"The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls." Pablo Picasso
Our Thursday flight to Barcelona was uneventful except for being an hour late, the turbulence on our descent, and the woman behind me who did not stop talking in her shrill voice the entire time.
We stayed in a great hotel, Praktik Vinoteca. Their offer of wine upon arrival was the first indication that this was going to be a good stay (and their selection was decent). Equally great was the free, portable Wifi Hotspot they provided, so that we had access to the internet wherever we went. And if that wasn't enough, they had wonderful restaurant recommendations. The first night we had delicious tapas at Vinitus and decided very quickly that we would return another night. (The only negative about Vinitus, we soon learned, was that it set the bar so high it spoiled the experience at every tapas bar afterward.)
We love Barcelona. It seems to be a well planned city, with wide boulevards (at least once you are out of the old part of the city), and we are in a great neighborhood.
On Friday we got a late start and then had to take care of some business, so we were forced to cut short our planned itinerary for the day. We walked to El Corte Ingles, the large department store where I knew we could get train tickets. After a short wait, the travel agent easily secured tickets to Madrid, Granada, Seville, and Cordoba, something I was unable to do online from London.
We stopped for a small sandwich and coffee at Tapas Tapas on our way to our appointed entry to the church of the Sagrada Familia, the masterpiece of Antoni Gaudi. They are hoping to have it finished by 2026, the centennial of his death and 143 years after it was begun. The interior is awe-inspiring and perfectly demonstrates Gaudi's love of nature. The columns are like tree trunks, with branches and leaves, but the way the many stained glass windows are made, with more light coming in through the top gives you the impression you are in a forest with dappled sunlight. It is truly incredible and my photos do not do it justice.
We had a choice when purchasing the tickets to go up in one of two towers, or none at all. I picked the Passion Tower because my guidebook said you could take the elevator up and down for that one. My guidebook was wrong. We could take it up, which was nice, but we had to walk down at least 215 feet by way of the stairs. And by stairs, I mean spiral stairs, very narrow, sort of but not really a railing on one side and a view way down through the spiral to the bottom on the other side. People in front and behind us kept looking down and remarking how far it was to the bottom. I could not bring myself to look as I was too busy trying not to fall down that abyss. Seriously, there was nothing on that side to stop you if you lost your footing. It took what seemed forever, but we got down, and even my knees survived, sort of.
After stopping for a cool beverage (beer for Gord; sangria for me) and to recover from the cathedral, we headed toward the hotel. We walked past the long lines at another of Gaudi's creations, Casa Bottlo, and opted not to go in. Besides, it was Cava time and the hotel patio was waiting.
For dinner we went to Cachitos, a place that had been recommended by our hotel. It was fine, good even, but Vinitus was much better.
Saturday morning, after brunch at Tapas 24, we walked to our scheduled tour at Sant Pau Art Nouveau Site. This masterpiece was created by another Catalan Modernista architect, Lluis Domenech i Montaner. Like Gaudi, nature and natural light was a vital element in his designs. This Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, built between 1904 and 1930, was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1997. Entrance was by tour only and our guide was very good. The hospital complex was a "city within a city" made up of different pavilions, each assigned a different medical specialty. These were linked by avenues, gardens, and underground galleries. Even the operating theatres, with almost floor to ceiling glass windows, used only natural light (and no gloves for the doctors!). At least the windows were north-facing, so they did not have to worry about any glare while operating.
From there we took a taxi to Park Guell, commissioned by Eusebi Guell, designed by Gaudi, and begun in 1900. This was envisioned as a large estate for 60 well-off families but in the end only two families bought plots. It became a public park in 1922, and a UNESCO Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 1984. Our tour guide was good. After this and the Sagrada Familia, it becomes very easy to identify Gaudi's style.
On the way to our hotel we stopped at a Vodaphone store to get a Spain SIM card for my phone. When we got to the hotel, Gord tried calling his sister, but we kept getting a recording in Spanish that we couldn't understand.
We shared a bottle of Cava in the backyard patio of the hotel and then had dinner at Vinitus again, at our same seats at the bar where we could see all of the action at the grill.
Later we tried calling Patti again, this time at the hotel desk so the hotel clerk could tell us what the recorded message was. He said that the recording was saying we didn't have enough money on the SIM, which was weird because we were supposed to have 60 minutes. Of course tomorrow was Sunday and the Vodaphone store would be closed, and on Monday morning we were leaving for Madrid.
Sunday morning we walked to the Cathedral of Barcelona. We watched Barcelonans (and some tourists) dance the Sardana in front of the cathedral, accompanied by musicians. Then we toured the cathedral and cloister.
Afterward, we walked to the Picasso Museum. We waited in line to buy tickets, then waited another half hour for our entrance time, but it was worth it (and the line wasn't nearly as long as it was when we left, when the museum was free). This museum's collection covers Picasso's early works, beginning when he lived in Barcelona from the age of 14. It included art school pieces that were quite beautiful and unrecognizable as the Picasso we think of. My favorites were his 58 interpretations of Velazquez's Las Meninas that he painted in a four-month period in 1957, perhaps because I was familiar with Velazquez's painting from my previous trip to Madrid. No photos were allowed inside.
From the Picasso Museum we walked back to our hotel via Las Ramblas, the pedestrian-only boulevard that is loaded with people, and supposedly pickpockets. It's great for people-watching and shopping at the little stalls, but I was glad we weren't staying down in that part of Barcelona.
