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This was yet another great trip.   We had six nights in Barcelona, two in Cadaqués, one in Rupit, and one near the Barcelona Airport before our flight back.  Barcelona is a beautiful busy city - the old section is huge and delightful to walk around in among many other people. We saw lot of Gaudi buildings, went to a few museums, had some nice meals, and used the excellent public transportation including a train trip to Montserrat. Then we picked up our rental car and went to the coastal village of Cadaqués
with lovely white buildings and not very many people; this included a trip to the Dali House museum. Then to complete the contrast of places we went to Rupit, a small quiet medieval village.  A short stopover in Zurich on the way home capped it off.  I am not going to wait 40 years before our next trip to Barcelona!

The whole set of posts can be seen here.

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A few more pictures of Rupit: the waterfall, stuff seen in shop windows, miscellaneous objectsdoor knockers, some old farm equipment.  The poultry and church at the end are in Pruit.

Leaving Cadaqués we went on to the small medieval village of Rupit located in the mountains.  On the way we encountered this road block:


We had a little trouble finding our B&B, Mas la Serra, because of ambiguous directions and poor signage. It was a few kilometers out of town, the several places in the village were closed  gor the period we were staying there.  Mas la Serra is a working farm with a nice old stone house for the inn.  The proprietor, Elizabeth, was very nice and when our plane schedule changed so we would only stay one night instead of two to avoid having to leave very early in the morning to get to the Barcelona airport she didn't charge us for the second night. When we came back from town in the evening there were  cattle and sheep in the barn making lots of noise - it had something to do with a newly born calf. The sound didn't penetrate into the house.

Here is the view of the field from the dining room:

There were cattle and sheep roaming around in the field and an array of solar panels.

And a view of the dining room from the balcony where our room was:

There was a nice sunset in Cadaqués.



Although the tide wasn't particularly high and the waves weren't big water crossed the beach and flooded a parking lot.  Some people waded in and moved their cars.  There was a drain but it was too high to completed empty the parking lot.  I quipped that the boy below who was building a small rock wall should have done it where the flooding was going over the beach.

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Not at sunset but here is what the hills behind Cadaqués looked like when we walked back from Portlligat

A couple of hours drive up the coast from Barcelona brought us to Cadaqués, a small town of about 2,500 people with lots of tourists visiting. It is the village where Salvatore Dali lived for many years - his house is now a museum which we visited (pictures in a later post).



It has a very nice church, some narrow streets that are interesting to walk in, a bunch of hotels and restaurants, and a lovely harbor, and some nice hillsides behind it.

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We went to Parc de Montjuic, a hill in Barcelona. It's a park with great views of the rest of the city, a castle/fort, a bunch of museums, a botanical garden - in general a very nice place to visit. Getting there was a short metro ride and a transfer to the funicular that is part of the Metro; there is also a cable car from the harbor.

The fort had various cannons at strategic places.  There were some archers practicing - presumably not part of the military. One of the pictures below has General Robert in his "Pentagon" office looking over the city.  One of the museums is the Joan Miro museum which was well worth visiting. We went to the botanical garden and looked into the Olympic Museum (1992 Summer Olympics).

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A short Metro ride, an hour train ride, and a cable car brought us to the plaza of Montserrat. The Benedictine Abbey and the accompanying monastary have been there a long time. The story is that in 880 some children saw a brilliant light which was later interpreted as a sign of god - and that was the imputus for building there on the mountain. Now in addition to the working monastary there are several hotels, several museums, several eating places, and crowds of tourists. At 1 PM every day the boys choir sings in the Basilica; we were there for this and it was jammed with people. There are funiculars that go further up the mountain or down to a cave - we only had time for the one that went up and hiked around amidst nice views. It was worth the trip; I missed coming here the last time I was in Barcelona.



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We spent lots of time walking about in Barri Gotic and nearby neighborhoods.  The best known street is Las Ramblas, a wide street with only pedestrians, trees, and stands of various kinds in the center portion. There were lots of people walking at all times of day and night, places to buy food or objects. The huge Boqueria Market is off Las Ramblas.  There are lots of narrow streets, some blocked to cars - others only a bit wider than one car - fortunately there were few vehicles. The Monumento a Colón down by the harbor was closed. Lots of restaurants, Tapas bars, and shops with interesting window content. It is easy to get a bit lost since there are few right angles; but then you find a landmark or map.

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Here's a look inside:

Down in the workshop there were models of components, drawings, sculputres of Gaudi himself and a lot of information about how Gaudi studied various natural formations such as beehives, plants, etc. and various geometric constructions to get ideas and work out design details.

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We're back from a wonderful trip to Barcelona, Cadaqués, Rupit, and a few hours in Zurich. The contrast of the bustle and Gaudi architecture of Barcelona, the seaside town of Cadaqués, and the medieval village of Rupit with our hotel there in the countryside inn on a sheep and cattle farm was a special treat.

I have several thousand pictures and will soon be working on selecting some for some more detailed posts.

In Barcelona we stayed in the Barri Gotic with a view out our hotel balcony (Hotel Colon) of the Cathedral. We wandered through the narrow streets many times, finding some nice restaurants and various scenes. Lots of delicious Tapas. We saw a lot of Gaudi: Sagrada Familia (construction started in 1882 and the end date is projected to be 2040), Parc Guell, Casa Batllo, Casa Mila, Palau Guell, the Gaudi Museum; visited the Joan Miro and the Picasso museums; walked around Montjuic: and went to Montserrat for the day. I saw some of these in 1971 and 1972; but there is much more to see these days since there is much more open to visitors. I have to dredge out my old slides for comparison. This is one incredible city; I recommend that you find time to go there if you haven't done so!

We rented a car at the end of the Barcelona part of the trip and drove up the coast to Cadaqués. This is the town where Salvator Dali lived and his house is a museum absolutely chock full of stuff to see including some Michelin Men lounging about. Our hotel there (Playa Sol) overlooked the Mediterranean. It was a nice small town and a short hike to the nearby place where the Dali museum was.

Then we went to a medieval village in the mountains that I read about in a Boston Globe article about 8 years ago. It was quiet small village with narrow streets and lots of possibilities of hiking to surrounding spots. Our hotel there (Mas la Serra) was a few kilometers away in an isolated spot (tough to find). The views there were of fields with sheep and cows.

Spain, which is currently in great financial stress, has a pretty good infrastructure. The Barcelona Metro is great - count-down signs at all stations and trains at about 3 min intervals (MBTA: they are way ahead of you); the roads are well marked with good signage, pavement in excellent condition, and well engineered merges and divides on the highways (Mass Highways: are you listening?). Drivers on the highway get out of left hand lanes, use direction signals, and everyone lowered their high beams at the right time.

Yesterday, the day we left, there was a general strike in Spain. As a result our 2:40 flight to Zurich to catch the 5:45 flight to Boston was replaced with a 9:45 flight. We stayed at Mas la Serra only one night instead of the two planned since we didn't want to have to get up so early and stayed in a near-to-the-airport hotel. The extra time in Zurich gave us the opportunity to go into Zurich (a 10-12 min train ride and a train goes about every 10 minutes). We walked around a bit, had a nice lunch in one of the many resaurants on the pedestrian street and then noticed the National Museum was right there. We went in for a short visit for a very interesting special exhibit called Kapital about the medieval/renaissance histories of Venice and Amsterdam.