Barcelona, Spain Day Three-"Casa Batllo"-Gaudi~

Nicknames "House of Bones" and

"House of Yawns" are many titles

given this structure by Antoni Gaudi.

A wealthy aristocrat, Josep Batllo, had

Antoni Gaudi redesign this upper market

home in Barcelona.

When creating any of his designs Gaudi

would avoid any straght lines if possible.

 "Casa Amatller" is the building next

door to Gaudi's "Casa Batllo," 

designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch.

Years of construction were 1898-1900.

 For me the balconies of " Casa Batllo"

 appeared like masks you would wear 

for a masquerade ball...

 Batllo's family lived on the first two levels

 while renting out the upper apartments.

For the facade of the building Gaudi

was a recycler and reused imperfect 

and rejected tiles from his other projects.

"Casa Batllo" was built in 1877

then remodelled between 1904-1906.

 "Casa Amatller's" was a unique modernistic 

design, for the times, created for the 

chocolatier Antoni Amatller.

Years of construction were 1898-1900.

Having seen photos of "Casa Batllo" 

lit up at night Jim drove us back

to see it in person.

It really is a captivating sight!

Barcelona, Spain Day Three-"Tapa Night"~

The Catalana is one of the best Tapa restaraunts 

in the city of Barcelona.

Cody was so hungry and ready for a good meal

after his quick dunk in the Sea!

We had come here earlier in the week and

would have had to wait an hour to be seated.

 We decided to come back the next day at a much 

earlier hour and were seated right away.

When ordering Tapas the idea is to order 

several options that come in small portions and 

let everyone sample a small serving of each.

Shown above is a flavored potato croquet

and some fried and salted peppers.

This is a VERY SMALL type of hamburger,

it was not so easy to divide and share...

A chicken marinated salad is above and also

shown is a chicken vegetable kabob as well

as a fetta cheese tomato salad with tomato bread.

The salad was my favorite of the night.

My other favorite was this delicious 

plate of sauteed mushrooms.  

No one wanted to share with me!

Cody was worried that he was not going to get filled

up, so we ordered this plate of cold, sliced meats.

With more tomato bread and meat 

sandwiches we had a very nice meal!

Another fun adventure in Barcelona!

Barcelona, Spain Day Three-"Making A Splash"~

While the sun was shining Cody decided we 

needed to revisit the seaside and see if he 

could go for it and take a plunge in the icy water.

 The wind was blowing which created some great

waves but dampened the desire a bit to get wet.

 After 5 minutes of comtemplation Cody went for it!!

Dad had a great laugh at Cody's enthusiasm!

 Shaking off the cold after a couple of dunks.

 Going back for more!

 Jim still had not "manned up" as Cody says, and

jumped in.  But he was quick to point out a big

wave coming towards Cody and then turn and

run away himself-Cody took it all in stride.

Despite the freezing water that exhausted his

strength, Cody's glad he took the plunge despite

his Dad's lack of enthusiasm to join him. :-)

Barcelona, Spain Day Three-"Football Stadium"~

The Barcelona Football Stadium

seen in the background!

One of Kent's favorite European teams.

 We walked about 30 minutes to see the stadium.

 Of course we had to visit the team store

to look at some fun souvenirs...

Coreen likes the Barcelona away teams color

better than their home team colors.

 Since this is one of Kent's favorite teams we

decided to buy him a shirt with the player Messi

and his number on the shirt.  Here they are 

transferring the name and number on the shirt.

Of course Cody wanted one as well...

 So here are the end products after being in 

the busy line at the left for about 45 minutes.

Kent's gonna be thrilled to get this in 

next weeks package when he gets to CZ!

 The top floor shows manicans with both

sets of shirts and players names.

Here is the away color shirts.

 Home game colors.

 A view of both together.

 Another side of the stadium.

 These bikes are parked all over the city.

Somehow there is a way you rent them

and ride them to different locations to 

leave parked at a new spot.

Another unusual building.

Named Planeta.

The plants all hang off the sides of the balconies.

Barcelona, Spain Day Two-"Park Guell"~

Park Guell!

Commissioned by Eusebi Guell 

and designed by 

Antoni Gaudi, a Spanish Catalan architect.

 Guell Park was created from 1900 to 1914.

 The concept was a plan for a housing site.

Luxury homes were set to be built within the park

to offer peace and tranquility away from the business

and noise of city life as well as smoke from factories.

Only two homes were built and with no other 

interested buyers the area was turned into a park.

 This is the top of one of the two uniquely designed

buildings at the entrance to the park.

 It looks as if they are frosted

gingerbread houses! Yum!

 Some closeups of the beautiful mosaic

work seen throughout the park.

 A cozy sitting area...

 This is one shot of a ceiling view in a covered area.

 A little blurry but you can see the large

man made areas built for this unique development.

 A side view of the seating and walking area 

set on top of the pillars.

 The bench goes all around the front of the 

park with a first hand view of the city below.

 Cody caught up in a "street entertainers" antics.

 Looking down from the seating area to 

the entrance buildings of the park.

 Doing some people watching from the bench...

 ~Barcelona~

 When you walk back up further into the park

you will see manmade formations Gaudi created.

 Gaudi incorporated natural looks to the 

componants of his works.

 Flinstone Village??

 Prince Cody resting on a stone chair,

sight seeing gets wearisome.

 The stone love bench.

 Not a great shot of how many city buildings

had beautiful rod terraces framing their windows.

But this type of look was on many buildings

in the city area of Barcelona.

 We had noticed earlier in the evening

many men wearing Barcelona Football jersey's so 

we figured it was a game night.  

While walking home later in the evening the city

was almost dead!  There was hardly a car that

drove by.  We noticed the bars were full with 

people viewing a football game.  At one point,

in the quiet of our walk from the metro,

there was a loud cheer throughout the city!

It was so funny that we could hear so much

vocal cheering with no cars to drown out the sound.

Once back at the hotel we turned the game on.

Unfortunately Barcelona lost to Madrid,

but as the man we talked to the next day said,

"It's okay, we'll beat them next time!"