We awoke to the sun trying to peep through the clouds & after breakfast set off for a coffee & our 11am tour of Palau de la Musica Catalan. On the way we passed Casa Vicens, Gaudi’s 1st house now a museum. The music hall was fantastic, designed by Lluís Domenech I Montaner (who was one of Antoni Gaudi’s teachers & wasn’t sure if he was mad or a genius) it was built in three years, paid for by donations from the wealthy citizens of Barcelona , opened in 1908 & seats approximately 2,200 people. It is the only auditorium in Europe that during the day is illuminated totally by natural light, as it’s has stained glass windows on three sides & the beautiful stained glass skylight in shades of gold. On the back of the stage are 18 young women, called the muses, each different & playing a different instrument. It was built in the modernist style & is absolutely beautiful, the acoustics are wonderful, our guide turned the organ on & it sounded lovely, the shape of the ceiling inverted dome assists with that. It has been renovated, it now has marble floors & plastic backed seating all to assist with the acoustics. The chairs are still covered in a similar cloth though. Everywhere you look is just beautifully decorated, a salon on level one has a lovely balcony with pillars all decorated differently with mosaics. We went up to the top floor, amazing view of the stage. What a beautiful concert hall.
Next stop was the Esglesia de St.Felip Neri, our guide had told us about this on Sunday, the church was used to shelter children during the Spanish Civil War, there are a large amount of bullet holes in the church, it’s only in recent years that a plaque & history has shown what actually happened here.
Our guide also told us that George Orwell joined the International Brigade along with about 2,000 other British people to fight, I have since learnt that the opening shots were fired on 19 July 1936 at the top of La Ramblas & that the Olimpiada popular was about to begin, some athletes were trapped. These games were in protest of the 1936 games held in Berlin. I’ve downloaded onto my kindle Orwell’s book homage to Catalonia which is his account of his experiences during the war. I enjoyed reading beautiful exciles which included references to the Spanish civil war in Madrid where Ernest Hemingway drove ambulances.
We headed to the Mercat de la Boqueria, on Lynne’s recommendation, a lovely lively market, that was absolutely heaving. We decided not to eat here as it was a bit early & headed off to the Disseny hub, where the design museum is housed. We found a bakery for lunch & then I went into the museum, the textile & costume museum has been amalgamated with the design museum. One floor is dedicated to the “dressing the body. Silhouettes and fashion 1550 - 2015”, which I really enjoyed, unfortunately no photos allowed, but the exhibition showed how clothes modify the appearance of the body by ways of actions e.g a corset or a bustle, that have alternately tended to compress or liberate the body, from the sixteenth century to date. The textiles had been incorporated onto level two, collections of decorative & author- centred art. I walked around only stopping at the textiles as by this stage I was getting a bit tired!! Richard had decided to sit in the cafe area & read, rather then wander around the museum. Well worth the walk to the museum, we headed home in light drizzle, luckily the drizzle stopped & the sun came out & we enjoyed our 50 min walk home, we stopped at the supermarket & purchased fish & broccolini for dinner, I really enjoyed my cup of tea when we got home.