Barcelona Photo Stroll

Oh Barcelona! How I loved thee!  I'm so glad SIL and I will be departing from Barcelona on our cruise next year. What? Didn't I mention another cruise? Well, more on that later.

For now, let's focus our attention on Barcelona.

The main attraction in Barcelona is the amazing Gothic Cathedral designed by Antonio Gaudi - La Sagrada Familia.  I've seen photos of it in the past, but nothing prepared me for what we saw.

This is the Nativity entrance to the cathedral.

It has been described as a melting sand castle. And really that's pretty close to what it looked like.  There was so much on the outside to see that after awhile you just can't distinguish individual items any more.

 The Church will have three grand façades: the Nativity façade to the East, the Passion façade to the West, and the Glory façade to the South (yet to be completed). The Nativity Façade was bears the most direct Gaudí influence.

The cathedral isn't done and won't be until 2021. It's been being built since the late 1800's and while Gaudi is gone, his ideas are still being incorporated.

This little detail outside had me smiling. Why someone would think to put a turtle under a column that's holding up the structure is beyond me. I'm sure he had his genius reasoning and I think I'm glad he did.

If standing outside with my mouth gaping open in stunned amazement was something...walking inside, my mouth gaped open again.

Gaudi wanted the inside to appear to be a forest. The columns aren't all straight and they have branches at the top. The light the beautifully ornate stained glass windows produces causes a feeling of foliage against the tree columns.

It should also be mentioned that there isn't a single wall in the cathedral that's flat. How cool is that?

Above the altar is this umbrella shaped overhang. It' depicts life. Wheat and grapes can be seen as part of the altar.

This is just above the altar and stretches into one of the spires. I have no idea what it's official name is (and searching on Bing didn't help) but it was lovely and illumines.

The cathedral was filled with stained glass. There is no actual lighting in the cathedral. All the light is indirect light and cast from the stained glass. It was, in a word, magical to me.

One thing you learn in Europe and by visiting all the cathedrals, you look up and you look back. In this spectacular building, the view up was nothing short of breath taking.

As we walked through the cathedral, I tried to focus my attention on items NOT of the cathedral type, but more on the abstract. Being in a place so filled with whimsy it was almost like I could feel my creative juices starting to percolate to the top again.

This photo is of doors that leave, I think, to the south. The entrance not yet completed.  The interesting thing about this photo - and something I only knew AFTER I shot this is that while I thought this was the actual door, it was, in fact, a cloth covering the door showing what the door was going to look like.

Every Catholic church has a holy water holder just inside the doors so that believers dip their fingers in the holy water and then do the cross thing on themselves.  Each cathedral I entered I looked for this "fountain" - for lack of another word. Most of them were rather normal and not all that interesting. Gaudi, I knew, had to have something interesting. And a shell as the holy water holder was interesting to me.

I exited the cathedral on the other side to view the Passion Façade. And wow, what a striking difference from the other entrance.

The figures on this side appear more sharp angled. Less curvy if you will. And their features seemed almost tormented and emaciated. Jesus on the cross is naked, which was a HUGE scandal when it was created.  The cross is actually coming out of the roof - almost perpendicular to Jesus.

Again, looking back into the church I was struck with this statue of Jesus. He's holding on to a column and it is supposed to be from the story of when he was whipped, before he was crucified.

The other interesting note on the back side of the cathedral was this grid of numbers. It was covered by a cloth as it was part of the wall they were currently working on. But, the guide told us that no matter what direction you add the numbers up in, up/down, side to side, diagonally, they all add up to 33, which was the age of Christ when he died.

Leaving La Sagrada Familia I was a bit numb. That was a lot to take in at one time. As our bus drove through the streets of Barcelona, you could really feel the Baroque influence everywhere.

Then we came across the house Gaudi built. The main one I wanted to investigate further was blocked off and hidden by a piece of canvas. I guess they were restoring it.

The other building was, thankfully, on my side of the bus and in plain view.  I believe they call this one the Batllo house. This playful house was nothing short of amazing from the outside. I wish we had time to stop and see the inside.

Next time in Barcelona, I will tour that house and the other house Gaudi designed.

Moving on we then went to the Gothic Quarter. The second main reason I was excited to see Barcelona. This part of town is jammed full of small, labyrinth alley ways that take you back in time.
This medieval area I could have spent hours in with me and my camera. Just not enough time to shoot everything I wanted to shoot.

There's a cathedral, of course, in this area...also very medieval and awe inspiring. I had sun issues - as was the standard MO for this trip - and it was directly behind the cathedral. I used an action on it to help tone down the over exposed photo.

As we walked through the Gothic Quarter we came across another church that amused me greatly. It was all spikey on the outside and had the craziest gargoyles I had ever seen.

I mean who uses a unicorn as a gargoyle?

And I don't even know what this one is?

One of the many things to see in the Gothic Quarter is the Roman columns.  The Roman's, of course, conquered this area as well. During some excavation for building they found these columns. Now they are in a little tiny room with a building built around them.

The Gothic Quarter is covered with these bridges that connect one building to the next. When asked about it the tour guide said they were added on when this part of town was inhabited by the more wealthy types. The streets were full of muck, and they didn't want to have to get themselves dirty to get from one place to another.

