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Published: December 16th 2012
Salvador Dali
Naixement d'una deessaOn our last full day in Barcelona we decided to be a bit cultural. First of all we walked from our hotel to the Arenas de Barcelona shopping centre. Ok, not very cultural you may think, but being a Sunday all of the shops were closed and we were there to see the giant Miro statue in the park next door. It's also really good to go up onto the roof of the old bull ring (now the shopping centre) to get amazing views of the city.
Nearby we crossed the enormous roundabout that is the Plaza de Espana and made our way up towards the
National Art Museum of Catalunya . On the first Sunday of every month it's free to get in which certainly grabbed our attention! On the way up there were hundreds of kids playng handball and football. Suddenly a crowd of them swamped a couple of blokes and Barcelona shirts were whipped out of daypacks and duly signed. We therefore presume they were Barcelona players!!
It's quite an easy climb up to the museum because there are escalators to help you out. Inside there were an awful lot of "young artists" but fortunately they were not running wild
and were mostly contained to a large hall where they were learning to make sculptures. MNAC is a beautiful building with wonderfully painted cupulas and spacious galleries. We were amazed to find that photography IS allowed, as long as the flash is turned off. So, enjoy the photos! We've posted a selection of our favourites.
We were particularly taken with the pictures of Xavier Nogues which had been lifted from the walls of a wine cellar many years ago. Unfortunately the museum's gift shop don't have any souvenirs with his works on. We would have considered putting our hands into our pockets. Instead the shop is full of keyrings, erasers and many other nick-nacks emblazoned with the image of two men on a tandem by Ramon Casos, a piece which not only did we not like, but we also felt it was a little creepy!
On our way back to the hotel we came across a park with a lake at the back of Barcelona Sants train station. Some parts of the park felt a little bit dodgy and would probably be best avoided at night, but on a bright sunny day it was a lovely place to
stroll and enjoy the statue of neptune and the bizarre Catalan dragon!
That night we travelled out to Mataro, about 20 miles to the North of Barcelona. There we met up with friends and had a great night out. It was great to see everyone again and we were so pleased to have managed to get everyone together.
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Claudia
non-member comment
Museum
Wow! I did not know that about the museum on Montjuic. Will you recommend it?