Bienvenidos a Barcelona: Gaudi, Picasso and Ramblin' On

Jen and I have always wanted to visit España, especially to have a chance to hablar Espanol, even though its been a while since our lessons.

Renowned for its architecture, unique Catalán culture and cuisine, Barcelona's sights are so immense it has two different circuits on the HopOnHopOff bus. Today was see as much as possible and get our bearings.

Past the Torre Agbar, Barcelona's Water Board tower.

And most famous of Gaudi's work, La Sagrada Familia, we then continue along to the foothills of Tibidado and its architecturally significant Hospital of the Holy Cross (incidentally where Gaudi expired),

and then back into the town near Plaza de Catalunya.

Barcelona is a celebration of Gaudi, and his distinctive style is everywhere - Casa Batllo and various aspects of the cityscape. We see his influence in numerous buildings in the city streets.

He was a visionary. Although he would have been wise to keep an eye out for trams on 7 June 1926 in order to avoid his untimely demise. Nevertheless, his design lives on forever in Barcelona and his loyal disciples have diligently continued to work tirelessly on his greatest masterpiece for over 100 years.

We swapped across to the orange line west, down through the Arco de Triunfo de Barcelona,

down past the el Bonn, World Trade Centre and up Montjuïc hill to the Olympic stadium.

Another Olympic Stadium ticked off but then the heavens opened (which has been incredibly rare for our whole trip) and we're marooned for 40 minutes. First bit of serious rain since we were in Moscow wandering through Red Square in mid June.

Back on the bus and continued to the Place de Espanya, FC Barcelona stadium - Camp Nou, where Messi, Neymar and team mates are demi-gods.

down Avinguda Diagonal and back to nearby Place de Catalunya. We then walked the path of the Orange bus via the Arc de Triomphe and ended up at the Beach. It did seem strange that earlier in the day we saw people with surfboards walking through the streets, now we realise why, not realising there was a surf beach.

Then as the old buildings changed to boats and marinas we see the beach and surf at Patja del Bogatell. Again, we appreciate how unbelievably lucky we are in Oz for the beaches we enjoy.

Thousands of people along a 10km stretch of beach. Not a spare piece of sand - and not sand like we enjoy, more akin to the underlay we buy by the cubic metre from landscaping suppliers for paving the back patio - in addition to being littered with rubbish and cigarette butts (both in the water and on the sand).

We walked along the beach road back onto the Green bus and made our way back to our apartment. We realised how enormous Barcelona is and the volume of tourists that visit. Out apartment host warned us that Barcelona is not the real Spain but has developed more into a tourist attraction. We are immediately struck by the "Tourist Version" of everything - especially Tapas for Tourists: jamon, queso, patatas bravas, albondigas and tortilla - en mas together with the usual tourist menu of hamburgers and pizza, after a few rounds of tapas, the lack of variety is a little tiresome.

The city itself is very well laid out with wide avenues, diagonals to enable quick cross city journeys, and loads of bicycle tracks. It has four distinct areas; the Gothic Quarter; the normal shops, churches, old Spanish buildings and apartment areas; the hill with the 1992 Olympics and palace area; and then the beaches. Each area is so different, full of tourists and loses its Spanish feel. Think of a bit of Melbourne for its old style, Sydney for its beaches, the Rocks and the marinas and Adelaide for all its churches all wrapped into one with swarms of tourists in 35+ heat.

The next day, Jen woke up with the dreaded stomach bug (damn, Tourist Tapas!). We had tickets for 9am to go into the unfinished La Sagrada Familia.

A little bit of history first.

Gaudi devoted himself to this church right up until his death in 1926 his altercation with a tram. When he died they had only built a small portion of the church but the building project continued. It started in 1882 and the forecast for completion is 2026, commemorating 100 years since his death.

The building was designed with 6 towers with the main one at over 173 m tall is still to be built. From an engineering perspective it would be a nightmare of a construction site and would have been difficult to comprehend how this church would be built without modern construction techniques.

The church is nothing like any other church you will see and its ideas around the structures was based on numerous types of environmental concepts. The use of natural light and the lead light is what hits you the most. Jen & I have become a bit jaded with the almost grotesqueness of some churches we visited - gold, gilt, dark, and heavy.

Gaudi's vision is for a celebration of life and nature. The way the light comes into the building and changes colours throughout the day is spectacular and unique.

