We went to tour Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia today! We stowed our luggage near by, then walked - we were about 20 minutes early for our entry time, but they let us in anyway 😊
 |
| Light areas are in work |
See more photos in the Barcelona 2023 album.
There were elevators up the towers, but then you have to walk down (we skipped them). So we spent a little less than an hour on site, then picked up our bags, took the metro to the train station, and had a little lunch before catching our train home 😁
Today we went back to see Domènech i Montaner's Sant Pau Hospital - it was open! And there was no line 😊. Here's a taste of the art nouveau / moderniste architecture - there are more photos in the Barcelona 2023 album (of course!)
 |
| The Entrancing Entrance |
 |
| Model of the complex |
 |
| Operating room |
 |
| Lecture theater |
 |
| Compare this to his stained glass in the theater |
Today's plan(s):
- The ambitious one: tour Domènech i Montaner's art nouveau hospital, Recinte Moderniste de Sant Pau and Pabellón San Antonio, then get lunch, then tour La Sagrada Familia
- The scaled down one: tour the hospital, come home, get lunch in the neighborhood, and relax.
Not feeling ambitious, we decided to scale down ☺️. So, most of a taxi ride later, we had to go 8 blocks out of our way, as some streets were blocked off. By the second blocked street, I was getting suspicious. Approaching the hospital, we pass limo after parked limo, plus several tour buses. Hmmm. We found the ticket office, and the helpful agent told us that most of the buildings (basically all the good stuff) were closed - some kind of special visit going on; better to come back tomorrow 😔.
Well, ok... We can see La Sagrada in the distance, and find that it's only a kilometer away, so we saunter along a nice street to get there.
We look around for a ticket office - no! You can only buy online, and only for a specific entry time! OK... I try to log in to their WiFi - no! Again?!? So far, I have been able to connect, but not sign in, to no less than 4 public WiFis in Spain 😠. OK... Turn on data, look for tickets - first available time is in about an hour. We're getting pretty discouraged.
After a shorter taxi ride home, we had a comfort-food lunch (quesadillas with lactose free cheese 😋).
We'll try again tomorrow!
Today we went to the Domènech i Montaner masterpiece, the Palau de la Música Catalana (Catalonian Music Palace) - it was *fantastic!*
We had tickets to a noon show, and arrived early to look around - this was the best of both worlds for us! We gave ourselves a self-tour, then enjoyed a show 😊. And what a performance! The flamenco dancers were elegant and athletic, and the guitarists (and percussionist) were humorous as well as talented!
The theater is simply amazing! It is full of the classic modernist features - stained glass, mosaics, metalwork, frescoes...
I went a little crazy (again) with the photos, but wow! If you're like me, and can't see enough of it, there are more photos to see in the album.
We found lunch, then headed home 😋
Posts
All Comments
