On the second day in Barcelona, my group met me at my hostel
as it was very close to the first site we wanted to visit, the Palau de la
Musica Catalana. It is a concert hall in Barcelona designed in the Catalan modernisme
style by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, it was built between 1905 and
1908. It has become a symbol for Catalan culture in Barcelona and contains a
great deal of symbolism in its architecture. After remembering that this
building was in Barcelona, I definitely wanted to see it. After we found it and
took a few pictures of the exterior we headed to the ticket office to discover
that they offer tours, and that you can’t get inside without joining one. So we
signed up for the English language tour at one o’clock. This would give us time
to eat lunch and explore some of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, a district with an
impressive amount of neo-gothic architecture (though they market most of it as authentically
historic gothic).
After getting the tickets, we headed down towards Barcelona’s
old gothic cathedral. It was not unlike the many other gothic cathedrals I’ve
seen up to this point, but to its credit, it had an amazing cloister. The
cloister space was nestled in next to the cathedral and we almost stumbled on
it by accident. It was an amazingly peaceful place (at least I assume it would
be without the crowds of tourists). There were water fountains and reflecting
pools as well as orange trees. The cloister also had a small flock of geese
living in an enclosure constructed for them. We enjoyed this space for quite a
while, before moving on to find lunch, after which we went down to see the boat
docks and the bay. By this time we decided it would be best to head back and
get ready for our tour.
When we returned to the concert hall, we joined a large tour
group and set off to explore the building. At the onset of the tour, we were
told that no pictures were to be taken of the interior, as the images of the
building were licensed, so if the fine people at the Palau de la Musica
Catalana are reading this I totally didn’t
take any pictures… The tour was really interesting and the building itself
is quite amazing. I would have loved to see a performance there, had I brought
a more respectable change of clothes. The performance hall was magnificently
ornate, with a massive stained glass bulb that hung down from the ceiling like
a drop of water. We got to hear the organ behind the stage played for a few
minutes by a computer. The computer was playing from recorded memory. The sound
of the organ resonated through the hall and I can only image what it might be
like to hear it as part of an actually performance. The tour concluded with a
view from the top balcony before we were led back downstairs to the entrance
hall. The images I saw that day will remain in my memory (card) the rest of my
life.
After the tour, we headed off to find a work by Gaudi that
had so far eluded us, a metal sculpture of a dragon adorning a gateway to a
garden. After visiting a gift shop in an apartment complex by Gaudi, we were
able to find the location of the dragon in a book of his works. We found the
location on our map and headed off to find it. When we arrived we discovered
that the gate was to a garden facility, known as the Guell Pavilions, which is now
owned and maintained by the University of Barcelona. It was not open to the
public, at least on the day we visited. But that didn’t change the fact that
the gate was what we had come to see, and it was really cool. The dragon was
sitting across the top of the gate and was constructed with various shapes of
sheet metal. The dragon’s mouth was wide open, as if to frighten any intruders
away. This work was far more modest than the previous examples by Gaudi that we
had seen, and was rather refreshing because of it. After we took our pictures we
decided to head back to Park Guell, since we didn’t experience enough of it the
first time.
So we climbed the hill back into Park Guell and split up,
going our separate ways because I wanted to explore on my own for a while. I
walked all the way around the park and back. It was nice to see some greenery
after living in the barren north of France for the last month of February. It
is important to note that while I am writing this in Lille, it is a cool 66
degrees Fahrenheit. After a relaxing walk through the park, we headed off to
find dinner and then went to the bay area. It was our last night after an
exhausting two days in Barcelona. We probably did three days worth of
sightseeing in two. At the end we got some ice cream and called it a night. The
next morning we went to the train station to begin our journey home. The train
ride back was stressful and frustrating but I won’t get into why. I figure I’ve
made you read enough already.
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