I had the unexpected opportunity to join two of my high school friends in Barcelona recently. We knew that they were coming to visit us in France for quite some time, but when they said join us in Barcelona, I couldn't say no. And so on October 21, I hopped a train from Nimes to Barcelona. I met Sue and Sandra at the apartment they rented in the Old City Centre of Barcelona, an excellent location. If you ever want to visit Barcelona and prefer an apartment vs a hotel, I'd highly recommend this apartment that sleeps 4, website
www.bcngotic.com
I asked a local friend who recently visited Barcelona what to see. Her answer was the architecture. I was perplexed by her answer thinking that, sure the architecture, but what else. But I totally understand her answer now. The architecture is quite exceptional throughout the city.
Architect Antoni Gaudi's work can be seen throughout Barcelona. His unusual trademark is influenced by forms of nature, curved lines, and organic shapes. He also used mosaic pattens to adorn the outside of buildings.
Gaudi's Sagrada Familia is an extraordinarily, beautiful chapel, like none I have ever seen. We stood in line for over one hour, but without a shadow of doubt, well worth the wait. Similar to many large churches in Europe which took hundreds of years to build, this church has been under construction since 1882 and it has, depending upon who you ask, a couple more decades to go. When completed it will be the tallest builidng in Barcelona. It is interesting to see the modern transformations of the chapel on both the inside and outside versus the gothic outer facade.
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| Sagrada Familia Chapel |
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| Sagrada Familia Chapel inside |
Two other unusual buildings Gaudi designed are the Casa Batllo and Casa Mila, completed in 1906 and 1912 respectively. Time was not on our side for visiting the interior of these structures but it was remarkable to just see the outer design of the two buildings and marvel at Gaudi's thinking and design.
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| Casa Batllo |
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| Casa Mila |
We took an open air bus tour, a good choice to see the city with a limited time frame. The best seats on the bus are on the top level especially on a warm, beautiful, sunny day. Unfortunately the top was full when we got on. Never fear, Sandra is here. Us three girls were silently competing for seats on the top with two young German boys. Once someone came down the steps, people aggressively go for the steps to get up top. But these boys were not going to get past Sandra, if she could help it. With an out stretched arm toward those boy's chests she asserted her female authority and told them to WAIT--WAIT--WAIT. She kindly motioned Sue to go up the steps. I am sitting close by watching all this transpire. The boys looked in bewilderment at Sandra and I could see under their breath say--wait (it appeared they did not know English)! Sandy turned and proceeded up the steps to join Sue at her seat. I wish I could have videoed the whole process, it was hilariously to watch, you go girl!
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| Sue demonstrating Sandra's assertiveness |
The 1992 Summer Olympics hosted by Barcelona generated a transformation of several parts of the city including recovery of the beach front and the installation of a large marina. Frank Gehry's fish sculpture commissioned for the Olympics can be seen on the ocean front. It is made of stone, steel, and glass and measures 114 by 117 feet.
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| Frank Gehry fish sculpture |
We toured the Picasso Museum but photographs were prohibited. The Museum is comprised of Picasso's early works including his teenager years that were interesting to me; he was so talented at an early age. And it also includes paintings from his blue period, but lacked the cubism that I love so much about Picasso.
From Barcelona we took the train back to Nimes and took in the sights there, then further north to Lyon.
During the 16th and 17th century, Lyon was known throughout Europe for their high quality silk. At its peak, there were 15,000 silk looms in operation and before the French Revolution of 1789 more than half of the people of Lyon where sustained by the silk industry. But because of the French Revolution the silk industry was almost completely destroyed. Today you can tour the Silk Museum and visit a small scale silk workshop. We visited the silk workshop where silk is still being produced and sold. We watched an artist color the silk and saw some of the processes of placing patterns onto the silk.
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| Lyon, France - applying color to silk |
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| Lyon, France - silk paint shop |
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| Lyon, France - patterns |
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| Lyon, France - silk workshop |
Paris, the city of lights was next on the agenda. I warned Sue and Sandra that the lines for the Eiffel Tower were very long all summer. But we got there late, around 8:30 and and was pleasantly surprised to see only a 10 minute wait, what luck! The Louvre, Museum d'Orsay, Chateau de Versailles, Arc de Triomphe were also our stops. It was great spending some time with Sue and Sandra and catching up, we had a lot of fun and some good memories were made.
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| Practicing our French - Quelle heure est-il (what time is it?) |
Here's some more photos of our trip at this link:
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