BARCELONA!!!

20/3

No Eddie school today.  Free 45 minute shuttle at 0915 to Barcelona (said ‘Barthelona’) in morning traffic.  Kids read.  Business only opens at 1030 and not at all on Mondays.

Chased down some Gaudi architecture studiously, appreciating only from the outside  - very imaginative, creative. 

City studded with mixed and unusual designs.  Much more appealing than the capital, Madrid.  Intense rivalry between the two cities is ongoing.

La Sagrada Familia in sight. Loads of scaffolding & construction on all it’s sides.  Not very attractive initially - a bit disappointing actually......but up close!!

Gaudi’s drawings still less than 50 % realised having been started in 1883.

white bits not done yet!!

Wil immediately enthralled as we buy tickets and edge closer ($26 for family).  Modern, angular adorning religious sculptures. Intriguing copper doors, busily inviting, like a ‘Where’s Wally” book.  Bits rubbed shiny gold, a heart, a small face, the words JESUS, as people have reached out to touch their delicate beauty over decades.  Inside eventually. WOW!!  Words cannot describe the magnificence of the now completed World Heritage listed Basilica (not open when Jeff first here with Uni mates in 1990). It is impossibly enormous yet in perfect quiet balance.  Beautiful flower shaped leadlight windows gently & evenly illuminate the grand cathedral, evoking feelings of immeasurable awe & uplifting serenity.  An artist’s superiority unparalleled.  What an extra-ordinary genius creating with incredible technical skill art that is so beautiful....AND over 100 years old! 

Almost all the designs & shapes richly & pleasingly reflect Nature. Somehow he reveals an obvious familiar connection to things we know. For me (Jen), despite it’s grandeur and stone, it is all so warm, graceful and soft.  A strong Christian, Gaudi talks about Nature being a “Book that is always open and one [he] invites us to read.”  The Sagrada’s crosses are modeled on the 4-star shape of the cypress (Tree of Life) fruit and the gargantuan columns spiral upward like old tree trunks. Having scoffed at the gift shop line up on the way in, we found ourselves lined up afterward and then once inside, unable to make a choice on what NOT to purchase. Jeff & I could easily have spent double the time - kids getting toey.  Get this....we even plan to return for a look when construction in finalised in 2040 (we’ll be 72).  Wonder if we’ll be too old to do the infamous Santiago de Compostela bike ride across Spain’s northern coast beforehand!

Wandered the best produce markets at La Rambla, buying lunch. 

Weather closing in  - getting cold, dark and threatening rain.  Home earlier than planned at 1800. Our first seaside storm rocked Eddie and thus us, cosy and warm, to sleep.

dice roll

Wil (best human construction)  Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia. I liked the entrance with it’s awning of crooked, knocked kneed baby ‘legs’ & the internal helical columns opening onto the roof of glittering mosaics. 

Kel (worst part) when it got cold and rainy we made for home. We were planning on dinner out but I’d prefer to get back to Eddy anyway because I’m just not built for walking (!)

Jeff (best word) ‘Gaudy’ in our popular language usage describes something that’s showy, eccentric and in poor taste. This was not our experience of his architecture today.

Jen (best taste) piquant dusted macadamia nuts bought at the markets.