Sabbatical 9/01 - Palau de la Música Catalana, Barcelona Cathedral and Museo Picasso
I had crossed off the most important item on my Barcelona list when I went to La Sagrada Familia, but city has much more to offer than one not quite complete cathedral.
The first order of business was the building that is widely regarded as the second most impressive architectural accomplishment in the city: Palau de la Música Catalan. This concert hall was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner and completed in 1908. Originally it was dedicated to a still extant choral society called Orfeó Català, but now all sorts of concerts are held in its magnificent hall. Alas, the schedule didn't work out that I could attend a show there, but I did take the guided morning tour, which shows off the modernisme architecture to maximum advantage.
Every square inch of the building is decorated with something. There is tile, stained glass, wrought iron, mosaics, sculpture, you name it. There's so much of it that it almost feels overdone, but somehow the riot of color and shape merges together into a gorgeous image, all wrapped around a concert hall with superb acoustics. The best part of the hall is a stained glass drop ceiling that spans the length of the hall. Almost every drop of natural light is filtered through color. An entire garden of flowers is on the ceiling. Statues of muses line the back of the stage. Palau de la Música Catalan is on the edge of the old quarter, so it's hard to see all of the exterior at once due to the narrow twisty streets, but even the outside is covered in statuary and murals. It is really a sight beyond my ability to usefully describe. These pictures may help.
From the Palau, I wandered further into the old quarter to visit the Barcelona Cathedral, or if you're formal The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia. This is a gothic cathedral dating from 1339, although the facade was redone a scant 120 years ago. As you'd expect, it has incredibly high ceilings, lots of stained glass and stonework, and is cool even on a hot day. It's a fine building, but give me La Sagrada Familia every day and twice on Sundays.
Fun fact: Saint Eulalia was martyred, when, to quote wikipedia, "the enraged Romans put her into a barrel with knives stuck into it and rolled it down a street." Ouch.
Anyway, I walked deeper into the old quarter and found the Museo Picasso, which as the name implies is a massive museum (five medieval palaces strung together) containing nothing but works by Pablo Picasso. There are some pieces from each of Picasso's periods, but the collection is heavily weighted toward his early years. His most famous pieces are mostly elsewhere. I like art museums a lot, but I apparently do not like Picasso enough to find five palaces worth of his early works mesmerizing. I do love this song though:
I had a nice lunch and a nap. Once it got cooled off I wandered down La Rambla, which is a major pedestrian street that goes from Plaça de Catalunya to the Mediterranean Sea. It's full of little shops, street vendors, performers, and apparently lots of pickpockets, although I didn't have any issues. I walked over the famous mural by Joan Miro; more on him in the next post.
bart_calendar had recommended Travel Bar to me, and it is a small walk off of La Rambla so I checked it out. I had a most enjoyable evening hanging out with a bunch of American and British ex-pats, eating tapas, drinking cheap beer and flirting with the bartender while listening to terrible British pop. Thus ended my third full day in Barcelona, with one to go.
This entire album is devoted to Palau de la Música Catalan.
Photos fifty through fifty-six in this set are from September 1.
The first order of business was the building that is widely regarded as the second most impressive architectural accomplishment in the city: Palau de la Música Catalan. This concert hall was designed by Lluís Domènech i Montaner and completed in 1908. Originally it was dedicated to a still extant choral society called Orfeó Català, but now all sorts of concerts are held in its magnificent hall. Alas, the schedule didn't work out that I could attend a show there, but I did take the guided morning tour, which shows off the modernisme architecture to maximum advantage.
Every square inch of the building is decorated with something. There is tile, stained glass, wrought iron, mosaics, sculpture, you name it. There's so much of it that it almost feels overdone, but somehow the riot of color and shape merges together into a gorgeous image, all wrapped around a concert hall with superb acoustics. The best part of the hall is a stained glass drop ceiling that spans the length of the hall. Almost every drop of natural light is filtered through color. An entire garden of flowers is on the ceiling. Statues of muses line the back of the stage. Palau de la Música Catalan is on the edge of the old quarter, so it's hard to see all of the exterior at once due to the narrow twisty streets, but even the outside is covered in statuary and murals. It is really a sight beyond my ability to usefully describe. These pictures may help.
From the Palau, I wandered further into the old quarter to visit the Barcelona Cathedral, or if you're formal The Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia. This is a gothic cathedral dating from 1339, although the facade was redone a scant 120 years ago. As you'd expect, it has incredibly high ceilings, lots of stained glass and stonework, and is cool even on a hot day. It's a fine building, but give me La Sagrada Familia every day and twice on Sundays.
Fun fact: Saint Eulalia was martyred, when, to quote wikipedia, "the enraged Romans put her into a barrel with knives stuck into it and rolled it down a street." Ouch.
Anyway, I walked deeper into the old quarter and found the Museo Picasso, which as the name implies is a massive museum (five medieval palaces strung together) containing nothing but works by Pablo Picasso. There are some pieces from each of Picasso's periods, but the collection is heavily weighted toward his early years. His most famous pieces are mostly elsewhere. I like art museums a lot, but I apparently do not like Picasso enough to find five palaces worth of his early works mesmerizing. I do love this song though:
Click to viewI had a nice lunch and a nap. Once it got cooled off I wandered down La Rambla, which is a major pedestrian street that goes from Plaça de Catalunya to the Mediterranean Sea. It's full of little shops, street vendors, performers, and apparently lots of pickpockets, although I didn't have any issues. I walked over the famous mural by Joan Miro; more on him in the next post.
bart_calendar had recommended Travel Bar to me, and it is a small walk off of La Rambla so I checked it out. I had a most enjoyable evening hanging out with a bunch of American and British ex-pats, eating tapas, drinking cheap beer and flirting with the bartender while listening to terrible British pop. Thus ended my third full day in Barcelona, with one to go.
This entire album is devoted to Palau de la Música Catalan.
Photos fifty through fifty-six in this set are from September 1.