We started today off with breakfast and a short walk to the Picasso Museum. It had a great deal of Picassos works that he personally donated. There were tons of sketches and photos from his friends and companions. They had a lot of stuff from his early periods and his time in Barcelona. I learned quite a bit about him from the audio tour. They had some pieces from his blue period. Specifically the Still Life he completed in his blue period. They had a great video that showed how they determined that it originally wasn't a still life but had a couple sitting in front of the table in more muted tones. He kept the table in the forefront and added the flowers and fruit. One of our favorites pieces was a small painting in tiny cubes almost like dots of the Columbus monument and Barcelona skyline. This painting reflects Picasso's adoption of his well known signature. His earlier works in the museum were signed Pablo Picasso or some variation. They showed how the other Spanish masters influenced Picasso and they had an entire room dedicated to his study of and devotion to recreating Las Meninas by Velazquez. It was fascinating to see the hundreds of iterations of the full portrait, individual parts of the original as well as his interpretation. The girls were not impressed at all and while Cam liked his early works, no one except for me liked his older stuff. The building the museum is located in is beautiful. The ceilings had these intricately painted wooden beams and patterns as well as beautiful stonework balconies. It turns out that they used to be large homes of wealthy Barcelonians prior to being turned into the museum.
There lots of thunderstorms today, so we abandoned a redemption of Park Guell and decided to visit the Barcelona Cathedral. It was extremely hot inside which was odd because it was in the mid 70s outside. The heat combined with the strict dress code led to a very sweaty Lee family. I'm honestly glad we didn't try to go during a different day as we would have been even more miserable. It was a very pretty old church and a lot of artwork inside. The best part was we were able to get up on the roof. Thr storms stopped enough that we felt comfortable climbing and got a spectacular view of the city. What's striking is that there aren't many skyscrapers. Barcelona reminded us of Rome really with beautiful buildings, small streets and alleyways. You could hear someone performing a song from the top of the cathedral which was really cool. Every May the Bishop blesses the city from the roof top which is pretty cool. We were able to do a virtual reality exhibit which was really cool and did a great job of explaining the interior, exterior and history of the church.
After that, we came home applied more deodorant and went to a cute tapas bar for dinner. Cam and I split tapas, Savanna ordered fajitas and Maddy got some fish that she had been dying to eat all day.
Ceiling in Museum
The girls feeling on the museum
Still Life
Columbus Monument
Sweltering in the choir of the Cathedral
Sagrada Familia from the roof
Gargoyle
Dinner dates