Saturday, August 1, 2009

Casa Mila (finally!), beach, and the return of the Magic Fountain

Today was another good day. I'm continuing to feel better and we had a busy and fun-filled day. We started off by going to Casa Milà, which I've been meaning to do all summer. I kept going there, but not going in for various reasons (I was sweaty from running, I didn't have enough time, I didn't feel like paying, you get the idea). But now I've finally seen the inside, and it was great! Here's part of the indoor courtyard:

My best pictures are from the roof. Here's the general topography of the roof:

And in this one you can see the Sagrada Familia in the background:

Inside the building, there's a museum sort of thing on the top floor, then what used to be an apartment and is now just for looking on the next floor down. The museum shows things that Gaudí used for inspiration, such as this:

The apartment is set up like it was in Gaudí's time, around the 1910s. Here is a bedroom:

I would like to have that bed. As usual, I have tons more pictures if anyone's interested (and maybe even if you're not).

After Casa Milà, we walked past the rest of the Block of Discord, through Plaza Catalunya, down Las Ramblas, through La Boqueria, and tried to go to Palau Güell. Unfortunately, it had closed for the day shortly before we got there. This was clearly a sign that it was time to go to the beach, so we got on the metro, then the train, and went to the beach. We had a nice time at the beach, reading our books, lounging around, and going in the water, which was a perfect temperature.

It started getting cooler, so we left the beach to go home to take showers and make dinner. We finished dinner in time to go to the Magic Fountain (for my third time!). I didn't take a camera this time (sorry, fountain-loving readers), so I tried to pay more attention to the fountain. It was pretty much the same. Nonetheless, we enjoyed it.

A person can only take so much fountain before it's time for some pudding. We came back to the apartment to have a dessert we got from the grocery store called natilla. Sounds exotic, right? I'd been eyeing it all summer, thinking it was some unique Spanish dessert like arroz con leche, and with my friend here I finally decided to buy it. As you might have guessed from my careful foreshadowing, it turned out to be just your average chocolate pudding. Well, now we know.

Somehow my friend discovered that there's a science museum here, which no one I've talked to seems to have been to or even heard of. Tomorrow, we will find out for certain, as we attempt to take advantage of the free admission to many museums on the first Sunday of the month. We've also got our sights set on the Picasso museum.

Happy August!

1 comment:

  1. Nice to read your experience in Barcelona. Barcelona has ample number of destinations for visitors. Anyone can chill out easily in any season over here, without worrying about the food and the accommodation. There are various Barcelona apartments option available for the commuters.

    ReplyDelete