Oct-2015
Barcelona, Sunday October 11th
Beth Josh and I ventured to a Gaudi house called Casa Mila or La Pedrera with the distinctive facade of curved walls held in place by horizontal beams attached to invisible girders with Intricate wrought iron balconies integral to the Modernisme style. The striking roof has 30 chimneys and vents resembling medieval warriors so it is not ugly like most of the roofs we looked over. The Mila family that commissioned the home lived on the 1st floor and rented our the rooms above for accommodation and the ground floor for shops to provide an income for life. The attic has 300 brick arches of differing heights to support the multi level roof. We saw an example of a home on the 4th floor decorated as it would have been in 1929 by middle class urbanites.
These are ventilators
View through to Sagrada Familia
A most unusual rooftop. Wavy lies even the surface we walked on.
The booking system is by computer at home and presentation of a smart phone. Sagrada was booked out in this way both yesterday and today.
Taxi home for lunch and then we toured Parc Guell, another Gaudi masterpiece that we all visited. Beth Josh and I all preferred Casa Mila as an example of his work. It was still unique and impressive without a straight line or corner to be seen. He blurred the line between nature and art and there is much argument about the meanings of his work.
The large room with columns was conceived as a market place but never used for this purpose. The monumental flight of steps at the entrance, ascend to the Hypostyle or columns room and have the distinctive pottery covered lizards. The large open area above this has seating all around and was an ideal place for Matthew’s running.
Area above the columns with a view out over the city to the sea and a lovely cool breeze blowing.
Here we all are, well nearly all of us. Someone had to take the photo.
The lizard.
Another shot of the lizard.
Gaudi spent his last 40 years building Sagrada Familia the Cathedral on a hill and died when hit by a tram in 1926. It is said the people at the scene did not recognise this raggedly dressed man with torn pants held up with string. Sagrada Famillia was started in 1882, the first 100m bell tower was finished in 1925, and the nave was completed in 2000. The building continues to this day as funding allows.
Two more taxi’s back to our apartment, then a fruitless search by K, J and B for a supermarket ( an open one) for supplies for dinner. It is Sunday here and tomorrow is a bank holiday. We will now eat out tonight. We are all looking forward to boarding the Norwegian Spirit tomorrow.
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