Colorful Barcelona

After saying goodbye to Brandon, Maurizio and Michele we headed for España and spent several days in Barcelona. The city is really striking and the greater Catalunya area has connections to Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalhí and of course Antoni Gaudí.

Gaudí's work appears all around the city

We visited Parc Güell, which was designed as a high end neighborhood by Gaudí. This curvy bench is the longest in the world.

Say, Whiskey!

We also took a Picasso tour and visited sites that were important to his life when he lived in Barcelona as a teenager. This is  the 4 cats restaurant where he used to draw and mingle with young artists.

Another day we rented bikes and went down to the beach

Barcelona has lots of cool public art

We found some delicious tapas

And saw lots of Cataluyna flags. Barcelona is the capital of Catalunya, whose people have a strong separatist movement after having been oppressed under the dictator Franco

We visited the city's Gothic area including the Cathedral

and practiced some night photography

And of course we had to visit Gaudí's masterpiece, the Segrada Familia church, which is still being constructed

The Judgement facade features these beautiful angular carvings

Being inside of the church feels like you're walking through a forest

Gaudí was very inspired by nature

Columns with branches form a canopy overhead

The lighting cast by the stained glass is beautiful

Gaudí was a master at creating moods

Architects and designers are still finishing the church according to Gaudí's plans

The facade on the other side is the nativity and features a completely different style of carvings

Gaudí's love of nature is clear here. Turtles hold up the columns

After having spent so long in Rome it was nice to see some more modern styles of art and architecture.  Our 4 days in Barcelona flew by and soon enough we jumped on an overnight bus to head to Madrid.