad, but not as bad as earlier and there were plenty of people there, but not as many as earlier. Bill had new shoes he was breaking in so it was a big blister day (poor guy!). If I were to do it again I would bring water with us. We ate right beforehand, which was really good because it's a big park and we walked a lot!

La Sagrada Familia

How seeing it in person was worth it:

The scale. Even seeing pictures of it, you can't get a sense for the size without being inside it (and viewing it from the towers! - Don't do the tour without the tower tour. It's worth it.)

The color. The stain glass windows on the eastern side of the nave are in cool colors and the stained glass on the western side are in warm colors. All the pillars in the church are not from the same stone (to mimic the great variety in nature), however the pillars in between the main part of the nave are mostly a yellowish sandstone, so the colors from the stained glass windows color the pillars beautifully.

The tour guide gave lots of great information. All the math and geometry that went into it and some of the reasons for the geometry Guadí used were interesting. Also, she gave little bits of info about Barcelona - like how important the rose is there and April 23 (day of friendship and reading).

Seeing how it sits in the city. All the pictures don't really show just how nestled in among apartment buildings and city it is. There are two parks on the east and west side, but in order to finish the basilica, they will have to demolish apartment buildings on the south side to complete the entrance.

Casa Milà / La pedrera

We had dinner at the café of Casa Milà. The tour was great to get more information and see in real life after teaching about this place for years :)

The outside is something amazing. The bottom floor is also really cool. The attic and rooftop were incredible.

We toured one of the apartments and it seemed kind of regular, so that was interesting in itself as well.

We did a night tour and were able to get the laser show on the rooftop and see Barcelona all lit up from the roof. We LOVED this tour. Highly recommend.

Other things about Barcelona that I loved:

The Gothic Quarter. I wish we had more time to discover more in this part of the city. I had a hard time navigating us there, but when we found it, it was like finding a fun treasure!

The doors of Barcelona. This is probably true for all of Europe and the doors brought me back to my mission too, but I took pictures of lots of doors!

The sidewalk tiles were distinct and fun. It was especially fun to see the iconic panot of the four-leafed flower "flor de Barcelona."

Other Gaudí structures (that we passed by, but didn't have time to tour) like Casa Batlló and Casa Vicens.