As predicted the rain arrived. Although pouring, we walked over to the Palace of Catalan Music (Palau de la Musica) to purchase guided tour tickets. With only a few wrong turns and stops to ask
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| Blow drying our only pair of long pants. |
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| A deluge greeted us this morning. |
directions, so we wouldn’t meander off track too far in the deluge, we succeeded in purchasing tickets for this quintessential
place to see for its beauty and art deco architecture. The Palau de la Musica really is a MUST see.
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Architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner was more popular than
Antoni Gaudi when it was built—1905-08. As I said before,
it's difficult to get decent pictures of these magnificent build-
ings, so I ripped one off from the Palau's official homepage.
You'll see more if you visit their photo gallery. |
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| The ticket office. |
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Cornice of supporting wall. The detail of the Palau de la
Musica is stunning. |
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| Palau cafeteria where the tour begins. |
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| Stairs to performance hall balcony. |
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| Entrance to main floor of performance hall. |
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| Balcony supporting columns. |
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| Outside balcony. Note glass balustrades. |
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Yesterday's and today's visitors. You'd never guess it was
raining buckets this morning. |
Now it was time for a cup of chocolate and churros at Dulcinea’s, a 200 year old café
on the chocolate street. Man alive was that the right decision! We sat next to three
elderly local ladies, ordered, and oohed and awed over the desserts the
waiter brought them—flan and honey and cups of chocolate and churros.
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| Barcelona's 200 year old chocolate cafe. |
One of the
ladies mimed to us, “One past the lips goes directly to the hips." Cracked us up.
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| Waiting for chocolate and churros. |
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| Yum! This chocolate is rich and creamy. |
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| Might as well go for it. |
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| And as you can see, I made short shrift of it. |
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The rose, book, and Catalonian flag colors celebrate St.
George's feast day, because he is the patron saint of
the region. A man gives his sweetheart a rose and she
gives him a book because Cervantes and Shakespeare
died on the same day, April 23, 1616. Picture taken of
a store window display. |
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| Purchasing snacks for tomorrow's train back to France. |
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We ended our post-chocolate walk to find
three police vans parked across the street
from our hotel. Perhaps a drug bust in the
apartment the desk clerk speculated.
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Some workers showed up about the same time as the police, but
apparently, the search and seizure activity going on at the
narrow doorway with the letters CHA Ferran (our street) over it
wasn't related to the work going on at Don Fernando's. Luckily,
the jackhammering stopped about 9:30PM. That's when the truck
with a small crane arrived to unload fresh sand to fill the hole. |
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Another reason why we felt perfectly safe in the Gothic Quarter.
The police are well-armed and everywhere on foot, bicycle,
and horse back. |
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Loaded up with water for tonight
and tomorrow's train back to France.
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Barcelona's Sants Estacio train station is modern and efficient.
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And we're off.
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