La Pedrera - Barcelona, Spain

Dear Family and Friends,

We enjoyed the Park Guell so much yesterday that we decided we would look at another very famous building designed by Gaudi.

One of the pictures I posted from our tour bus ride.......remember???

This building was designed as a large apartment complex and is named "La Pedrera"  It took from 1906 until 1912 to build the building.

Chuck and I walked from our apartment to the site.  It only took us about 15 or 20 minutes....because we live near the center of town.

It is hard to photograph something so big as a whole building...but I tried.

This first picture is from inside the building, looking at the front door.

Once inside you are in a large courtyard.  Here is a picture looking up to the sky.

Here is a picture of Chuck looking up.

We were able to see an apartment that was furnished in period furniture.  I will share pictures of it later.

We took an elevator to the roof top.  This is the area of the building that is such a wonderment.  The roof circles around the courtyard.

The chimneys and ventilation ducts look like disturbing anthropomorphic figures.

We were able to go into the attic, which housed a museum of Gaudi's works.


And, like I said, there was an apartment that we saw.  I will try and put pictures up of the apartment tomorrow morning....right now it is after midnight and I am very tired.


One more picture.  As we were walking in the city, Chuck said look at that.  Here is the famous building, Torre Mapfire in the distance.  It was cool how it was centered at the end of this avenue.

I am going to get some shut-eye.

I will post pictures of the apartment in La Pedrera tomorrow morning.

Love,
Nancy

Park Guell in Barcelona, Spain

Dear Family and Friends,

Sunday, Chuck and I went to see one of Barcelona's top tourist attractions, Park Guell.

First let me give you a little history of Park Guell.  It was constructed between 1900-1914. It was not built to be a public park.  It was actually designed to be a private residential housing development.  The idea was to have a place outside the city in a the nature.  A garden city.  The person hired to design this project was Gaudi, who also designed the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia (Sandcastle church), another top attraction here in Barcelona.

For whatever reason, after designing the park like development and building a couple of spec houses, no one bought into this concept.  After many years, the family of the developer, Eusebi Guell, gave the park to the city of Barcelona.

The first picture is of the fence that is on the outside of the park.

This whimsical house would have been the guard's house, it is located as you come in through the gate.

 

 This is the main entrance into the park.

As you can see, Sunday was a very popular day to visit.  I suggest that if you want to know more about this place go to http://www.barcelona-tourist-guide.com/en/gaudi/park-guell.html    This site has a link to many pictures.

This dragon greets you upon entering.  Maybe he is supposed to be the defender of the neighborhood.

Looking down the stairs to the house that now houses the tourist shop/book store.

In this pavillion, would have been the market.

The ceiling is decorated with mosaic tile designs.

The top of the pavillion has a large courtyard area surrounded completely surrounded by benches in mosaic tile.

Here is Chuck on sitting on the ceramic tiled bench. 

We stopped for refreshments under the palm trees.

 One of the spec houses that never sold.

It was a very nice day for this tour.  All I can say is that I am glad we did this trip when it is not high season.  The park was absolutely full of people.

More tourist attractions later.

Love,
Nancy

Ahhhh! Barcelona, Spain

Dear Family and Friends,

Chuck and I will be spending the next week in Barcelona.  I should say SUNNY Barcelona.  The weather here is fabulous....mid 60's in the day and mid 40's at night.  The sun is wonderful and hardly a cloud in the sky.  I checked on weather.com and the forecast calls for the same all week.

So what does one do on the first day in Barcelona?

We decided to get an overview of the city by taking a sightseeing bus.

Here is Chuck buying our tickets.

The bus is very similar to the red tour bus in Cuenca.  The only difference is the outrageous price we had to pay.

It is very difficult to take pictures from a moving bus....so I only have one or two to share.  Trees, lamp posts, and other sightseer's heads kept getting between my objective and the camera.

The architecture here in Barcelona is fun!   Many other places I could share if I could have had a clear view.

