Blogs from Catalonia, Spain, Europe - page 277

My last day in Catalunya ended my trip in the same fashion as it has been for the last 5 weeks. I spent my last day before Madrid in Montserrat walking and walking and walking. I went on a trip to Monserrat which is located about 45 minutes from Barcelona. It´s a monastery on top of a beautiful mountain (I think it´s about 4 thousand feet high). It has been considered a sacred mountain for thousands of years and especially after a religious statue was found up there centuries after it was hidden from the Moors. It´s a small black statue, La Moreneta (dark maiden) and is the soul of Montserrat. It´s a beautiful mountain with strangely shaped rocks. I thought I would just go up there, look around and leave, but I ended up walking ... read more

Hola! Well, this is probably my last entry from Barcelona. I´m moving on to Madrid Sunday. Everyone is telling me that I will hate Madrid especially after Barcelona. I wasn´t too crazy about Barcelona the first couple of weeks, but, I think it has grown on me. I take back all the bad stuff I said ;) Everyone is nice here, I don´t know if it´s me or it´s them that changed but it´s very different now. I even went back to that hell of a mountain, Montjuic yesterday to go to the Miro museum. And at night I went to another mountain, Tibidabo. It was unbelievably high and Barcelona looks so tiny from up there. Yelena, I think that´s the one you were telling me about, with the Jesus on top of that church. However ... read more

Last week I visited some more of Gaudi's architecture. I saw Casa Mila, also called "La Pedrera", the stone quarry. It was an apartment building in the beginning of the century, but now more or less, offices and... occupy the building. It's architecture is amazing from the layout of the building with it's courtyards to the facade that's very unique, to the rooftop that is just amazing. From inside out, the building is very unique, not only it's ornamentaly unique, but the construction of Gaudi's creations is just genius. The rooftop with it's winding paths, with a touch of Gaudi's design on it's chimneys offers a great view and you can see Sagrada Familia which I also visited this week. In Casa Mila they had an exhibit of Gaudi's architecture with models, plans, etc describing his ... read more

Hi! Hope everyone's week is going well. Well, the weather here in Barcelona is nice now. It's pretty warm but is great compared to the first hot couple of weeks. It's still possible to go to the beach and I went this past weekend. On Sunday I was at the beach here in Barcelona, but on Saturday I had a great trip to Girona. I visited Dali's museum in Figueres, a town in Girona, Spain. It seems to be the only reason for people traveling to Figueres, but it is definetely worth it. The museum was amazing because not only are the works exhibited that of Salvador Dali but the entire museum is created by him. On top of the museum building, which by the way used to be a theatre, there are eggs, yes huge ... read more

Hola! Hope everyone is doing well.. Well, I finally found a nice internet cafe..It only took me a week. Noone knows anything and noone speaks English. I´m sitting in an internet cafe called easyInternetcafe on the corner of Plaza Catalunya, right in the center of the City.. The famous Las Ramblas is a couple of blocks away. Las Ramblas are full of young people at night looking for a place to party, young people giving out passes to clubs and people from India selling beers one can at a time for one euro each (I think). To one side is Plaza Real where people, well mostly tourists go to have a drink in the evening. I like Las Ramblas in the afternoon. It is full of flower stands and stands that sell birds, all kinds of ... read more