Spanish Love! Barcelona and Bilbao

Stained glass windows in Sagrada Familia

Interior view of Sagrada Familia

Mosaic tile detail at Casa Batllo

Exterior shot of Casa Batllo

Hanging out with the sculpture at the Barcelona Pavilion!

Guggenheim museum in Bilbao

Spain was AMAZING!  First of all, the food and drink was a nice break from the amount of pasta and pizza I have been eating in Italy.  Secondly, I saw some of my favorite pieces of architecture which I have always wanted to visit. So many dreams coming true :)

We started our adventure in Barcelona.  Naturally we had to have tapas and sangria upon arriving. We dropped our luggage off at our hostel and went to a nearby tapas restaurant. Delicious! The first two nights we relaxed and had fun, and by fun, I mean explored the night life.  The clubs in Spain are ridiculous and don't end until the wee hours of the morning.  Not sure I could do that often. Experiencing it once or twice is enough for this girl!  We went to a great market off of one of the main streets called Las Ramblas and gathered items to cook in our hostel.  Sandy loves to cook, so she wanted to take advantage of the fresh ingredients.  We all pitched in and made delicious stuffed peppers and guacamole.

We had to say goodbye to Sandy in Barcelona... We had sooo much fun with her visiting.  It was great to catch up and explore some fabulous cities with her!

The next day we visited Sagrada Familia designed by Antoni Gaudi and has been under construction since 1882!  The interior of this church was unlike anything I have ever seen.  It has it's own distinct style and was incredibly creative.  He designed the columns to make them look like trees, which also helped make them appear less massive.  By far my favorite church visited!  We also went to the house he designed called Casa Batllo.  This house is known for it's light well that provides light to the bottom floor, passing through many levels.  The light well is also tiled, beginning with a cobalt blue near the top and fading to a light grey near the bottom depending on how much light the surface would receive.  He also had many innovative details such as creating operable slats on doors and windows to help control the temperature.  Another interesting fact about this house is that the facade did not have any plans to build from.  Gaudi created a 3D scaled model of the facade for the contractors to work from.  Incredible!



Bilbao was our next stop.  I have been wanting to visit this city for a very long time. The Guggenheim museum, designed by Frank Gehry, has been on my list of things to see for many years and I spent many hours exploring it! It was built to help revive the city and bring it away from the industrial city it had become.  I think it may have worked as it was thriving!  The museum is one of the most amazing buildings in the style of deconstructivism. The exterior of the building is made of titanium cladding, stone and glass and the majority of it is composed of curvilinear shapes.  The titanium cladding would reflect colors from surrounding structures, making the museum look even more unique. 

I also visited one of the sites for my independent study here which was another incredible building that changed the skyline of Bilbao. It is shown in the picture above behind the Guggenheim museum. We enjoyed a variety of tapas and drinks here and Laura introduced me to churros.  It is a Spanish dessert of deep fried 'donuts' and chocolate dipping sauce, which had a consistency of pudding!  Soo yummy!  I can't wait to come back!