Park Guell, Monastery of Pedralbes and the Gothic Cathedral!

Good morning friends.  If I seem scattered as I write this today, it is because Jimmy Buffett tickets go on sale in less than an hour and my sister-in-law and I have been coordinating and mapping out our strategy for getting all of the tickets we both need on the floor at the FC Dallas Stadium on May 4th of this year.  It's a big deal for our family and an individual can only purchase 8 tickets.  So, we have to work very hard to get all that we need as closely together as possible.  So anyway, if it seems like you are getting less than my full attention as I write this morning, that is why.  So, back to Europe!

On our second full day in Barcelona we still had HOHO tickets and we were bent on getting our money's worth out of them.  So, we got up early and headed straight to the HOHO stop.  Our first stop on this day was Park Guell.  It is so hard to choose favorite places during this trip because there were so many of them. But Park Guell is in the top 5.  It is another one of Antoni Gaudi's creations.  It was planned and constructed between 1900 and 1914 and was intended to be a residential park with 60 homes in it.  But the idea was unsuccessful and only a few homes were ever built with one of those being Gaudi's.  In 1923 the city took over the park and it is now one of Barcelona's most famous landmarks.  We spent a few hours roaming through the various areas of the 60 acre park.  The highlight for me was what I called the pavilion.  The website says that it was intended as a covered market.  Below, I am standing just inside the entrance to the park.

 To the right is what the entrance looks like from just the top of the steps that I'm standing in front of in that picture.  Of course the sun is shining into the camera.  So it is all silhouetted.  but you get the idea.  The two structures are the gate houses.  The picture below and to the left is one of those gate houses.  Pretty nice, huh?  All of the artwork is done with mosaics.  Apparently Gaudi was a fan of the mosaic.  His wife must have got really tired of him breaking all of her dishes!  He wanted all of the buildings on the property to blend in with nature.

 I don't know if he accomplished that.  But it is really pretty!

The photo below was taken in the pavilion.  When we walked into it, I wasn't sure what we would find.  There was no one there except this man who was just setting up to play his guitar and one worker.  The ceiling is covered with these huge mosaic medallions that you can't stop looking up at.  And when the man started playing his guitar, the acoustics were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

I've never posted video on the blog before, so I hope this works, but I took a few seconds of video of him playing.  I hope you can hear how truly amazing it sounded being in that space with him.

The photo below is one of the dozens of medallions on the ceiling.  They were probably 5 feet across. and each was unique.  I photographed 6 or 7 of them.  The ceiling undulates.  I'm sure that helps with the acoustics.  It also makes it pretty.

The picture to the right was taken once we came out of the pavilion.  In case you hadn't noticed, up to this point in every photo that was taken in the first two full days there, the sky is perfectly blue.  It was like that until we left Barcelona on the cruise.  Then when we came back after the cruise, we had one day of rain.  But I suppose it was a small price to pay for the beautiful crisp perfect days we had before leaving.

Below are a few more photos of various areas in Park Guell.  The last one is Jenny with a person dressed up as the dragon that you pass as you walk in.  So, glad she did this.

After leaving Park Guell we got back on the HOHO and made our way to the monastery that we had stopped at the day before but it was too late to go in.  We spent another couple of hours there.  The Pedralbes Monastery was founded in 1326 by King James II of Aragon and his wife Elisenda de Montcado.

Elisenda had an annex built on the sight and lived there after the kings death in 1327 until her own death in 1367.  Her tomb remains there.  A small group of nuns still reside in the complex.  It is a beautiful and tranquil spot in Barcelona.

A photo from the courtyard

The door to the nave.

I really liked this stairway on the right.  It is just on the outside of the nave and goes to a park / residential area behind the monastery.  On the evening before when we had been here, school kids still in their uniforms were all gathered and walking around this area.

After leaving the monastery, we got on the HOHO once again and our next stop was Palau Reial de Pedralbes.  It's a palace with beautiful gardens where kings have stayed.  We walked around there for a while before getting back on the bus to head back toward our hotel.

Palace

Queen holding up first born son for Spain to see.

When we got off the HOHO we still had an hour or so before the Gothic Cathedral closed for the day, so we decided it was a good time to go in.  This part of the day was all sort of done as an afterthought but it turned out to be total greatness!  The first seven photos below were taken outside as we walked around.  Inside, there is a tomb under the alter

 After we had walked around inside for a while, I turned a corner and came across a security guard who asked if I wanted to go to the roof.  He pointed to an elevator which I guess was installed sometime in the last century and I said no.  Then the door opened and some people came out of it and were oohhhing and aaaahhhing.  So, I told the guard I would be right back and ran to find Jenny.  So, we took the elevator up not really knowing what we would find and went out onto the roof of the church which was going through a restoration.  We walked around on catwalks on top of the building taking pictures.

Jenny standing on a catwalk on top of the Gothic Cathedral.

One of my favorite things about Europe is that the threat of what legal action an individual might take if their loved one falls or jumps off of a building does not govern what people do.  If you want to go up there, you can go up, but it is at your own risk.  Lawyers don't get involved.

 After leaving the Gothic Cathedral, we walked down Las Ramblas and visited the market.  I loved the bright colors of the fresh seafood, vegetables  and fruit in the market.  I suppose it is weird that I have 10 or 15 pictures of claims and things.  But it looked really cool!  Anyway, after that we went to dinner and then called it a day.  During the day we had decided to do a day trip to Montsserat, Sitges and the Torres winery on the following day.  So we needed plenty of rest for the long day ahead.

I hope this was enough pictures for you today!  Tomorrow you will be blown away by Montserrat and Sitges so get ready.  By the way, we got our tickets for Jimmy Buffett!!!!  Six on the floor in section D, four others together in the same section and then four in Row 1 of Section 128.  Woohoo!!!!!   I'm thinking...
Boat drinks
Waitress I need two more boat drinks
Then Im headin south fore my dream shrinks

I gotta go where it's warm (I gotta go where it's warm)
I gotta go where it's warm (I gotta go where it's warm)
I gotta go where it's warm!

I gotta go where there aint any snow
Where there aint any blow
Cause my fin sinks so low
I gotta go where it's warm