She did wink after she told this story so I'm not sure it's accurate. But it's a good story all the same.

The alley ways were small. This one is hard to really see well, but inside the alley way if I stood with my hands dangling by my hips with palms forward, my pinky fingers on both sides touched the walls.  One more gelato and I wouldn't have fit down that alley way.  (look just above the man's head to see the entrance).

Odd things in the Gothic Quarter...I mean who wouldn't want a necklace made of cockroaches.

I don't recall where this turtle was, but the tour guide said we had to touch it as we left for luck. So we did.

No blog post in a foreign city would be complete without the food.  I didn't stop to have lunch like the rest of our group. I choose to do the walking tour of the Gothic Quarter, so I was hungry. I decided to find a ham and cheese.

Leaving Barcelona we went to this little touristy part of town in which it was an area that was built up to show the tourist - us - all the different styles of living in Spain. Each section was designed as you would find it in that area of Spain. On our way there we got a view back into Barcelona. 

Can we say dense?

And I'll leave you today with my gelato photo of the day.  I can't remember the flavor of this one, I'm sure it was chocolate something or other.

If you want to see the rest of the Barcelona photos, visit me at Flickr.

Marseille & Aix en Provence Photo Stroll

The morning we docked in Toulon, France was a beautiful morning. We were up early enough to see the sunrise.

To read all about our adventures in Marseille and Aix en Provence, check this out.

Marseille was an interesting city. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Chateau d'If was there. I hadn't encountered that in any of my research...weird.  I'm a fan of the book Count of Monte Cristo, so seeing the "prison" written about in the book was a nice little surprise.

The main attraction in Marseille for me was the Notre Dame de la Garde.  This beautiful cathedral topped my list of cathedrals that are a must to see.

The basilica, or some type of church, has been on this spot high above the city for centuries. The original church was built there in 1214.

The basilica was 176 steps up from where our bus parked. It was exhausting to climb the steps, but it was SOOO worth it.

View from the bus as it was winding up the road to the basilica.

View from the top of the steps.

The basilica is built in the Neo-Byzantine style - basically taking it's style and architecture from Russia and German cathedrals built during that same time frame.

The inside of this basilica was breathtaking. Gold mosaic covered the entire inside. It was almost overwhelming and I was a little awe-struck.

Entering into the basilica, you're greeted with this view.

One section of the ceiling.

A close up of the center of the ceiling. All gold mosaic and very impressive.

The stained glass was intricate and detailed. With the sun shining in the windows were just magnificent.

Leaving the basilica we drove through parts of Marseille. Nothing overly interesting really in the rest of the city.

Then we were off to Aix en Provence.  In my research I had pictured this as a little quaint village. Turned out I was wrong. While there was an element of quaint to the area of town we visited, there's a major university in town that made it a much bigger place then I imagined.

My main photography focus in Aix en Provence was Cours Mirabeau.  The photos I had seen showed a tree canopy covered street that was just beautiful.

Here's an example of what I had seen.

Photo courtesy of Viaggia Facile

Beautiful, right?

This is what I saw once we got to the street.

Not exactly the same. They had cut back all the Sycamore (I think they are Sycamore) trees. The dead appearance of the gnarled, finger like branches wasn't exactly the shot I was looking for. Still, it does really make a memory.  It made for some haunting photos.

This was one of my favorite photos.  As we were rounding the corner I saw this street sign. I snapped the photo to just remind me what the street name was and it turned out way better than I planned.

As is the case in any town we stopped in, there was a cathedral. I got no information on this cathedral because our tour guide wasn't great and had already explained this to everyone by the time our group caught up with the rest of the group.

We left the group at this point and went off on our own. We didn't have a map at first but Brother M found one for us.  As we walked down the street from the cathedral we found a little open air market.

At one point we were distracted by a truck trying to make a REALLY tight turn.  While the shop keeper was directing the truck, I turned to see what he was selling and saw these meringues. They were enormous. I wish I would have put my hand next them to show just how big. That black sign was about the size of an 8 in dinner plate.

Food appeared to be my focus for the rest of the walk.  I saw this little snack bar place that had stacked pizzas and was essentially selling slices. You select the pizza you want, they put it in a grill like thing to warm it up.

Do I really need to say anything about this? I mean French and pastry should always be used in the same sentence.

We eventually found someplace for lunch. Well, Mom found it. She was hungry, we couldn't make a decision, so she just went into this restaurant. It was a crepe type of place. I wasn't really interested in a crepe - I was on the hunt for a ham and cheese sandwich on a French baguette. We didn't find it until after lunch and AFTER I had my gelato in hand.


Mom got a burger I thought was interesting. The bun appeared to be more of a pancake than a bun. She said it was one of the best burgers she ever had.

We eventually left Mom, Jack, and Suzi since mom was on the Great Battery Search - for her fitbit. Mike, Bev and I took another lap of the shopping area.  We had passed this gelato store once, and it called to us. Weird.

I hated it, can't you tell.

The photos of Marseille.


The photos of Aix en Provence.

