Reus is a city in Spain known for its Modernist architecture - that's Art Nouveau to you and me 😉.
We spent a couple of days wandering and touring - our focus was on two buildings by Domènech i Montaner, the Pere Mata psychiatric hospital, and the Casa Navás private home.
We went to Pere Mata our first morning - we were the only visitors! We took our time, used the audio-guides, and our cane-chair. When they heard that this was our first day, they gave us a tourist map, and explained how to follow the Ruta del Modernisme (I was very glad of this, since it was hard to find anything about a self-guided tour online).
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| The old entrance |
After Pere Mata, we rested a bit, went to lunch, then walked along part of La Ruta 🙂
Our next morning, we went to see Casa Navás - this was a completely guided tour (we signed up for English), with extremely limited photo-ops, and booties required! We had forgotten the cane chair, but it wouldn't have been allowed anyway. We usually steer clear of this type of tour, but it was the only way to see the building (and it was interesting, if tiring).
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| Casa Navás |
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| Entry hall |
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| Mosaic |
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| Entry hall balcony |
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| Entry hall from balcony |
After Casa Navás, we went along more of La Ruta!
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| We did drive from E to F... |
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| Mural where we stopped for lunch |
Thus ended our whirlwind tour! We stopped at a grocery store (Mercadona) for non-French supplies (black beans and lactose-free cheese), then back to the hotel. We had a fairly easy drive home the next day 🙂
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See more photos in the Reus, Spain 2024 album - there are sidewalk plaques outside of the various buildings; I included those in passing
I'm glad we got to see everything! We had missed this trip several times - the timing was always just a little wrong!
Important things to know:
- visiting hours for both buildings are different throughout the year, and very limited outside of summer
- tickets were tricky to get; the website didn't work with every browser or device, so it looked like things were closed or unavailable
- parking at Pere Mata was easy, but difficult to be sure of; not easy at all for Casa Navás! I had this backwards, unfortunately - we were waaay early for Pere Mata, and a bit late for Casa Navás (luckily, they hadn't started yet - maybe waiting for us?)
- Reus seemed pretty small (I had guessed a population of only a few thousand), but it actually has over 100k residents!
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