Mediterranean Cruise 2005

Barcelona Cathedral

Going to sleep in France and waking up in Spain (well, technically off-the-coast-of Spain) is kinda cool.  Today’s destination is the grand Spanish city of Barcelona!  We have a couple of shore excursions available to us today, and I’m going to take advantage of BOTH of them!  The first one has me, Paul, and Geri heading out for a bus tour of several major cathedrals, with a mid-point stop at the huge Catalunya Museum.  

Our first stop is the huge Gothic Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia, aka the Barcelona Cathedral.  Unfortunately, scaffolding wraps almost the entire front for remodeling work.  Disappointing, but we are still able to go inside – and WHAT an interior this cathedral offers us!

It’s everything a Gothic cathedral should be!  I’ve seen European churches now across Italy, Germany, France, England — and now Spain!  There are very similar architecture elements and also some very different ones. 

Whether it’s the stone, the placement of the windows, or the lighting – there’s a distinct and almost golden glow inside the main worship area.  The arches above the columns rise high above the stone floor, the altar area is beautiful, and some of the artwork would stand alone as the featured piece of any museum’s collection.

There is an absolutely breath-taking inner courtyard as well, complete with large trees reaching to the heavens.  It really looks like a peaceful area – and you can imagine people coming here to find solitude and meditation spaces.

Walking down the street alongside the cathedral and moving back to our bus, our guide points out some very creative gargoyles above us.   These are clearly being used for water drainage/rain spouts – but they’re really intricate and interesting! 

There’s even one carved as a cricket!

Catalunya Museum

Next stop is the world-famous Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya.  It’s an impressive building from the outside, but their collections inside are absolutely phenomenal.  Understandably, they don’t allow photography inside their collections, so this section will be short from descriptions and photos.

Their collection of art treasures from medieval through the Renaissance and Baroque periods pull us from one area to the next.  While I’m not a huge fan of the more modern/avant-garde art, it’s still interesting to see the progression of the periods through time.

The most spectacular display, though, was the reconstruction (without damage or without attempt to “fill in the blanks”) of a VERY early medieval church fresco.  I truly wish I had been able to capture this one – and even now, looking back through the museum website, I’m unable to find anything about this.  So, sorry fair reader — I can’t do anything more than let you know how amazing it was and that, even now, I remember it.

La Sagrada Familia

La Sagrada Familia (The Holy Family) cathedral was originally designed in 1882 and would have been very similar to other neo-Gothic cathedrals of the time.  The cornerstone was even laid late that year. 

It was in 1883 that Antoni Gaudi took over, changing the original design into the very Gaudi-esque structure we see evolving even today.  Even though Gaudi died in 1926, his original vision was maintained with the planned completion date set for 2026.

Our tour only took us on a lap around the cathedral, so we were not able to go inside, but from what I’ve seen of others’ photos who’ve been since we were there, it’s a spectacular experience.

Barcelona Sights

Our Barcelona bus tour took us past the (very odd) and “flowy” Gaudi House.  It definitely stands out as almost organic, compared with the more linear/boxy buildings on either side.

There are numerous old walls throughout the city, including the Medieval city walls and fragments of an old Roman wall that is actually built into the structure of the Barcelona Cathedral!  

A huge oddly-shaped white tower rises above the trees … and our guide points out that not only is this a large cell phone tower, but because of its orientation, it’s also an art exhibit — actually a sun dial that uses the square below it to indicate the hour of the day!

Heading back to the ship, Paul and Geri “retire” for the evening, while I pick Kathy up for an afternoon/evening in Barcelona!  We head down to La Rambla, a tree-lined main pedestrian street in the middle of town.  In addition to some shops, we stop at an open-air cafe to enjoy a light supper and people watch for awhile.  It’s a lot of fun just “roaming about” new places with no real agenda.  It is a little shocking, though, to see such an “American” cultural icon show up on a street sign.  Ha.

We do have a brief nighttime bus tour lined up, so that takes us around La Sagrada Familia again, now lit up with floodlights.  It also takes us up to a scenic overlook – Barcelona looks lovely at night.  BUT … that’s all we can cram into one day in Barcelona!!!!  Tomorrow’s our “last full day”, and we’re going to need every minute of rest for it!