Spain seems quite a while ago now. We found a nice campsite on the beach, under the airport take-off point. Didn´t disturb our sleeping or anything, but they were there all the time. The guy running the campsite loved Ben´s Magnum PI shirt (which has been used a number of times now to be recognised - nothing like a loud shirt to stand out in a crowd).
Our first day we just checked out the beach and got settled in. Second day we went into Barca on the bus, and largely just wandered along La Ramblas (main pedestrian street), checked out the statue of Chris Columbus on a very high plinth, and wandered into the cathedral. Nothing like Sevilla´s, but still pretty impressive, and with a lovely cloister. Like most cathedrals it seems it´s in the process of being fixed, which didn´t make for the best pictures. We worked out the metro system with only a little difficulty, and headed up to Park Güell, which Gaudi designed as part of a failed scheme to have a communal Park between about 30 houses.
Most didn´t sell, although Gaudi lived there the rest of the life. Dunno how much he saw of it though, as he appears to have been a bit of a workaholic. Still couldn´t finish a cathedral though...
The next day started with cutting Ben´s hair, much to the amusement of the cleaning staff, who all offered each other as Joanna´s next subject. Hair suitably shorter, we headed off on the bus again to check out more of Barcelona. A somewhat more successful day, as the previous day had been Sunday: shut day. We dodged the Casa Batlló, as the €16.50 entry for a house clashed with our tightness, but the Pedrera was much better as it included the Gaudi museum as well. Amazing buildings he designed, this Gaudi fella. And so much of it makes so much sense. He liked to use nature as a source of inspiration, so came up with curving buildings that are naturally strong and stable, and rain naturally runs off, instead of square things. And then he´d design interiors so that chairs fit bottoms, not vice versa...
He also came up with some cool architecture techniques of hanging chains, and inverting the shape. You end up with paraboloids, hyperboloids, helicoids, and lots of other great mathematically strong shapes (yes, Ben is writing this one). He put all this to best use in his masterpiece La Temple de Sagrada Familia:
Didn´t manage to finish it (or the other big church he started), and it´s half built after 125 years. Still going strong though. We went there after the Gaudi Museum and were suitably inspired. Dad: you must come and see this, it´ll greatly excite your engineering brain (And Mum will love seing the church aspect, so you´ll both be very happy :). Do go see the Gaudi Museum/Pedrera first though, to get an idea of what he was on about. We did it by accident, but it was a good idea...
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