Day Thirty - Jun 20, 2012
Barcelona, Spain
Daily Didactic
Today we headed out at a reasonable hour for one definite goal and to get a handle on a couple of others. The sure thing was the Picasso Museum. We headed across the Ramblas and then through the center of the Gothic Quarter, the heart of the oldest section of Barcelona (mostly medieval with a little Roman empire around). Without too much struggle we located what turned out to be a really great large collection of Picasso's early work (before blue and cubist) and some really fun later work. It was the first relatively contemporary bunch of art we've looked at it, which was nice. From the Picasso Museum we took off to find our first piece of Modernismo architecture, the Palau de la Musica Catalana. The only way to see it inside is with a reasonably priced tour which were all full for the day, so we bought tickets for tomorrow morning. We back-tracked to take a peek at the interior of the Church of Santa Maria del Mar and found it was closed for the middle of the day. Theresa says this is "siesta" and she seems to be right, a perfectly sensible way a lot of public places deal with the heat of the day. We headed back to our flat for a little siesta of our our own. In the late afternoon we took in the Barcelona History Museum, which is for the most part underground in Roman ruins. Pretty cool stuff. We headed back to the church and (with their siesta over) took a peek inside, while Theresa schooled Brian on some Spanish history Rick Steves had schooled her on. The day was rounded out with a mini clam bake from our new favorite market. We are fans of Barcelona.
Today's Photos
