Bella Toscana

San Gimignano: sunset over the Tuscan hills

Barcelona

For fall break I spent five great days in Barcelona with my roommate Lauren. It was a long weekend, and we exhausted the sites. Instead of recounting all five days of my trip, here are some highlights:


GAUDI ARCHITECTURE AND PARK GUELL -

On the first day of our trip Lauren and I took a "hop-on, hop-off" tour bus around the city. It hit the major sites around Barcelona, including all the buildings by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi's buildings are like nothing I have ever seen before. His buildings are very sculptural and have a gothic/modern/art nouveau flair to them. One of Gaudi's most famous projects is the Sagrada Famiglia Cathedral. In my opinion it looks like a huge melting ice cream cone. We revisited the cathedral at night. All lit up it is quite impressive.

We also stopped at Gaudi's Park Guell. Our tour informed us that Gaudi was inspired by his natural surroundings. I definitely got that feel walking around the park. Its design was very organic-- columns carved out of the stone, free flowing paths, warm colors, etc. The park was a great place to soak in the beautiful weather.


FONTAIN MONTJUIC -

Lauren and I headed over to the Palau Nacional to see the Montjuic Fountain at night. Three times during the evening the fountain lights up, putting on a huge musical number-- the water shoots in every direction, changing colors, and spraying mist. It was a bit like watching fireworks on the Fourth of July.


FC BARCELONA -

The absolute best part of the entire trip was the night we checked out Thierry Henry, Ronaldinho, and Argentinean Messi working their magic on the pitch during an FC Barcelona soccer match. We cheered the team to a 3-0 victory with an estimated 75,000 other fans. It was incredible. Henry scored the first goal and Ronaldinho netted two directly off of his free kicks. The quality of play was amazing. I was happy to see how unselfish of a player Ronaldinho was-- he frequently distributed to his teammates-- but at the same time I wanted him to be more selfish so I could see his unbelievable foot skills. He did entertain us at the end of the match with an attempted bicycle kick that unfortunately sailed over the goal. This match definitely beats all the ones I have seen in Siena.


PICASSO -

On Sunday we checked out the Picasso museum. Expecting to see some of Picasso's most famous works, we instead were pleasantly surprised with a collection of his earlier pieces. It was interesting to see how his painting progressed and changed over time. I was particularly interested in the pieces he produced in France, where the impressionist painters Matisse, Cezanne, and Lautrec had a strong influence on him.


GREAT FOOD, GREAT WEATHER... OVER ALL GREAT TRIP -

My trip to Barcelona was great. It was an interesting feeling being in a country where you have no sense of the language. It wasn't a problem that we didn't speak any Spanish, but you feel very disconnected from the people there.

We had a wonderful time, sampling the some great Spanish food (nice change from all the pasta). We tried Spanish tapas, paella, sangria, and had a great organic breakfast at the awesome La Boqueria market. The weather was great too. Every day but one was sunny with temperatures reaching around 70. It was an overall delightful trip to Spain.