For dinner we went around the corner to a nice place Gord had found--Bodega Granados. Not as good as Vinitus, though.
Monday we were up early to catch the fast train to Madrid. It took a mere two hours 45 minutes to travel 625 kilometres with one stop in Zaragoza. At times we reached speeds of over 300 km/hr!
We checked into our hotel and got lunch next door. We picked a great location, not only because it overlooked the Puerta del Sol and is less than a 20-minute walk to any of the museums, but also there was a Vodaphone store and an Apple store right there. At the Vodaphone store the guy checked my phone and said I should not have a problem calling the US or Canada. While we were there, we tried our daughter Meg (because Patti would have been at work). We got a recording that said the number wasn't correct. We tried again and it went to Meg's voicemail. Strange. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. (Of course, I was never able to get it to work after that.)
Next stop was the Apple store to get a new cord for my iPad. Confusing system and layout, but we finally found where to pay.
We then walked to Centro de Arte Reina Sofia to see Picasso's Guernica among other wonderful paintings. We stayed almost to their closing time of 7 pm but only managed to see one floor. Photos were allowed except for the galleries and around Guernica. I liked this painting by Angeles Santos, Family Dinner. Does it remind you of your family dinners? Not mine, although there are three children in it...
We found a restaurant for paella that was sort of on the way home and that had a good rating on TripAdvisor. Gord wasn't impressed, but I thought it was good.
Back at the hotel we watched a replay of the second Clinton/Trump debate via Buzzfeed. It must have been the CSPAN version because it was only one camera, no closeups, no side by side images, only the backs of the moderators and none of the people asking questions. There were some opening remarks by different people and then many minutes of quiet. It took 25 minutes before the candidates entered the stage.
On Tuesday we walked to the Prado, considered one of the best museums in the world. We were treated to some wonderful works by Velazquez (including Las Meninas), Goya, El Greco, Hieronymus Bosch (Garden of Earthly Delights), and Albrecht Durer, not to mention Raphael, Fra Angelico, Rubens and so many more. We opted for the audio tour. The Prado is one of the few museums, it seems, that still does not allow photography so I have no photos of my own to post. I don't blame them, though. Oops. I did take one picture, Sorolla's Boys on the Beach, but it is so beautiful.
Outside, the streets were being prepared for tomorrow's Spanish National Day parade (October 12 commemorates Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas). I had read about it and purposely planned our day trip to Toledo that day to avoid any closures on this national holiday that is supposedly celebrated mostly in Madrid. We wandered back to the hotel for beer and sangria before walking through Plaza Mayor to Mercado de San Miguel.
We were up early Wednesday for our 30-minute train ride to Toledo. We have had such great weather, but today it rained all day. Still, it is a beautiful city, perched on a hill above the Tajo River.
Our first stop, after a quick coffee and pastry, was Toledo's cathedral. It was overrun by people and their selfie sticks, but I still managed to get my own photos. Now I could really appreciate the Prado's policy on photography. With a tour group everywhere you turned, with at least half of the group taking selfies and the other half posing, hand on hip, in front of each chapel of the cathedral, I could just imagine the chaos it would be trying to get a look at Las Meninas at the Prado.
After lunch at Taverno al Gallo, we visited the Santa Cruz Museum with its many El Greco paintings and a large ceramics collection.
With plenty of time to spare, we walked in the rain to the El Greco Museum, but it had closed early because of the national holiday. We walked around a bit more, bought some Mazapan, and headed back to the train station early, hoping to exchange our tickets for an earlier train. Unfortunately we were told that because we had booked the tickets online we couldn't exchange them, so we sat in a cafe bar at the train station for two hours. Good thing the train station was beautiful, too.
Back in Madrid, we did the evening paseo, walking the pedestrian streets around Puerta del Sol. We wanted to have a non-tapas meal for a change and wandered around a bit before finding a place a couple doors from our hotel called El Manantial. Gord had caldo gallego, a stew, and I had grilled trout. We also shared a small piece of their strange empanadas that were cooked on a sheet pan as one big, rectangular empanada instead of the traditional crescent shape. Not a fabulous meal, but interesting.
Thursday we slept in a bit before walking to the Royal Palace, Europe's third greatest palace after Versailles and the Schonbrunn in Vienna, apparently. At any rate, it is undeniably a lavish place with 2,800 rooms and over-the-top furnishings. No photography was allowed inside here either except for the entrance hall. (I guess my statement earlier about the Prado being one of the few museums that doesn't allow photos was wrong, at least in Spain. I remember years ago being shocked that the Louvre allowed you to take photos.)
After a late lunch across from the palace we went back to the hotel where I worked a bit on this blog. We had a fun dinner at Casa Labra Taverna Restaurante, a very busy little place with a history. It's famous for being the birthplace of the Spanish Socialist Party in 1879.
We managed to cover all three floors of the museum in the limited time we had. We saw a Rembrandt self-portrait (really, how many of these did he paint?!). The collection included quite a number of American artists, including this and several other Winslow Homers.
This Picasso, Bullfight, will be the only bullfight we will be seeing.
And there was a room dedicated to the Hudson River School artists. I wondered if there might also be a painting of Lake George, and sure enough there was, by John Frederick Kensett.
We had lunch at the museum, rushed back to get our bags, and took a taxi to the train station. On to Granada and Spain Part II.
Reading: C. W. Gortner's The Queen's Vow, a novel of Isabella of Castile
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