Barcelona!

Amazing colorful mosaics: the theme of any trip to Barcelona

The trip to Barcelona wasn't as long as the one to Amsterdam, but we still got to see a bunch of amazing things! We only had one day (we got in late Friday night and left really, really early Sunday morning), but with a bit of planning, we were able to see a lot of the famous sites.

The day started off with a trip to Park Güell, the first on our list of Gaudí creations for the day. For those of you not familiar with Gaudí or his architecture (Ben and I weren't before we went to Barcelona), he was one of the foremost architects of the Modernisme movement from the 1880s to the 1920s, centered in Barcelona. There is a lot of Modernisme architecture in Barcelona, all of which has similar characteristics: curves and the illusion of movement instead of static straight lines, the importance of nature, and the importance of natural light. It's beautiful and unlike anything either of us had ever seen before. Park Güell is a huge garden with architectural portions that Gaudí designed. Here is the entrance to the park:

Park Güell Entrance

View inside the entrance gate

In the middle of that double staircase is a famous lizard:

Much bigger than the lizards in Texas

Beyond that was a covered area with many columns and an undulating, mosaic ceiling:

The ceiling

Close-up of one of the mosaics

Up top, there was an amazing view of the Mediterranean Sea and the whole area was ringed with wavy benches decorated with colorful mosiacs.

Benches

The sea!

It was really hot and sunny when we were there, despite being early in the day, so we didn't explore much of the park beyond the areas that contain Gaudí's creations. But here are some pictures! :)

On our way to the park, we had gone by another famous Gaudí design, the Casa Batlló:

Casa Batlló

 Apparently Gaudí and Josep Maria Jujol (an architect that often worked with Gaudí) renovated and remodeled this apartment building in the early 20th century. Can you imaging living here? After Park Güell, we went back by the Casa Batlló to see about going inside, but it was 18€ per person (!) and the line was pretty long, so we decided to save our time and money for other things. Just down the street from Casa Batlló is another Gaudí apartment building: Casa Milà. This one Gaudí built himself from scratch (again with Jujol). We didn't like this one as much because it wasn't very colorful on the outside (and we didn't go in or take a picture - sorry!).

After a quick lunch, we headed over to the Palau de la Música Catalana, one of the major concert halls in Barcelona. It is also a Modernisme building, but this one was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner, who was actually much more famous than Gaudí when they were both alive. Here's the front of the hall:

Palau de la Música Catalana front

A ticket window?

It was built for an amateur choir society, the Orfeó Català, in just three years (!) between 1905-1908 (the three years statistic is even more impressive when you see the interior pictures, below). It's in the Gothic quarter of Barcelona, which has old buildings and narrow streets. The choir members all worked and lived in the neighborhood, so they wanted somewhere close by to rehearse and perform. Because of their choice of location, it's really hard to get a good picture of the hall because it's surrounded very closely on all sides by buildings. It was really strange, actually, how sandwiched in between everything else it was. We're used to concert halls that stand alone from everything around them, but not this one! This picture Ben took, although great, doesn't really capture the front of the building very well. If you do a Google image search for "Palau de la Musica Catalana" a lot of amazing pictures come up - you should go look at them!

The best parts of the hall were reportedly inside and the only way to see them was to take a tour (a much more reasonable 11€ per person), so we decided to do that. The tour wasn't as good as the one we took at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, but it was still informative and interesting. The best part, of course, was getting to see the inside of the hall.

Here is a view of the stage from downstairs:

View of the stage

Probably the most famous part of the hall is the amazing stained glass on the ceiling, known as the "glow-worm":

Stained glass!

Side view of the "glow worm"

On the back wall of the stage are musicians, half made of mosaic, half statuary emerging from the wall, playing instruments from all over the world. They are meant to inspire the musicians performing on stage.

Close-up of back wall

Here is a view of the balconies from down the below as well as a picture from the balcony itself. You can see that the glow worm is actually quite small in relation to the size of the hall.

Side balconies

View from the balcony

I'd love to hear a concert (or perform in one) here someday!

Right around the corner from the Palau de la Música Catalana is the Barcelona Cathedral. This was the only famous site we saw that wasn't Modernisme, but it was still impressive! It's a Gothic cathedral, built from the 13th-15th centuries (for context, Notre Dame in Paris was built from the 12th-14th centuries). Here's the front:

Barcelona Cathedral

We didn't go inside because we didn't feel like waiting in line, but the outside was worth seeing!

Señor Ben (not at Desigual, but a fun side-stop!)

Next we decided to go to the Desigual Outlet that was supposed to be at the end of La Rambla, the famous shopping street in Barcelona. Desigual is a Spanish clothing company that makes really colorful, interesting clothes that I like a lot. During the winter here in Paris, I saw so many women wearing these amazing winter jackets that were unlike anything I had ever seen (not your typical drab, black coat!) and I wanted to know where they got them. One afternoon when I was at the Eiffel Tower, I saw a woman wearing one and there was a label on the hem, so I crept up to read it, trying not to look too suspicious. Desigual! I had a name... Their clothes are a little too expensive for me, hence the trip to the outlet in Barcelona.

Unfortunately, Google Maps lied and there was no Desigual outlet at the end of La Rambla, but thanks to free WiFi (pronounced "wee-fee" here in Europe) at McDonalds (known as "mac doe"), we were able to find another one a 15 minute walk away. It was a small store, but I found a great skirt and Ben found a fantastic shirt super on sale!

