This was our second trip to Barcelona this year, and our fourth trip there overall, so we did not have a huge number of touristy things to do that we hadn't done before. Nonetheless, we found quite a few things that piqued our interest. First, we returned to the Miro Foundation, a museum we had been to on our second trip to Barcelona in 2011. Prior to going we had read an article about Miro and how he treated making art like a job -- working every day from the 1920's almost until his death in 1983 at age 90. It was interesting to look at the dates of the various works in the museum. This work is from a later period when he was experimenting with different mediums:
You can't tell from the picture, but the work is like a giant crochet rug, which apparently is not meant to look like a dog. But, to me, that is all I can see.
We also went to Palau Guell, a mansion designed by famous architect Antoni Gaudi for the Guell family, which was his benefactor (Forbes estimates the family's wealth as the equivalent of $70 billion today, which would make them one of the richest of all time). The mansion was interesting with many Gaudi touches including designs for the many chimneys on the roof:
We spent a few hours at the Catalan history museum, which we had not been to before, and which gave us a new perspective on what is going on in Catalunya today. It really is a situation that has been going on for hundreds of years.
We also went to two art exhibits at the Caixa Forum, an arts center sponsored in several Spanish cities by our bank (which meant we got into the exhibits free). The texts related to these exhibits were only in Spanish and Catalan, which gave us a chance to practice, and we were impressed with how much we understood. One of the exhibits we saw was about the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and his cohorts in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris around the turn of the 20th Century. This exhibit was fascinating, and we really learned a lot about both the art and the period.
The second exhibit was about Diego Velazquez, probably Spain's most famous pre-19th century artist, and others who painted during the Siglo de Oro (Century of Gold - the 16th). Although the exhibit used seven Velazquez paintings to look at a number of themes that were found throughout the period, we also learned that almost 80% of the works by Velazquez and related Spanish artists during this period have religious themes. This confirmed our intuition that most of the older Spanish art we see has a religious theme, but we were surprised the percentage was that high.
Finally, we made a trip out to the Montserrat Monastery, which is about an hour outside of Barcelona by train. We had visited the Monastery on our first trip to Barcelona in 2007, but this time we took advantage of the nice weather and hiked a bit in the hills surrounding the monastery. The views were fantastic:
The weather was really great for our entire trip: sunny and not too cold, and despite all the things we did, we still found time to walk along the beach, and to just sit at an old favorite cafe near the beach and drink coffee. We ate well (of course), including things we can't really get in San Sebastian: good pizza, good ramen, good falafel, as well as a fantastic seven-course meal on New Year's Eve. All-in-all it was a great trip and a great way to finish 2018 and start 2019.
Now that 2018 is over, we looked back at our travels and discovered that we spent 81 nights away from San Sebastian this year (Shana actually spent 84 nights away since she spent an extra three nights in Barcelona with her sister in June). We stayed in Spain (Bilbao, Barcelona), Portugal (Lisbon, Porto), France (Paris, Bourdeax), Italy (Bologna, Naples, the Amalfi Coast, Cinque Terra), Canada (Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto) and the Czech Republic (Prague). Truly a fantastic year of travel. We are already looking forward to more travels in 2019, so stay tuned.
Hasta Luego,
Jeff and Shana
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