Friday 30 May 2008

AFA - May 2008 - Barcelona: Gaudi's "Parc Guell"













I'll admit that I'd never heard of Gaudi prior to visiting Barcelona, but he's everywhere in that town. His style is based on nature with curved edges, rounded shapes, animals and plants. He was a big fan of doing mosaics, sometimes in the weirdest places, like on the park bench above. He was originally not appreciated by the general public, but a rich industrialist named 'Guell' loved his stuff and supported him.
Parc Guell was intended to be a 60-unit housing project for the rich. He put in all of the pictured park features, with fancy buildings at the entrance, fountains, benches and walkways but the houses never came. At the time the park was too far from the city center and the rich didn't want to be that far away.
The pink house was where he lived, now a museum and .... say it with me ... gift shop.

AFA - May 2008 - Barcelona: Gaudi's "Casa Mila"









This one is also called "La Padrera" which means 'the quarry' for its rock-like exterior. (not meant as a compliment) It is a Gaudi designed apartment building, still in use today. You can tour one floor, the attic and the roof. The building is designed around courtyards, so that every apartment has natural lighting on both sides. The roof is the thing that blows your mind. First the roof curves up and down for no reason, other than art. Second, the chimneys are all twisted and square shaped in groups of four. And then there are other items covered in mosaics. You've definitely never seen a roof like this before.

AFA - May 2008 - Barcelona: Gaudi's "Sagrada Familia"



















Perhaps the most amazing site (for me) in all of Spain was the yet to be completed "Temple of the Sacred Family", or "Sagrada Familia" in Spanish. Construction began in 1882 and they hope to complete it by 2026. This too is the design of Gaudi who worked on this project for 40 years, devoting the last 15 years of his life to working on it full time. This is his most famous work.
None of it is finished, so what you'll see in the pictures just gives you an idea of the scale. When completed there will be 18 total towers, 12 330 foot towers representing the Disciples, 4 taller towers will surround the two central towers, a 400 foot tower of Mary and the tallest representing Jesus Christ and being 550 feet tall! It is absolutely massive. The interior must be 75-100 feet tall, all filled with scaffolding and construction equipment.
The east side facade, called the "Nativity Facade" was the only part completed in Gaudi's lifetime, (and has the most pictures here). It has a bunch of carvings of scenes related to the nativity and Christ's youth. It's hard to get a perspective, but we guess that each of these figures are several feet tall.
The guy who writes the tour books we use, Rick Steves, has traveled Europe for more than 30 years. His quote says it all. "If there's any building on earth I would like to see, it's the finished Sagrada Familia."

AFA - May 2008 - Barcelona: "A Funny Thing Happened ..."





A funny story about Barcelona. It was the end of our first day there, we were all tired and the family was sitting on a bench facing me in front of the building in the first picture. I was standing leading a discussion on what to do next. All at once I look over them and on the sidewalk (about 30-40 feet behind the family) was a naked man! He was just walking along the sidewalk, no one was paying much attention to him. Everyone that passed him noticed, but no one stared or pointed. He was probably in his late 40’s or early 50’s and had an amazing tan. He clearly did this a lot. He didn’t look like a crazy person, or homeless, or anything weird – other than the lack of shoes or hat, or anything else in between. The hilarious thing was that he was pulling a rolling suitcase, probably full of clothes. I can only conclude that he must have lost the key.

After he had walked past where we were, I told the family to look – so they only got the view from behind. We were all so stunned, no one thought to take a picture. The ironic thing is, just prior to him walking by, the people wearing the "giant lady" costumes pictured above walked by and we got shots of that, no problem.

Thursday 29 May 2008

AFA - May 2008 - Madrid: The Hats


The guards outside the official buildings all wear special hats. It has been rumored that they are shaped the way they are to allow the wearer to lean up against the wall while taking a smoke break. It looks like they are plastic. Click on the pictures to get a good look.
Very funny looking!

AFA - May 2008 - Madrid: Street Signs






A few hundred years ago when they first started putting up street signs, the leaders of Madrid realized that the majority of the people were illiterate, so they couldn't read the signs. So they put pictures on them so everyone could 'read' them. They still use them today.
The first sign shown was the street the original post office was on, the picture is of the wagon rushing to the post office to deliver the mail. (Calle de Postas = Street of the Post Office) The last sign has a picture of strawberries. (Calle de la Fresa = Street of the Strawberry)