Monaco Photo Stroll

Monaco was an interesting stop.  My only previous memory of Monaco was stopping briefly on a train while we were on our way to Nice for our Senior Skip Day.  I know, very few people can say they went to Nice for their Senior Skip Day. I do realize how fortunate I was. Lifetime of memories and lifetime of friends.  It's a win win.

Now back to Monaco. In case you want to revisit what we actually did there, check out this posting.  In fact, hold on a minute while I go check out what I did.

Okay, I'm back.

On our way to the Palace we walked by the cathedral in which Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier were married and subsequently buried in.  We didn't know when I shot this photo below that we were coming up on the cathedral. I just through the combination of circular shapes and straight shapes were interesting.

Turns out the front of that cathedral is just as interesting. By the end of the cruise all the cathedrals will mush together, but this one and the one in Barcelona seemed the most dramatic to me.

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception), also known as Saint Nicholas Cathedral, Monaco Cathedral isn't in the middle of town like most cathedrals.  In fact, we found out that "Monaco" is the country (I know, dah) and there are three municipalities: Monaco-Ville, Monte Carlo and La Condamine. Another little tidbit about Monaco, it's the second smallest country. The Vatican being the first - but not by much.

Right, back to the cathedral. Beside Grace Kelly and the Prince, many of the Grimaldi family is buried here as well. Behind the altar you can walk and see many of the tombs.

The inside was huge, as is the standard I think when it comes to cathedrals. I'm sure it's in Cathedral Making 101 - make it big. There were several "off shoot" rooms off to the sides of this cathedral too. Some beautiful art work that would impress a king.

As you approach the altar you notice there's a walk way that goes around back. There was a line forming and we eventually figured out it was to pass by Princess Grace's tomb.

Once we finished with the cathedral, we walked up the well maintained little street to the Palace square. 

The Palace is the official residence of the Prince of Monaco. The palace was built in 1191 as a Genoese fortress.  It's been around for a while it seems.  It has experienced quite the history too be it bombarded and besieged by foreign powers. Since the end of the 13th century, it has been the stronghold and home of the Grimaldi family who first captured it in 1297.

There were a ton of people standing around and we eventually figured out, again, that the changing of the guard was about to take place. We shoved our way as close as we could to the front - not easy at all - to get a view. I shot a few quick snapshots over my head.  Turned out the changing of the guard wasn't all that interesting. It wasn't full of the pomp and circumstance the changing of the guard in London is.

There was some discussion at a dinner table about how often the guard changes.  I checked out Wikipedia and according to them, "The colourful changing of the guard occurs every day outside the Palais at 11:55 am." Though I'd argue the "colourful" part of it.

After watching the "colourful" changing of the guard we all decided it was time to find a place for lunch.  Monaco didn't really have a food category we felt we "had" to try. We stumbled onto this outdoor café that was filling up fast. We found ourselves a table, ordered some pizzas and drinks and we were good to go.

The most interesting thing about these pizzas, besides how large they are, where the knifes.  Mom wanted to steal one but we stopped her. I didn't want to spend the rest of the afternoon bailing Mom out of a Monaco jail.

Ham - prociutto - for me.  Brother M had a pizza with Vienna sausage on it, aka hot dogs.  It looked tasty and he ate the whole thing...

Except the crust.

With our tummies full, pee deposited in their restroom (I used the men's room at the restaurant because a man and his daughter went into the woman's restroom right in front of me. Now why wouldn't the man take his maybe 3 yo daughter into the Men's?   Anyhow, with all that done we set off to find Monte Carlo and the casino. 

We hopped on the bus again and took ourselves there. We had no idea where we were going so a nice man in the bus told me where we needed to get off the bus. We missed the stop by one and had to WALK up the hill to the casino. Mom was thrilled about that.

Mom was smart enough to take a photo of the hill once at the top. You might see the red/white strips along the road in the middle of the photo...this road is used as part of the Grand Prix that happens here every year.

We really had no idea where we were going, I was "guessing" since the map wasn't very helpful.  It did take us past the Opera house that was just beautiful.

Then we kept walking and as we walked along a road that was full of Versace, Luis Vitton, Gucci, etc this drove by us.  The French cousin of Sparky...in Monaco!!!

From there we realized we missed a turn, backtracked a bit then found the Monte Carlo Casino. Famous for so many reasons, but for me it was because of James Bond.  The Casino was built by the Grimaldi family in a show of their wealth. The original building was erected in 1854 and has gone through several iterations and expansions.

To the right of the casino - if you're facing it - is the Hotel de Paris.  Not a place I'll ever stay because - well I can't afford it.

I did a little Internet sleuthing to find out how much staying there would cost. For a Junior suite with a city view it would be 3,744 EU ($5,192) a night. The TWO bedroom suite is 13,089EU ($18,152) a night. So no, I won't be staying there...EVER.

After some gambling by some of our group, we were ready to say bye to Monaco. Mom, Suzi, Jack, Mike and I all hopped onto a shuttle boat that took us across the marina and back to our boat.

View toward Monaco-Ville

View toward Monte Carlo

		The start and finish line of the Grand Prix Money dripping off the city
		For the rest of my photos of Monaco, visit here.