Barcelona: Day 1
Yesterday morning at 10 am I jumped on a plane to Barcelona, got myself a window seat and spent the rest of the flight celebrating my sister's birthday and the promise of a few days of nothing but sun and fun. So, this technically is already Barcelona day 2 and I'm cheating, but we were very tired after our flight and only went in town again after dark for a quick look around and a yummy meal. Pictured above is the view from our apartment close to the Sagrada Familia, Barcelona's famous church.
This morning I woke up early after a much needed sleep and took a refreshing shower, because I felt a bit gross after spending a day hopping about, trying to get everywhere in time. But I was very pleased, because we were planning on visiting the Picasso museum, who is one of my absolute favourite artists! The museum contains sketches, sculptures and paintings that were made by Picasso throughout his whole life. His most famous works were painted in Paris and some can be found at the Centre Pompidou (one of my all time favourite museums), but I actually really enjoyed seeing some of his more earlier works as well. Walking inside, you found yourself on a path trough Picasso's life, starting with his most early works all the way back to his nineties. Unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but on the photo above you can see one of his self-portraits. It's the first time any museum has had such a big collection of these works.
I took this picture while I was walking trough the museum. It was a little outside area with a palm tree in the middle and it looked very serene, it made me want to live there. It's a big building with an entrance that leads out to just a small street, so when we arrived there was a queue that was huge, leading all the way around the corner to another street. But, I must say it was totally worth the wait, because it was a very interesting and well put-together exhibition and I hadn't seen any of Picasso's self portraits before, which were really nice.
After visiting the Picasso museum, we sat down at a terrace and ate different kinds of typical Spanish tapas. They were so good! Tapas are basically finger food, for example patatas bravas, potatoes with some sort of sweet sauce, and calamares, which is fried squid. After our tiny break we walked to the Palau de la Música.
On the left you can see part of the building. I thought this was a lovely looking alley.
This is the front of the building. They built the entire thing in only three years time! Many famous composers, singers and choirs have performed here. You can find busts of Bach, Beethoven and loads of many others inside. My dad is looking out for tickets for one of the shows that will be held there in the coming few days. They have about 400 shows a year with very different types of music, ranging from classical music to reggae.
Above you can see the inside of the building. This concert hall is known for its excessive amount of natural lightning, most of the time those lights aren't used during performances. Important about this room is that there are elements to be found everywhere that show a connection between different countries and their typical types of music and musical instruments. On stage are sculptures of eighteen muses, playing eighteen different instruments from different countries. They were made as an inspiration to artists and an example of solidarity.
After our tour around the building, we went back to our apartment for a little rest and to prepare ourselves for dinner. They have dinner really late in Spain and most restaurants only start serving food at about 9 pm, apparently. We got home exceptionally late from our dinner yesterday, but I did have a delicious apple tart as dessert!
Speak to you soon,
Lize
