A day of rain drove us indoors to one of the many museums in Barcelona
(along with several other tourists). It also was a day for the
"opportunists" to come out and sell umbrellas. Must be a brisk business
because everyone you see has one. We took in the Picasso museum and got to
see the full history of Picasso’s art styles, including the famous cubism
stylings. Its amazing to see how he could take an image, and re-render it
several times and each in an amazingly different style.
The weather clearing means that everyone takes to the streets again. The
main strip in Barcelona is called La Rambla, which is a lengthy promenade of
street vendors (hawking flowers, birds and other assorted animals,
newspapers, lottery tickets, and the usual souvenir fare), and street
performers (which are typically of the ‘human statue’ variety, only more
interesting than just spray pained silver or gold). It is a fun place to
just walk around.
Barcelona is loaded with the greatest amount of interesting buildings that I
have seen, and I would dare say that this city is an Architect’s paradise.
One of the historically famous artists in this sense was Antoni Gaudí, who
has left a legacy of ‘Modernist’ buildings and attractions scattered
throughout the city. Excelling in merging style and function, these
creations from the early 1900’s still have a modern and intriguing
presentation today! We walked around in the Güell Park, which was
commissioned in 1900 as a garden city, and then saw two of his apartment
complexes (Casa Batlló and Casa Mila). There is just no explaining his
creations, which are full of colour and curves. You would simply have to
see it (or in the least some photos) to create your own sense of
explanation.