It was a little windy riding on top of the bus.  I told Chuck if he lost his Panama hat we would have to buy him a Basque hat.  Well, he made sure he didn't lose it.

This is the famous Sagrada Familia cathedral.  As you can see work is being done, but you can get an idea of the beauty.  I call it the Sandcastle church.  Excuse the tree that jumped between my camera and the church as we were riding by.

This is the Woman and Bird sculpture by Joan Miro.  I guess I can see it.  Well, maybe the bird.

I got a tickle out of this sign. It was in a cathedral.

The weather is beautiful and the outdoor cafes are plentiful.

We sat at an outdoor cafe and I ordered hot chocolate.  This is what I got.  Couldn't drink it...just spoon it down.  It was hot, rich and delicious!!  I had to order a coffee to go with it.

The plaza where we caught the tour bus was full of people enjoying the wonderful day.

Here is a man getting a pigeon to eat out of his hand.

And some kids picking out balloons.

We went to the warf for a seafood dinner tonight.  Sooooo good!

Here it is after midnight and I am posting this.  Since tomorrow is Sunday, we will sleep in and have a slow start to another wonderful day.

Love,
Nancy

Let's Hear From Chuck

Dear Family and Friends,

We are now in Barcelona.

 

Today, Chuck is going to post about our trip.

Driving in Spain

We leased a brand new Peugeot 308 diesel sedan for our vacation. I specified that it have a GPS built in. That has been a mixed blessing. When we ask for the shortest route, we sometimes are sent onto jeep tracks. This is a fun adventure, and we have seen things most tourists do not, but the small back roads can be very slow. Most of the time we ask for the fastest route, and are directed onto the motorways, which are as easy to drive as freeways in the United States. The big difference is the tolls. Our latest trip from Zaragoza to Barcelona took about 3 hours of driving and cost about 30 euros.

Navigating in the cities is difficult, even with the GPS voice telling me where to turn. Several times I have failed to get into the correct lane and cannot turn as directed. I have to continue until I am re-routed. Sometimes, as was the case in Santiago, the one way streets can cause the route I need to follow to go back to a missed turn to be over 10 minutes.

Parking at the hotels is sometimes a challenge, but I have learned to avoid hotels which use an elevator to get to the parking. Clarke and Brenda will remember our elevator experience in Cordoba.

We try to limit our drives to 3 hours or less per day, and by stopping several times en route usually take 5 hours to get to our next destination.

The car has proven reliable and comfortable, and I would recommend it.

Chuck

Aljaferia Palace - Zaragoza, Spain

Dear Family and Friends,

Today we went to what looked like a castle.  It was built (some parts remaining) in the 9th century.  It was originally an Islamic palace.  I didn't realize the Moors were this far north, but they were.

We saw some beautiful Moorish architecture when we were traveling Spain last fall with Clarke and Brenda.  This palace pales in comparison to what we saw then, but it was an enjoyable visit and brought back fond memories of our previous trip to Spain.

The fortifications were added after the Moors were gone.  It became the palace of the King and Queen of Spain in the 1400's....King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.  It seems that this famous pair traveled all over Spain.  They even lived in the beautiful palace that we saw in Seville last October.

It even has a huge trench which was the protective moat.

As in our previous visits, I was most fascinated by the Moorish architecture.

Here is Chuck entering the courtyard.  Notice the beautiful scalloped arches.

Beautiful courtyard lined in Orange trees.

It had rained all morning and we were glad it cleared up so we could visit this beautiful palace before we had to leave.

Clarke and Brennie,  remember these???  These are huge bulls that appear along the highway every once and awhile.  We saw many of them in southern Spain, and were glad when we ran into one the other day as we were driving along the freeway.

Chuck rented us a delightful apartment that we will be living in for the next week.  We are really looking forward to hanging our hats in one place for awhile.  Nothing could be better than hanging our hats in Barcelona.

Here is our map so far.

Love,
Nancy