Walking down Las Ramblas on a Sunday morning.
Madrid and Barcelona are the two biggest cities in Spain, and we had just briefly been through Madrid in passing. Madrid's population is 3.4 million, and Barcelona's is 1.6 million (but of course the "metro area" are larger). For both being big cities, most of the touristy stuff is in the old historic areas in each city. Barcelona is the heart of the region known as Catalonia, which has its own language, culture, history, etc. Catalan is the language, which is close to Spanish, with some French influences and other weird things. Even when we say "Spanish" to mean the language is somewhat of a misnomer, because that language is technically called "Castillian", or the language of Castille. This all starts to get into Spanish history somewhat.
To explain all this I think I'll post a bit about who is who really. Spain itself has a long history, and in a much more heavy way than we do. If history is the recorded past, then Spain is pretty deep in it, while the U.S. only goes back a few hundred years. (Although we have earlier knowledge of what went on here, most of that comes from other sources, namely archaeology, etc.) But Spanish history goes all the way back to the beginning, so to speak.
Example of Roman mosaic floor in the ruins at Italica, taken by someone else.
For example, the Roman Emperor Hadrian who ruled from 117AD-138AD, was born in what we now call "Spain". They called it "Hispania", where we get the word "hispanic" and the like from. Hadrian was born in a town called Italica. Another Emperor, Trajan, was also born in Italica, and ruled before Hadrian, from 98AD-117AD. The older Trajan was Hadrian's father's cousin...haha, sounds like some hillbilly story!
Anyways, there were Romans, Greeks, Carthaginians, wild and unruly Celts, and the whole lot. When the Roman Empire fell apart, the Visigoths more or less ruled Spain and developed into regional kingdoms over time, largely due to the invasion of the Muslims in the 700s. This led to the breakup of the Visigothic era with the Muslims from North Africa conquering nearly the entire Iberian peninsula. Resistence to the invasion pushed back the "Moors" as they were called, but the "Reconquista" or reconquest of Spain wasn't really kicked off for a couple more centuries.
Spain at about year 1210, showing the different kingdoms in Spain. Castille and Aragon were both the main powers, with different kings, etc.
All the kingdoms you see above gradually conquered their way south, with more powerful ones absorbing others, most dramatically uniting in the marriage of the King of Aragon to the Queen of Castille-Leon. This royal couple was the famous Ferdinand and Isabella of sponsoring Columbus' trip to the New World, etc. By the time they had married most of Muslim Spain had been reconquered except for the region around Granada in the south. I'll get to Granada though in the next couple of blogs though when we travel there after Barcelona.
Anyways, this all is to merely set up the notion that Spain isn't a monolithic entity all alike. Catalonia has its own vibe, as does the interior around Madrid, etc., etc. Catalonia and Galicia also have long had independence movements, though Catalonia much more vocally. Some even going so far to make this crazy video (shows lots of Catalonian flags, traditional things like the human towers, dancers, etc.:
Anyways, we finished washign our clothes, packed them back up and took them back to the hotel. Then that afternoon we went over to the Metro, got on and went to La Sagrada Familia (The Holy Family, it's official name is Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família, haha). This was the main thing I was exciting about seeing in Barcelona. It's a huge basilica that's has been under construction since the late 1880s designed by world-famous architect Antoni Gaudi and is considered his masterwork. While the thing is still being built over a hundred years later, it isn't scheduled to be finished until 2025. It is all built from private funds, donations, etc.
Another huge pic from closer up to...this is the side of the church, the Nativity Facade.
I've always thought this church was so crazy it was genius. Some may look too weird, but some looks like something from another world. Gaudi was busy in Barcelona at the end of the 19th Century building fancy houses for rich industrialists, but also made some of Barcelona's public spaces more "artsy", some features in a plaza, the entrance to a big park, etc. This church though was what he worked on in his last years until he died in Barcelona in 1926. He was hugely inspired by the natural world and incorporated its elements into his buildings.
We had to walk all the way around to the opposite to get a ticket to enter though, through the Passion Facade.
Scene of Veronica and her veil, with some Roman soldiers depicted in the Passion Facade.
The interior ceiling above the nave of the church.
Looking back over the main altar with sunlight filtering down.
Looking straight up at the ceiling....crazy! Reminds me of crystals or shells or something.
Some of the detail along the Nativity Facade.
We were here for a few hours, just staring at everything. Went through a little museum underneath which had a lot of stuff about the designing and construction of the place, was even able to see into one of the workshops. After exhausting ourselves we went across the street to a little park, got some drinks from a little food stand and just hung out for about an hour or so, eventually making our way back to the hotel for the evening. The next day would be our last in Barcelona and the plan is to check out another Gaudi building, Casa Batllo, before packing up and heading south to Granada.
P.S. This is what it is supposed to look like once it's finished:
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