Yesterday, ahir

well, it was a lot yesterday, the first major part is the bit I'm going to tell you about, cause the later bits involved a training session and work.....followed by mass hysteria at home, which I will probably tell you a bit about.

A friend of ours here has gotten a job as a tour guide, but a special kind of tour guide.  You see he's an architect, and the company he's going to be working for has very small groups, 2 − 6 max, and the guides are all locals and experts.

He wants to warm up his English, so he's been coming over and talking a whole bunch, but he also took us on one of his tours!  I'm hoping we'll get to do a couple of others too.....

I actually took only one photo when we went with him the other day, I was too focused on what he was saying, and how he was saying it.....so t
oday, after a day of work in BCN, I missed my bus so had some extra time and walked the route again, taking photos....

so here you go, a bit of a tour of Modernist BCN:

This is a seriously ridiculous number of photos, I dread to think how long blogger is going to take to load them......

First we walked up La Rambla, above Plaça Catalunya, here are some random photos of things we saw....

This building is the diputació de Barcelona, a gov't office....but the building in the foreground was designed by Josep Puig i Cadafalch - who also did the caixa forum and the Quatre Gats, the Four columns in Plaça Cascades (on the way to MNAC from Plaça Espanya, recently restored), the building for the Generalitat de Catalunya,

This statue, La Girafa Coqueta at the top of La Rambla,   There are several public statues by Josep Granyer, another that you'll see later that is at the bottom of La Rambla (at Gran Via), and it brought to mind as well Fernando Botero who created the giant cat in La Rambla del Raval and the horse in the old airport terminal in Barcelona.   There is some truly excellent street art in Barcelona.

I have a strong suspicion that this is St Jordi, or St George, the patron saint of both England and Catalunya and as this is outside the diputació de Barcelona (Barcelona is both the city and one of four administrative regions within Catalunya)

I know not what, it went up between Friday morning and Sat afternoon, it is reportedly a puppet and lights up and dances.

What type of trees are these?????

Then we went just to the right of that photo above where there is the Casa Fuster by Lluís Domènech i Montaner one second of the three greatest Modernist architects in Barcelona.

Passieg de Gràcia in BCN is mostly a very wide very very expensive street of shops, but it was also originally constructed to connect BCN with the village of Gracia, and if you go round the back of this building, right to the end and look left up the street, there is a startling change in architectural styles, to that of a more typical Catalan small town.  Most interesting.

We walked past the Casa Comalat, which isn't by one of the big three, instead it is by Salvador Valeri i Poprull.  I liked it.

Then we were off to Casa Asia originally known as the Palau Baró de Quadras.  Cool thing about this is that it is now a museum and cultural center, so you can go in for free!  

The doorway to go in.....

An indonesian Frida Kahlo

Decorative work on all the walls, in plaster

Now that is a coffered ceiling and a half...

Frog in a sink, the water would come out his mouth!

Fireplace....it is intended to look like the mouth of a fish, but it makes me think of a nose....

These fish-y capitals are a reminder I guess....

All the walls were painted this way....I like it!

The view of the main entry from inside where the carriages would have entered.

There's quite a bit more, but that's enough for now, no?