Barcelona

The summer of 2022, Our dear daughter had the opportunity to spend 6 weeks working in a lab in Barcelona.  This was the perfect opportunity to visit Spain and take her brother - the soon to be architectural studies major - to the city of the great architect, Gaudí. 

The young man is an excellent travel companion - so long as you don’t mind doing the planning: he’ll go anywhere and eat anything (well almost).  We flew directly to Zurich from San Francisco and from there to BCN. Until we arrived in Barcelona, I hadn’t appreciated what it meant to fly into the Schengen travel area.  The only passport stamp we picked up was in Zurich because that was our entry to and exit from the Schengen zone. 

We arrived mid-afternoon on a Sunday and Morgan met us at our AirBnB in the heart of Barcelona.  The young man letting us in was very solicitous and made sure we knew how to work the air conditioner (it was nearly August) and access wifi (what more do you need?!). As planned, she brought a little food with her so we could breakfast the next morning before trying to shop for food for the week. She took us to old town so we could catch the 6pm mass and try churros and chocolate for the first time. Yum.  She also navigated us to one of the grocery stores. By that time, she had introduced us to the subway system so she went back to her apartment as she still had a few days left to work and we headed back to ours where it was early to bed. 

Monday morning, I was eager to get my bearings by exploring.  While Matthew slept/dozed, I found a Carreros grocery and stocked up on essentials (eggs, yogurt, fruit, chocolate - you have your essentials, I have mine). 

            

It didn’t occur to me to take any pictures of the apartment we rented.  It had tile floor throughout and I took a picture of the flooring in my bedroom since the design was appealing to me.  Matthew is demonstrating that the sofa was sufficient for his 6’4” frame. 

I was eager to visit Montserrat, so Tuesday morning, we made our way to the subway/train hub where after studying the maps and finally asking the advice desk, we bought round trip tickets.  After about 20 minutes, I became motion-sick so rather than ride the train all the way to the last stop with the tram leading to the top, we got off at the stop that features a gondola ride to the monastery. (Note, I’ve NEVER been motion sick on a train before.  Later, Morgan told me that it is driver-dependent. Some are apparently not as smooth with the starts and stops.) While I snacked on a banana to try to settle my stomach, Matthew unloaded his drone and took off from the deserted platform.  Once I started to feel a little better, we trotted over to the gondola office where I bought tickets for the ride.  I figured that it wouldn’t make me feel worse.  It was truly a fun ride helped by an open window with a cool breeze.

The monastery as viewed from the cable car

I found this window in the cable car ticket building appealing and inviting.

All public transportation in Spain required users to wear masks. Nonetheless, Matthew enjoyed the breeze.

 

We hiked well over 20,000 steps the day we visited Montserrat.

  

The church had statuettes of various saints and of course I took one of Ignatius of Loyola.  The museum was below ground and having not seen an elevator with only 0 and -1, I had to take a picture.

My only regret with the museum at Montserrat is that I didn’t take more pictures.  I recall exiting the elevator and seeing this victory statue.  I nearly gasped as we rounded the corner and the first painting was a Caravaggio.  I immediately realized it had been much too long since I’d indulged in an art museum and I thoroughly enjoyed the visit. 

Winged victory of Samothrace (not the original): those who are deemed technical fellows at my company are given a solid metal replica of this statue.

When I prepare children for their first holy communion, we make monstrances out of paper.  The museum held a collection of them, as well. 

There’s a substantial stations of the cross hike.  By the time we found this beginning of the hike, we were too worn out from other hiking to go. 

We left Montserrat by train and had an uneventful trip back.  The excursion was what made me realize Matthew is an excellent travel companion. I don’t remember the rest of the day. 

From the beginning of our stay, I was entranced by the doors of old town Barcelona.  Its as if they each had their own story to tell of the shop or home that lay behind them. We also noticed a LOT of graffiti.  Its as if the city takes pride in the amount of graffiti displayed.  However, I noticed that graffiti artists are particular about where they leave their mark: never on good stone or ancient doors.  They seemed to respect the non-cement stone and only tagged where it could be scrubbed off or painted over. 

          

Wednesday saw us visiting a church or two (yes, it’s a thing for me) and catching a 9pm (!) performance of Swan Lake by the Ukrainian National Ballet. I’d not seen Swan Lake before, but we both liked it (we agreed we would have preferred live music).  I think the ending was slightly modified to represent the war on-going in Ukraine (I might be mistaken but I’m pretty sure the villain was supposed to be Putin). Because the last train back to our part of town would depart at midnight, we raced out of the theatre and just made the train. 

                           

I mentioned Matthew plans to be an architecture student. I intentionally took him to buildings rich in architectural heritage such as the ballet (above) and Palau Güell (below)

   

The four pictures here are from Palau Guell: a mansion Gaudi designed and built for the Guell family.  If the name sounds familiar, Gaudi also designed La Sagrada Familia (pictures of that further below)

  

We also visited St. Mary by the Sea, a church built in the 14th century. In one of the many side chapels. There was a statue of St. Ignatius with the explanatory plaque as shown above (sitting on this bench begging for alms, St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, 1524-1524).

One facade of La Familia had this statue of Judas betraying Jesus

I’m not really sure how to start discussing La Sagrada Familia. I made a mistake and so our tour was in Spanish. We picked up the gist of most things, but it was hard to learn as much as we would like. After spending what seemed like an hour outside studying the facade (which requires much, much more than an hour to study), the tour guide was ready to take us inside. I’m pretty sure my gasp was audible.  It truly is stunning. 

One of many gorgeous stained glass windows of the interior.  

Our apartment was close enough that we returned at night to take another picture of the exterior.

The interior columns were meant to be reminiscent of trees….

Matthew and I visited the museum of modern art where I really liked this depiction of the last supper

 A fun shot in the modern art museum (which also included a section on Banksy - the graffiti artist)

This architectural dig is in the middle of the city - a fascinating look at part of the city the current Barcelona was built upon.

 Returning from a stop at the grocery, I ran into this little guy…

Since it’s more than 2 years since the trip, I’ll “publish” this now. Of course, there were many more pictures and memories and a lot of life since then. Matthew, with 2 years of architecture school under his belt wants to return to Barcelona sometime and his older sister has graduated from undergrad.