The Minimal Manual

The daily detritus of my life, spilt out onto a keyboard and left to ponder like a Rorschach test.

Thursday, August 18, 2005





Barcelona, Spain

We did more today than I thought we'd be able to do in a week. We were up by 7:00 and out the door and not back in until 2:30 in the morning. In that span we were able to comb through the Gothic Quarter and see a huge array of museums and shops. There are so many great pictures today that I'm considering putting them all on an FTP server. The neighborhood was built in the middle ages for the Barcelonan aristocracy and is filled with streets (alleys is probably a better word) that are so narrow that the buildings above look like they might touch above (see the picture). We began the morning at the Picasso Museum, which traces his career from his paintings as a child until his death. Just nearby is the Basilica de Santa Maria del Mar, which is an enormous midieval church (second picture). The church was built in the 16th century in less than 55 years, which was apparently extremely rapid for back then. From there, we stopped to get bon-bons at the chocalate museum (spelled here Xocolat) and went to the Parc de la Ciutadella, which houses the zoo, the city's parliament, and very cool lake in which we were able to take a row boat around. The statue at that lake is pictured to the left. From there we back tracked to the Barcelona Cathedral and City History Museum. The cathedral's facade was under construction, but the interior is just as impressive. The first shot in this post is from the front of that church looking up into the front tower. The city museum takes you underneath the city where you are able to walk on catwalks over the Roman ruins of Barcino, the city that existed here from the 1st century BC on. The museum is filled with all sorts of artifacts, which we'd love to show you but we almost got kicked out for taking pictures in there. Altough there's more I could say about yesterday, I'm pressed to get out of the door right now so I'll have to leave it at that.

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