Nothing can prepare you for La Sagrada & Jack is assaulted

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Our day started with another early morning tour of a Gaudi building. The last residential building he designed, Casa Mila or as it is known by local, La Pedrera, the quarry. The building was innovative for its day with the first elevator in Barcelona. When it was working which was infrequently it took 7 minutes to get to the 5^th floor. The building had underground parking for autos and horses, intercoms and an attic designed to enhance air flow to dry clothes quickly. By the end of his life Gaudi had moved from being anti-religion to being devout. He took private commissions to create buildings to honor God’s natural world with a caveat that he had complete artistic license. Toward the end of the construction of this building he decided he wanted to put a statute of Jesus & Mary on the front. A few years before this, there was an anti-clerical riot in Barcelona and many religious buildings were damaged. To protect his building the owner said no to Gaudi’s request, so Gaudi walked off the job and left the owner to finish it with another architect.

The next stop was La Sagrada, the cathedral designed by and started by Gaudi that is scheduled to be completed in 2026 in honor of the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death. It was astonishing. I can’t recall being in another building that had anywhere near the level of visual and emotional impact. When Gaudi started it the building, he knew he would not live to see its completion, so he began by constructing the main façade. He reasoned that once the façade was there, the city would proceed with the rest of the building because they couldn’t simply leave one wall standing.

We planned on heading back to Ravel for a Bite Mojo food tour lunch on our way to the Miro Foundation and Museum. We were fine with the first stop in the food market and then things went from bad to worse. After asking 6 local shopkeepers, several pedestrians and two police officers how to find the second spot, we gave up and figured we’d head on to the third stop. By now it was after 1:30 and we were both grumpy and hungry. We had no luck finding this stop and threw in the towel after Jack was assaulted. We were simply walking down the street when a young a man put one arm around Jack’s shoulders and one leg in front of his legs. Fortunately, Jack’s instinct was to elbow the man and scream at the top of his lungs. The guy let go and ran off. Olga had complained that the police don’t enforce the law in this neighborhood. One of her friends had an apartment and provided the police with evidence that illegal immigrants had a “drug den” there and it took month for the police to act. Olga said she thinks it is because the powers that be want the area to be dangerous so that people who might otherwise want to live there feel forced to move. Whatever the reason, it was scary. It’s one thing to be pickpocketed, it happened to Jack in Madrid, which is annoying, and something very different to be assaulted. That was the end of the BiteMojo tour for us. We stopped at an unremarkable café and had an unremarkable pizza for lunch.

The Miro Foundation was in a beautiful building in a beautiful setting. It was interesting to see some earlier works by Miro and burned painting series he did at the end of his life. Evidently, he was sick of the expectations of the art world and wanted to shock them. The downside of small museums that show the works of very famous artists is that they can’t afford to compete with the big museums that can pay top dollar for the work. We saw this at a Georgia O’Keefe exhibit in Santa Fe years ago and again at the Miro Foundation.

For the past three days, I had been trying to make a reservation to have paella at a restaurant recommended by Mark and Etta. The people who own the place don’t speak English, so I have carefully translated the information to make a reservation, and even called to confirm. When we arrived, which took work since the little blue dot on google. Maps seems to bounce all over the place, so you can’t really tell where you are, they said, “Paella – impossible”. I suppose we could have stayed and had something else, but I was aggravated that after all that work, they acted like I was supposed to be apologetic that I was asking for something they didn’t/couldn’t make. We picked another place, #4 on TripAdvisor, and ended up in a taxi. When we arrived, without a reservation there were 3 groups of 2 ahead of us. We ended up at the bar which was fun because the bar tender was friendly, and we enjoyed watching him make the fancy drinks. I had a white Sangria made with Cava. I asked what was in the drink, hoping to be able to recreate it at home. When he got to the 8^th ingredient, I gave up. The manager was super friendly and watching him interact with other customers he was friendly with everyone but had a soft spot for the old people (us). It was the best meal in Barcelona with a raw tuna dish, ceviche and a burrata salad. At the end of the meal, the manager came and shared a small drink with us. He said it was like Baily’s Cream but made with local liquor. We were very happy to end the day on a positive note given the problems we’d had earlier.

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Photos

Roof of La Pedera
each head is unique

How Guadi designed arches
modeled gravity