Last stop and the best of the day: La Sagrada Família, Gaudí's most ambitious and most famous building. La Sagrada Família is a huge Roman Catholic church whose construction was started over 100 years ago (the information at the church said it was started in 1892, but the Wikipedia article says 1882, with Gaudí taking over in 1883 - at any rate, it was started a long time ago!) and it's not done yet! It was only partially finished at Gaudí's death and they're working to get it done by the 100th anniversary of his death in 2026. Pictures of the outside are pretty famous, so you might recognize it.

La Sagrada Família front

La Sagrada Família back

While the outside is definitely interesting, it's nothing compared to the inside. I've never seen anything like it in my life. It makes Notre Dame and all the other amazing churches I've seen seem small, dark, and plain by comparison. The ceiling inside La Sagrada Família is really, really high, there is amazingly colorful stained glass everywhere, and the whole interior feels enormous. It's filled with light and color and really, truly awe-inspiring. Pictures can't do it justice. Here are the best of Ben's shots (made extra large to try to get you a sense of the space):

View upon entering

View of the altar from the back of the church

The ceiling

The back wall and ceiling

The ceiling again

Above the altar

Stained glass

More stained glass

Stained glass behind the organ and altar

I know very little about architecture or its history, but it seems to me that most houses of worship are designed to elicit wonder and awe in those who enter them, to glorify the deity being worshiped there, and make the people who enter aware of the enormity of the universe in which they live (whether or not they are religious). Most Catholic churches that are also tourist sites (like Notre Dame and Sacre Coeur in Paris) make sure you know that you should be quiet inside out of respect for the space and those who are there to pray. Although Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, and many other huge and old Catholic churches are impressive, I usually feel oppressed in them by the heaviness of the architecture and the suffocating smell of incense that always seems to linger around. As much as I enjoy seeing them, I always feel better when I'm back out in the sun and fresh air. The experience of entering La Sagrada Família was completely different and is what I imagine people must've felt back when Notre Dame or Sacre Coeur were new buildings. Ben and I just said, "Oh, wow," and there were really no other words to say and no need to be told to maintain quiet inside. Rather than feel oppressive, it felt infinitely expansive. It was a beautiful sunny day outside, but it felt even more light inside, if that's possible. It felt clean, freeing, and life-affirming. I've never felt that walking into a building before, and certainly never walking into a religious building. I wish the pictures captured the experience, but I guess you'll just have to go visit yourself!

It was a great trip, if too short. Hopefully we'll get to go back someday and see all the other things we didn't get to!

Montmartre Cemetery

I’ve never had any particular fondness or aversion to cemeteries in the US – they have always been places you go for funerals and that’s it. Not anywhere I want to spend any time in. The Montmartre Cemetery is very different. Even though part of it is under the bridge of a very busy street, it is amazingly quiet and peaceful in the cemetery. It’s very green and quite beautiful – not dead and slightly creepy like cemeteries in the US. The day I was there, there were several people just sitting on the benches reading. It seemed like a wonderful, calm place, away from the hubbub of the city.

Note the bridge running along top

There were many elaborate and huge graves, like this one:

Some of the more recent ones had tons of flowers on them. Here is an especially fragrant one:

Many famous artists, writers, and musicians are buried here and so I brought along a map that showed where their graves are located. First stop was Nadia Boulanger’s grave (which I didn’t actually find on this trip, but which Ben and I succeeded in finding when we went back later):

Nadia Boulanger was a composer, but she’s best known as a composition teacher. The list of composers who came to Paris to study with her is huge, and the list of Americans includes Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, Elliott Carter, and Virgil Thompson.

One of the most famous inhabitants of the cemetery is Berlioz. Here is his grave:

I was surprised at how modern it was, but then I read the inscription on the side saying his grave had been redone in 1970. The other side bears this inscription:

"Here lies Harriet Smithson and Marie Recio"

Do you know who Harriet Smithson was? She was the woman who inspired him to write his first great masterpiece, Symphonie Fantastique, who later became his first wife. If you don’t know the story of Symphonie Fantastique, you can read it here.

Near to Berlioz is Jolivet, another French composer, and also Heinrich Heine. I was surprised that he was buried here since he’s German. He’s one of my favorite poets, so that was a nice surprise. A little ways down from Heine is another famous writer: Alexandre Dumas. His grave is quite large:

Down the steps from Dumas is one of my favorite graves in the cemetery, that of Nijinksy, the famous dancer and choreographer. He is most famous (among musicians) for having danced the role of Petrouchka in Stravinsky’s famous ballet, as well as choreographing the notorious dancing in the Rite of Spring. Petrouchka sits on his grave:

 Offenbach is also buried here, no longer able to dance the can-can:

Close to him is Adolphe Sax, the inventor of the saxophone and bass clarinet, as Ben would like me to point out:

Adolphe Sax plaque on the side of his grave

Sax Family grave

Just around the bend from him is Degas, buried in a family grave (note the spelling of the name) with the famous artist’s face on the door:

Next to Degas is one of the more ornate burial sites in the cemetery, belonging to some Russian princess:

Fancy!

 

In addition to the famous people buried here, there are also a number of interesting graves. Here is one with a man sitting on top who someone has given a flower to wear:

From this grave, you can look down on the most colorful grave I’ve ever seen:

Here it is more close up:

The words are very hard to read, but it belongs to someone buried in 2004.

Many of the graves are family plots and many people are buried in one place. This one had the longest list of names that I saw:

Here are some other pictures to give you a sense of the beautiful, tranquil, green atmosphere in the cemetery:

 

If you take a trip to Paris, I highly recommend taking some time out to spend some time in one of the many cemeteries. Quite the opposite of being depressing, it will recharge your batteries and give you renewed energy during a long day of sightseeing!