Maritime Museum, Barcelona and Darwin!

One day last weekend, we all went into BCN, and we went to the (slowly) reopening Maritime Museum.  There was this boat still on display....

And these enormous scales:

I've never seen a skull that seemed cute before, but this guy managed it!  No?

Some of the medieval wall of Barcelona visible out the windows

Medieval stone work, beautiful isn't it.

The roof was just put on new.

Welcome to Europe, this is a Roman tomb I think, though it frankly looks more like the foundations for a house.  Skipping through the centuries we are here.

The Darwin exhibit was OK, one of the cool bits was looking at all the different skeletons of arms, human on the left, gorilla I think in the right, bird just visible further over

Then there's whale....still basically the same though.

After the exhibit we walked around BCN a bit, below is the Tapies museum, the building was designed by Domènec i Muntaner, whose house we visited in Canet a couple of posts ago!

And a cross section of houses in BCN, part of the beauty of the place is the effort that's been put into so many of the buildings.

Lovely, no?

Canet de Mar to St Pol via Montnegre

I spent the day today working out a route to walk from Canet de Mar to St Pol (3.7 km on the beach) via Montnegre.  It ended up being 32K.

A wee bit longer, also we had an accumulated climb and descent of 2400 meters (that'll be about triple that in feet, so lets say 7200 feet.

We also had a bit of everything on the weather front, as you can see to start with, sunshine, clear skies and just warm enough to work up a bit of a sweat on the climbs. 

Below, we've already come up a fair way, and we're looking out over Canet de Mar, we then have to drop down quite a bit before climbing again! This time even higher.

A fair way up the next climb we came across this house..

One of the things I was doing was taking photos at the various junctions of the two people I was with going the way we needed to go.  Worked well as a reminder of the route.  Now I have to match it up with what the gps told me and what I see on the map...then do it again.

As you can see, we got rain above, then while we were having lunch, thunder and lightning.  When I took this picture, hail as well.

And fog.

Rained a wee bit.

Later, I figured out that I could stick my hand in the picture to help indicate the route, pretty clear, no?

Looking back to Montnegre, hidden in the clouds, where we'd come from.

OH LOOK!  Barcelona!  That wedge shaped mountain is Monjüic.

Two attractive houses in St Pol to round it all out!

Long day...wait, where did those last photos go...hold on....

Finished off the day with a double rainbow.  That doesn't happen all that often, now does it!

GRs and trail markers

That picture above, looks so simple, it is the trail marker for GR routes in Spain, and I assume in much of Europe.  A GR is a hiking route of 'gran recorregut' as in it goes a very very very long way.

I have walked a fair distance along a variety of these GRs, but they are sign posted with this very simple mark, often painted on stones.  If you are going into a turn off you shouldn't be taking they take the two lines and make an X of them.

Clear and simple.

What has happened for me, however, is that I find I have developed a remarkable affection for these signs.  The very long walk I did several weeks ago was marked with these, and when marching along in the dark on your own, these signs are MOST welcome.

So, a picture and a post, for two little marks, that are so very reassuring.

Canet de Mar

The man and I took an excursion to Canet the other day, beautiful town, with TONS of Modernist buildings.  If you've thought of visiting the ones in BCN, Canet has some that are well worth the visit too.  This is Casa Roure, designed by Lluís Domenèch i Montaner, you'll see more of this later.

The town hall, subject of another blog post...

A Mondernist building on the other side from the town hall, this may have belonged to the family of a friend, I'll have to ask about that.

This was an old derelict factory, that I tried to take photos of over the wall they've built in front of it to keep people from going in, then I stuck the camera, completely blind, through a drain hole in the bottom of the wall, and look what I got.  Cool photo.

So you don't think that every building in Canet is Modernist, I quite like these, particularly the slightly un-uniform layout and the colours.

Another building up at the top of the town, now a restaurant.

Older somewhat more traditional houses for normal folks.

This was in Domenèch i Montaner's house, in the old kitchen for the Masia, which interestingly used to be the Center for the Catalan Architecture College,  a friend remembers bringing projects in here. Seriously cool.

I have no idea what this is, and there is quite a deep hole under it.  A well?

The Architect himself.

Modernist architecture/design worked with many wonderful materials, including iron

tiles

and stained glass, this shot below from Casa Roure where we went for lunch.

This was his home, the second one he designed here, those staircases lead to where the grandchildren lived.  Would those stairs not be seriously fun to go up and down!?!?!?

View out of the first floor window looking down the main walking street to the sea.  Two of the buildings he designed are on the left.

The roof in part of Can Roure, sadly it is blurred, the light was quite low and I didn't take the time do get a good photos.  Shame on me.

This rather more modern balcony treatment!

Not sure those are load bearing, no?

Classic image from Canet I suspect.

Wonderful day out and well worth the visit if you every get the chance!

a slightly frustrating tour of BCN

My sister-in-law was here for a few days recently, and we had a lovely time with her.  At one point she rented a car and we went off to visit some distant family, and on returning the car, we had some difficulties. It being May 1st, and with the current unstable situation, there were a *few* demonstrations, leading to some *ah* difficulty in returning the car, read a gigantic scenic tour of the city ending with me phoning a cab driver friend to find the other rental car office a little further from the action!

BUT, despite the rather irritating ending to an otherwise lovely day, I did get some photos of some cook architecture in BCN, entirely random, I could never ever repeat the route, and I'm not sure I could find some of this stuff again, but here it is!  More evidence that BCN is not just about old buildings.

This one is out in the Zona Universitaria, it was the Banca Catalana building, founded by Jordi Pujol.  The bank failed and now it is the offices of the editorial Planeta.  I like the plants.

The next two are somewhere nearish to Sants station, I will see if a friend of mine can help me with some better locations and some more info tomorrow (no go!)  BUT I found the article I had read about it...here....

In a plaça, possibly Francesc Macià, but also, possibly not.

In Barceloneta, up from the beach a bit

There was a gorgeous street statue I didn't get a photo of as a bus parked between us and it at the light, I'll have to go back for that one. Maybe by Oriol Buigas (?) or Mackay (?)

Again, the Barceloneta area, these are all kind of near the cinema that shows movies in Original version, as in, in English!

The next two are two halves of the same building, not sure I like it, but it is interesting.

There you go, an entirely random bit of BCN architecture, with a little art tossed in.  MUST GET TO BCN again soon!