Photo Monday – Barcelona Part 2

I realize I said I would have all my Gaudi and Gaudi-esque pictures today but I didn’t realize just how many of them there were. So it’s only Gaudi today (only!) and even then, I could not get below 30 pictures. I love his work so much. The whole is unique and amazing and then, when you get close up, there are so many little details. So many of the beautiful design features are not just there for esthetics. Everything has a reason. His work enchants me and I could have spent hours examining each of his buildings.

The first place we visited was Casa Batllo. I won’t go on and on and simply let you look at the pictures.

Oh! Except for one detail. See how the top windows are smaller? That’s so that about the same amount of light reaches each floor. So lower floors need bigger windows. Also, the tiles are a darker blue at the top so that the whole thing looks like the same color the whole way through (lighter blues where there’s less light, darker ones where there’s more).

And the glass is supposed to make the tiles look like water.

Right after that visit, we went to La Pedrera. The outside is less spectacular…

But look at that ceiling! It’s so beautiful! (I might be repeating my comments but there you go.)

Our last stop of that day was La Sagrada Familia. The outside is unbelievable. So many little things crammed in. Lots of nature and religious imagery. I won’t go into everything because there’s so much. If you click on my “close up” pictures of the front, it’ll take you to a bigger version where you can get an idea of how much there is. It’s a good thing it’s essentially monochrome otherwise it would be overwhelming.

I actually went back one morning, before it was open. Hardly anyone there, the morning light hits well, and you get a good view from the park across the street. Lots of selfies there later on in the day! Also, I suspect that any picture you find with no cranes has been edited. They’re hard at work completing the church, the money coming mainly from tourism. Our guide said we were lucky because the work wasn’t too noisy that day.

I walked up to the gate to get a picture of the front. See the doors?

This is what they look like up close. Very up close.

Leaves and critters galore! We looked for all the different beasties on it while we waited for our tour.

As amazing as the outside is, I completely fell in love with the inside. It’s a lot more minimalist than the outside.

The pillars are meant to be trees.

And the stained glass! I’m using that word again but there’s no other: beautiful! It’s all abstract and when the sunlight moves behind the windows, it paints the colors all over the inside. The morning light side has cool colors and the afternoon light side has warm colors. We were there in the afternoon and it was glorious. I could have just sat there for hours. My pictures don’t do it justice.

I gave my family a break from Gaudi after that. We went to our final Gaudi destination a few days later: Park Güell. This is his landscaping endeavor. We only visited the paying part of the park. I would have loved to visit the public section as well but we didn’t have the time. And V was just done. If we lived there, I would probably visit the park as often as I visit Prospect Park here. Oh, and there’s an elementary school in the park! Can you imagine going to school there? Anyway…

(Crappy light for portraits but what can you do? I’m not about to complain about the weather. It was sunny and warm-hot and dry with a lovely breeze from the sea every single day.)

I love the ceramic work. The white mosaic tiles are very much like those at La Pedrera. But the colored ones! All those little colorful pieces kind of remind me of Klimt, no?

And oooh, I saw parrots! Wild ones! I’d never seen wild ones before. I got so excited, just like the first time I saw a cactus growing in the wild. It’s one thing to see a plant in a pot or an animal in a zoo. It’s another to see it “for real”. I tried to get a picture. Can you see it?