Barcelona photos

Here are the promised Barcelona photos.

Place de la Catalunya (for some reason this was black and white and I kind of like it)

The Arch de Triumf (I didn't know that there were more than one; perhaps they are everywhere in Europe)

The view from Montjoic (the Mountain of the Jews) at the front of the National Museum of Catalonian Art.  Much of Barcelona is laid out here.

Sculpture created by Roy Lichtenstein for the  1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona

Gaudy's famous Sagrada Familia, still under construction probably for my lifetime.  Those are police and sit-down demonstrators blocking the entrance behind me.

I loved Park Guell, the residential development started by Gaudi that failed.  The few houses he built are so unique and the grounds are fascinating.  This is a colonnade walkway with another walkway above.

The entrance to Park Guell

The staircase up to the market area under the columns.  There are side staircases that go up to the plaza on top, which is being remodelled/refurbished right now, but you can walk on part of it and sit on a few of the mosaic benches that line the edge of the plaza on top.

The iconic dragon sculpture on the main staircase

The two remaining houses near the entrance that are inside the ticketed "Monumental area".  The one on the right is actually the gift shop and you can tour the one on the left.

This the original house on the property purchased for Gaudy's development.  He touched it up so that it would blend in with his development.  After the City bought Park Guell for a park, this large building was opened as a school, which it still is today - lucky children.

Close-up of the colonnade

This was Gaudi's house at Park Guell.  It is outside the ticket area in the free portion of the Park and it is used to house the Gaudi Museum.

In front of the Gaudi Museum and all along the walkway are huge palm trees.  You can see and hear the South American cockatoos in the tops of these palms, screeching, fighting, and flying back and forth.  I understand that there are cockatoos all over Barcelona nesting in its palm trees.

Well, we plan to get into the Sagrada Familia before we leave.  We also want to see and tour a few of the Gaudi designed buildings that are sitting along the Avenue Diagonal here.  Tomorrow night, there is an outside concert at the Magic Fountains in the Place de Espanya and I really want to see it if the city seems peaceful enough.  It's a night light-show and the fountain, I'm told, dances in time to the music.  Who wouldn't want to see that!