Port de Barcelona

After we finished dinner, we took the metro down to the port area to take in the scene.

I always adore the way the lights shimmer on the water at night, so it was quite a romantic spot to chat it up with my guapito!

Setting Sun

By the time we finished at Casa Amatller, the sun was beginning to set, casting a luminous glow over the buildings surrounding our hostel.

Casa Amatller

Although the majority of the Modernist sites in Barcelona were created by Antoni Gaudí, Casa Amatller serves as an example of a contribution to the Modernist ambience by someone other than Gaudí, Josep Puig I Cadafalch. Casa Amatller is an apartment building dating to 1900 that was commissioned by Catalan chocolate manufacturer, Antoni Amatller.

Unfortunately for us, the building was undergoing renovation while we were in Barcelona, so we got to see a small fraction of the interior. I guess that is motivation to make it back to Spain someday, eh?

All the same, I personally really enjoyed the stained glass. To say the least, it was a change from what I was used to seeing in the churches scattered across Spain!

La Pedrera

First on the to-do list for our visit was La Pedrera. Originally constructed as the Casa Milà between 1905 and 1911, what is popularly known as La Pedrera, or “The Stone Quarry,” was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. The rugged facade of the building is said to have been inspired by the mountain of Montserrat, while the apartments themselves resemble eroded cave dwellings.

Because of the curvatures in the architecture, the popular joke is that the new tenants would only be able to have snakes as pets! Gaudí described the building as “more luminous than light,” and while it was his last secular commission, critics have declared it among his best.

Barcelona

Since our days in Spain were numbered, we had to cram in our last two trips before leaving for the States in July. After tackling Madrid, we went back to Sevilla to rest for a couple of days before leaving again for Barcelona. It was a hectic couple of weeks but well worth it!

We only had a couple of days for Barcelona, so we hit the ground running. After we checked into our hostel, we dropped off our bags, snapped this photo from our room, and headed off to start our tour of Modernist art and architecture for which the city is so renowned.

¡Hasta la próxima, Madrid!

That evening, we headed back to Atocha to catch our southbound train to Sevilla. We'll miss you, Madrid!

Fútbol

After walking from one room to another in the museum, our feet decidedly needed a rest. Given that we had a little while before we had to be back at the train station, we grabbed a quick bocadillo and plopped in the plaza directly in front of the museum to catch an impromptu soccer game. Ya gotta love Spain for its aficionados of fútbol!

Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

Housed in a building that once served as an 18th century hospital, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía is Spain’s most prominent collection of modern Spanish art, dating from the 20th century to the 1980s.

While the museum features the occasional non-Spaniard artist, the majority of the collection is strictly Peninsular. To give you an example of some of the art work that we saw, the last three pictures in this sequence are "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso, "Caracol, mujer, flor, estrella" by Joan Miró, and "El gran masturbador" by Salvador Dalí.

To see further explore the collection, visit the museum's virtual tour:

http://www.museoreinasofia.es/coleccion/presentacion-coleccion.html

Palacio Real

The Palacio Real, or the Royal Palace, was designed by Italian architect Filippo Juvara and then later finished in 1764 by another Italian, Giovanni Battista Sacchetti. As a result, the building is marked by its Italianate baroque colossus with approximately 2800 rooms.

In the end, we decided not to tour the inside, but here are a couple of pictures to depict the building’s architecture.

Museo de América

Although it may seem a distant history, Spain was once one of the most powerful countries in Europe, ruling a vast empire overseas in the Americas. During the 15th century, Spanish vessels began to cross the Atlantic Ocean carrying missionaries and conquistadors alike to explore territories previously uncharted by Europeans. As a result of the encounter between the Spanish and the Amerindians, many sacred artifacts were pillaged from the original indigenous inhabitants of the Americas and carted off to showcase for the European nobility.

The Museo de América in Madrid exhibits these cultural artifacts from the autochthonous civilizations, portraying the heritage of a previously unheard of continent while at the same time providing fascinating insight into the logistics of imperial Spain. Some of the museum’s highlights include ceramics, statuary, jewelry, instruments used for hunting, fishing, and war, in addition to some of the paraphernalia used by the colonizers.

Given the Latin American geek that I am, I was particularly excited about visiting the museum. In the end, we dedicated several hours to peruse the items on display, but I guess it is like they always say, time flies when you’re having fun!

If you’re interested in learning more about the collection at Museo de América, visit the following url address:

http://museodeamerica.mcu.es/seleccion.html

Bosque de los Ausentes

In the southwest corner of the Parque del Buen Retiro, the government planted a quite moving memorial, el Bosque de los Ausentes (Forest of the Absent).

In light of the 191 victims of the train bombings that occurred on March 11th, 2004, an olive or cypress tree stands for each victim.

This photo is a glimpse of the memorial at sunset.

El Ángel Caído

Of all the monuments in the Parque del Buen Retiro, perhaps one of the most interesting is the statue of El Ángel Caído (the Fallen Angel, aka Lucifer).

Madrid is one of the few cities in the world with a statue to the devil, which is quite odd considering the cultural influence of Catholicism in Spain....

Parque del Buen Retiro

Although it once served as the private gardens of the royal family and their intimates, the Parque del Buen Retiro is now open to everyone. Although the park boasts of marble monuments, landscaped greenery, and elegant buildings, its most popular feature is the artificial lake in the middle of the park where crowds gather to ward off the Spanish heat.

Real Academia Española

The Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy) is the institution that governs and regulates the Spanish language. For those literary/language geeks, the building is an homage to the elite in Spanish literary history....

Museo del Prado

Located in the heart of Madrid, the Museo del Prado boasts of one of the most extensive art galleries all over the world. With more than 7000 pieces comprising the museum's collection, the Museo del Prado serves as a window into the artisitic history of Spain. Prominent artists featured in this collection include Velázquez and Goya, among many others.

Because there was so much to see, we spent the entire day there, taking a break around lunchtime to grab a bite to eat. All of that time on your feet wandering from room to room taking in one masterpiece after another definitely makes for a big appetite!

Of Velázquez's works that are featured in the museum, perhaps the most well-known of the Golden Age painter is Las meninas (third picture from the bottom), a portrait of the royal family painted in 1656.

The museum depicts Goya's genius in his pinturas negras (black paintings), described with this term due to the dark colors that predominate to convey the distorted dehumanized appearance of the subjects in the canvas. I think that I would have to say that my favorite of these type of painting by Goya is his Saturno Devorando a Su Hijo, which translates to Saturn Devouring His Son. However, of all of his paintings, the most historically significant are El Dos de Mayo and El Tres de Mayo (second from the bottom). These paintings portray the 1808 anti-French revolt in Madrid that resulted in the execution of various insurgents within the city.

Although the museum primarily focuses on Spanish art, it also houses other works from foreign artists, including but not limited to Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights (bottom picture) as well as works by Carvaggio, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, etc.

For a glimpse at what the museum describes as "15 masterpieces," see the following url:

http://www.museodelprado.es/en/visit-the-museum/15-masterpieces