Barcelona 15th November
It was another cold and grey day, with the vague promise
things might not be too bad, as it appeared a little less grey out to sea. We
dressed warmly, layers of merino and wet weather gear at hand, Di and Hilary
wore boots, though I don’t have any so had to wear my runners and warm socks
and hope the weather held. We took the metro up to the Sagrada Familia area as
there were a few stalls and shops we wanted to revisit, unfortunately it
appears that the hawkers and stall owners are only present in the weekends so
we had to make do with a look around the souvenir shops, which weren’t nearly
as much fun. Of course by now the weather had closed in and become even more
dark and cold with rain threatening, so we acted like moles and went down into
the underground again, we only went a stop or so, but at least it was warm down
there, until we popped up above ground at the Passaig de Gracia where we were
heading to visit one of Gaudi’s houses, Casa Batlo. Diana and I had been here
(so had Hilary actually, with my mum also Hilary, six years ago, but we thought
we would revisit it, and Hilary was also very keen. It isn’t cheap to get in,
over 50 euro for the three of us, but I must say, even having been before, it
is worth the money. It is a stunning building, privately owned, without state
funding, which is why it is so expensive to get in, the upkeep must be huge,
that Gaudi fellow was an incredible man when you look at the variety of
buildings he designed, the innovative thought right down to details for air
conditioning (or cooling), maximising use of light in winter, minimising heat
and glare in summer, plus his ability to design all sorts of furniture and
interior works as well, using ergonomic principles I think way before everyone
else. I of course took lots of photos, some didn’t work out as well as I had
hoped but overall I was pleased enough.
Once we had finished here we decided to head towards the
Palau of Music Catalana, we had been on a tour last time we were here, but I
was keen to see it again. By now the weather was atrocious, it was absolutely
bucketing down, very, very dark and very cold. We sheltered under the eaves
hoping the rain would ease but it showed no sign of abating, so we decided to
go in to the café there and have a cup of coffee while we re-grouped. We had
only wanted to see the outside of the building, not do the tour as it too was
pricey and we have to limit our expensive experiences. The good thing about
having the coffee was that it got you inside to see some of the beautiful
interior for the price of a not too bad coffee, plus we had the added bonus of
sitting down, and being warm. Of course you aren’t allowed to take photos in
the café/interior so one had to be subtle about what one did, so the quality of
what was achieved wasn’t the greatest.
Once coffeed and thawed we went underground again. We had
been going to go shopping and to see another Gaudi building but the rain was
lashing down, wind blowing and it was really miserable, so instead we stayed on
the metro for a for extra stops until we reached the stop we usually get off
at, but instead of walking back to the truck we went to the “Blau Museum” which
is one of I think four sites which are part of The natural Science Museum of
Barcelona.
It was a really excellent museum with great glass cabinets
full of minerals, crystals, meteorites; and then others with animals, skeletons
of animals, and asection on plants and fungi and bacteria. There were static
displays but also things you could
touch, many videos showing evolution from cells to mammals with
timelines/periods explained alongside. There were also these great slidey
things which you pushed along a static display and when you got to another
exhibit it gave you touch screen options
of what you wanted to know about. They had audivisual response screens is how
Di puts it, you line up the exhibit and it tells you what you have stopped in
front of, you can choose general comments or specific detailed commentaries
about the various parts of the display. For example a scorpion was there, and
when you stopped the machine in front of it it came up with a magnified display
with about 6 highlighted spots. When you touched one of the spots it would tell
you about the anatomy, another spot on its stingers which told you all about
its venom, others about its senses etc.
One of the displays was about reproduction which was great
especially as Hilary has asked a lot about DNA and genes and cloning, and other
such things lately so these displays gave her a lot of visual answers to go
with my explanations and pictures. It showed cells dividing and replicating and
again showed a timeline to give an idea of the speed of and process of the
development of a human from conception to birth.
We stayed for a couple of hours at least, but it was the
sort of place that you could go to regularly if you were a local, and learn a
bit each time, there was so much information, that really you couldn’t hope to
absorb it all in one outing, and saturation point comes reasonably quickly when
you have had a long day of stimulation even if it is varied topics.
We left the museum which was only about a 5-10 minute walk
from our camp spot, at about 6ish I guess. It was black outside and still
pelting with rain. I went to a supermarket which I had noticed just down the
road when we hopped off the metro, and the others walked back to the truck and
put on the kettle for a well earned, and desired cup of tea.
We made dinner and consumed it huddled in our warm little
truck listening to the rain on the roof and the cars and trucks slushing by on
the wet roads.
We snuggled in early, but read and computered until late,
and slept like logs until about 7.30, when it was time for another cup of tea,
and another day.
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