Travels thru Life: 4/21/22 More Barcelona, Sagrada Familia Tour, Board Our Ship

Today we shifted from our hotel to the ship and still had full day of touring.We started with the Palau de la Musica Catalana. This music 'Palace' was created between 1905 and 1908 (astoundingly fast, partly due to the use of a steel structure) by a choral group. It was enlarge in the1980s and now has multiple concert halls and typically hosts 400 concerts of all types each year. Every imaginable variety of music is welcomed here.

The architect was Lluís Domènech i Montaner, one of Gaudi's professors.You can see his influence on Gaudi's ideas in many of the forms in the music hall. The Palau is on the site of a church that was demolished. There is stained glass everywhere you look. The most spectacular is a huge installation in the ceiling that resembles a water drop. Because of the crowded streets around it, the glass at the top let in light during the day.

Ceiling Stained Glass

Front of Main Stage. The characters are women of the
world, playing a variety of instruments

Back of the house. Seating for more that 2000

View from the back -- still impressive

Less elaborate surroundings, but the same music.

The water drop shape is more evident
from this angle.


An extra balcony is hidden above the stage.

The tile design on each pillar is unique
and represents various natural flowers.

The ceiling piillars are palm shaped and
have decorations reminiscent of peacocks.

Horses representing the Valkyries

These glass newels are formed around
twists of metal, representing the hidden
metal structure of the building.

Next, we headed out to another area of Barcelona, El Born also known as the Gothic Quarter. This started to lead us to the waterfront and our ship. We stopped at a shop that rents out 'Gegantes' -- giant costumes that can weigh over 100 pounds and are used in parades.If you look closely at the enlarged photos (just click on them), you can often see a place for the wearer to look out.

The floor we are on is 3-4 feet above where
the Gegantes rest.


These Gegantes are over 100 years old, the oldest in this collection.The view ports here are a bit more visible and located lower than you would guess.

From there, we came to a large market with an undulating tile roof and spent a bit of time looking at food.

By then it was raining pretty hard and we took shelter in carriage entrance to an old mansion. We had free time and decided to look for headbands to hold the mask ear pieces behind our head instead of around our ears. Pharmacies are supposed to carry them, but they referenced us to a 'super mercado' -- a SMALL grocery and we thought the big building at the end of the street was a marketplace, but no! It was designed to be but they unearthed ruins from an ancient war so we took a few pictures and found the mercado, which had no headbands. By then it was time to go to the ship, the Clio which will be carry us long the coast of Spain to southern Portugal..

Ruins of the city from the War of the
Spanish Succession in the early 1700s

The Clio: our home for the next 10 nights.

After lunch on the ship, we headed back to Sagrada Familia for a private tour of the outside and inside. It looks just as interesting inside as out, except that the inside construction is less elaborate. Gaudi was very religious and devoted the last 40 years of his life to the construction, which continues today, nearly 100 years later. There have been a few architects who have worked on the project. The challenge is that even though Gaudi left detailed specifications, the subsequent architects have apparently applied their own interpretation of the designs, rather than adhering to them as written. This is most noticeable in the difference between the front and the rear of the building.

The stained glass is spectacular. At first I thought the use of color was to reflect hell at the bottom in red ascending to the heavens in blue. However, the real intent was to capture the different qualities of light from morning to evening and there was a video showing the progression of the sun on the interior, shining through the glass.

Sagrada Familia is Catalan for Sacred Family and the focus is on Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.

The gray is the finished part of the church.

There are 3 main entrances, each under
an arch.

Joseph Pillar, by the left entrance

Mary Pillar, by the right entrance

The three magi

The turtle signifies the stability of the
cosmos.


The Jesus Pillar with the representation of the family and two doors instead of one.

Inside, the work (especially the glass) is stunning but the structures are much simpler. The current plan is to try to finish construction by 2026, 100 years after it started.