The internal columns are variously porphyry, granite and sandstone and the shaped to represent trees reaching up to the heavens. The natural light gives life to the trees and creates a feeling of being in a magical forest. We could sit there for hours as the sun moves and continuously casts different shadows and colours on the walls and columns - Blues and Greens in the morning as the sun beams in from the east and Yellows, Reds and Oranges as the day progresses, with the sun radiating from the West.

Whilst unfinished, the magnificence and magic is already becoming evident. The stained glass at the very top tier isn't yet coloured, but gives a hint of what is to come.

The outside is heavily Gothic and quite weird with fruit on top of steeples made of glass so they sparkle like gems, sections telling stories, pigeons, turtles, rough cut stone, curves everywhere and somehow how it all makes sense.

The light and colour is quite hypnotic, and we could have stayed there all day and not taken it all in.

We also walked up one of the towers to get a spectacular view of Barcelona. You get a better appreciation of how unfinished it is and how difficult it will be to finish this magnificent piece of architecture that was designed over 100 years ago.

Back inside we took a little more time to soak up the place.

The next day, we walked the Gothic Quarter which has retained its charm, en route to the Picasso museum.

Picasso was born in Malaga but as an early teenager he moved to Barcelona to master his trade. This museum took us through a journey of this life in art. His early years as an 11 year old art prodigy in the late 1800's to around 1915, starting with traditional styles and his development through the Blue and Cubism periods and then pushing boundaries and his style changed dramatically to what we all come to recognise as Picasso. What hit me was how Picasso saw the world, especially faces differently, as if his eyes refracted the image differently, breaking it down into its essential components. He was able to paint simply and efficiently. One piece, "Portrait of Sabanes with ruff hat and feather" of his long time friend and personal assistant Jamie Sabanes, who requested Picasso to paint him as a 16th century aristocrat.

His friend quoted on the painting as saying, in relation to the warped likeness, "it exactly captures all my distinctive features as efficiently as possible". I think this describes Picasso's work perfectly. He only includes in a work, those features that are absolutely essential to capture the true nature of the subject - features and emotion. Picasso, in summing up his own work, "it took me 4 years to paint like Raphael and a lifetime to paint like a child". He was prolific with the volume of pieces, as well as experimenting with different media including ceramics and stencils. The last part of the museum was a body of work by Picasso and his detailed interpretation of another painting called
Las Meninas.

A painting of the Royal Spanish family first painted by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age, in 1656.

Picasso had been fascinated by the piece hanging in the Prado in Madrid since a young man. Having been a successful and prolific artist most of his life, despite the lean times in France in his twenties, Picasso was able to indulge his desires devoting an entire series of 58 paintings during 1957, performing a comprehensive analysis, reinterpreting and recreating several times.

The little princess was singled out many times as well as the dog, who was reduced to a childlike version. Poor Perro!

After lunch, we then spent the rest of the day walking through the Gothic Quarter where it is possible, down the alleys and lanes, to get a feel for the Real Barcelona.

Then along the waterfront and along Las Ramblas, keeping an eye out for pick pockets with the sea of humanity.

Our assessment of Barcelona is that its a little too touristy for us - we can appreciate the history and vibrancy of this city but in only a short visit, its difficult to distance from the tourism overload.

Next its on to Madrid. Our original plan was to catch the train, but after some frustrating research, I found that the 3 hour train cost nearly as much as a 1 hour flight. So we flew.

We set off early.

I had to do a fair bit of research for this day and it involved hiking with our bags, airport bus, a massive Barcelona airport, an even bigger Madrid airport, subway to Plaza del Sol with 3 changes and finally our apartment. I was very impressed as my scheduling, all went beautifully smooth! We got to our apartment at 12.30 pm, great location, only to be advised check in not until 4 pm. This was no appreciated especially when the temperature was 38 deg c.

After chilling in a cafe for 4 hours, we got into our apartment, directly above the bustle of Madrid and hit the streets for dinner. We are instantly struck by a totally different vibe than Barcelona. Just 50 m from our apartment was full of little restaurants and bars with proper traditional Spanish food and plenty of locals. It is much easier to relax in a place when surrounded by locals, rather than tourists. This was the Spanish Experience we were after! We drank sangria and devoured delicious tostadas followed with grande calamares. We closed the night with a stroll around the Plaza del Sol along with hundreds of other locals and street entertainers. The place was full of life, and we knew we would enjoy the next three days.

Madrid is also a few degrees hotter than Barcelona so now we are hitting a laconic heat of 38 deg c and at night time it does not get lower than 30, even still close to 35 at 11pm. But we don't mind, there is such great energy in this place.

Hasta luego Barrrrr-the-llooona.....Hola Ma-drrrrid.