Beautiful Barcelona

Barcelona Cathedral
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Finally a fine day! Although it was accompanied by a very bracing wind it was good to see perfectly blue skies. We were dropped off in front of the Cathedral, where the main spire is still under construction. Our local guide, Lollie, walks us around this gothic quarter, showing us buildings and remnants from many centuries. This included the location of some Roman ruins from 1000BC, found under building foundations and now open for public display.

Gaudy Sagred Familia Outside
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We then entered the small Jewish quarter and were shown a candle shop whose internal fittings were still the same from 1770’s. It looked like a grand salon inside and the candles were pretty cool too!

Montjuic and Montserrat

After our walk through Jaumes square – the political centre of Barcelona, we returned to the bus via the entry to the Cathedral Cloisters. Although we did not go in, Lollie told us that inside they still keep 13 geese, which were traditionally used by the priests to guard the church as they are just as aggressive and noisy, if not more so, than dogs!

Sagred Famila Inside
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It was then on to the highlight internal visit of the day – the Sagred Familia. This enormous temple, designed by Gaudy, is just an amazing site. Under construction since 1882, it currently has eight of the 18 spires completed, and both the inside and outside is an architectural and engineering marvel. We were first taken through Gaudy’s workshop, then shown how the architects make scale sized models for testing based on CAD/CAM diagrams of Gaudy’s designs before the full size casts are made in the relevant materials.  We were also shown how Gaudy designed these buildings – he actually did it upside down – draping string and using precise weighted bags of sand to form perfect parabolas that would provide the natural and self-supporting arches required to support the spires and acoustics he wanted.

Sagred Ressurection Facade
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With the advent of technology, the building of the temple has exponentially fastened to where optimists say that it may be finished by the 2020’s. They have announced the first mass to be held in September this year, and the church will be consecrated by the Pope in November. It is really too hard to describe in words what this place looks like and photos do not do it justice.

We were then taken up to Montjuic, for a panoramic view of Barcelona and the surrounding areas. On this trip we also passed the main stadium and aqua centre used for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. It was then time for the drive to Benedictine Monastery of Montserrat. This took about an hour with the last 10klm of winding roads that afforded us fantastic views of the conglomerate stone faces of the mountain against pure azure blue skies.

Gaudy upside down design process
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As we approached the monastery on foot, bells started to chime and it was very pleasant walking towards the church with a harmony of bells. We had two hours of free time, and were told by Lollie that we should visit the shrine of the Black Madonna, as there was usually a long line out the church, but today there was none. She also showed us a nearby room where locals would leave items that they wanted help with from the blessed Black Madonna. We saw clothing (christening dresses, a bike helmet, bracelets and also wax forms of feet. Lollie said that these were here as people were wanting the Madonna to help then with a problem they were having with their feet). The room is cleaned out once a week by the monks.

Andrea in front of the port of Barcelona
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We joined the internal queue that winded its way through the side of the church, and up high behind the altar. This wooden and gilded carved Madonna and child has turned black over the centuries from being hidden in damp and humid caves, and displayed in areas with burning candles among other causes. It has now also been painted to ensure that it remains black!

After this we wandered back down to the main tourist area and looked through the shops and grabbed a bite to eat at the cafeteria. On the downward bus drive, Lollie said the mountain was very popular with mountain climbers, and pointed out to us different named climbing locations.

View across to the Pirannies on way up Montserrat
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Once back in the city, we had free time until the final tour dinner at the hotel at 8.30pm. Joe and I decided to use this time to have a walk around and decided to visit the Picasso Museum. Getting there was interesting, through the maze of streets and the bustle of people.

As you progressed through the collections, it took you through the timeline of his life’s work, and each room provided an insight into the works of the time.  He started exhibiting when we was only thirteen, and started out with scenes and portraits, and eventually progressed through his blue period, rose period then through the weird cubism. I found one section really interesting in that he painted interpretations of a painting by Vasqueuz. We had seen this painting in the Prado earlier in the week, and to see his cubism take on parts of this painting was wonderful.

Montserrat Monastary
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After this we decided to visit the nearby Xocolata Musau – Chocolate Museum. This ended up being a little disappointing, but we read information on chocolate and how it is grown and produced and how important it was to the Aztecs and how it was bought over to Europe. There were also some great chocolate sculptures to see which were amusing.

Our last stop of the day was a walk back to the bottom of the Rambles to try and get a glimpse of Christopher Columbus in daylight without rain. By the time we got there the light was fading and it was a little hard to see. We headed back to the hotel and had time for a short rest before our final dinner with our fellow tour mates.  It was unfortunate that the tables were setup in groups of four, so you were not really able to enjoy a “group” dinner. We said our farewells to everyone who was leaving early as we were both pretty sure we were not getting up early to see them off. We also said goodbye to Rui our tour director who had been fantastic, especially with our mid-tour break and catch-up.

Montserrat Black Madonna
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This was a great tour with good people, good guides and a most helpful tour director. I would recommend this tour to anyone wanting to get a glimpse of Spain.