We walked along the Santa Caterina market and tried to decipher how the garbage collection works here. On the wall of the Santa Caterina market, there are two hatches that I had seen someone throw a bag into the other day. Later in the day we noticed larger bins on the street for garbage, paper, glass and organic wastes.
We made our way across our familiar route to the Cathedral. We bought a 6 museum pass at the Tourist Information counter, and then hopped down into the metro to pick up a 10 ticket Bus/Metro pass.
Today we were headed toward the Eixample section of town. Eixample means expansion, and this is where Barcelona first exapnded once Madrid allowed it to tear down its medieval walls and grow outside its ancient city limits.
This was a planned development, and one inovation that is charming was that at the intersections, was the snipping off of building corners. So instead of the typical fours sided intersection, the intersections are much more open with eight sides. It makes it feel all the more airy and friendly.
This is also the area where Modernista archictects made their mark, as well as where many high end shopping stores can be found. Being a holiday Monday, they were all closed, but Hera did make a point that we will have to walk here again another day. For the most part, we walked up Passeig de Gracie, but we also meandered in and out of various streets along the way to get a better feel of the neighborhood.
A notable toursist stop here is the block of discord. Where the three very influtential Modernista archictects have buildings next to each other making it easier to compare and contrast their styles.
Gaudi's Casa Batllo is found here, and while it is usually open to visit, it was closed for today.
Next to it Cadafalch's Casa Amatller who combined the three historical traditions with a Moorish lower floor, topped with a Gothic style traceries and gargoyles, and topped with a step-gabbled roof of the Habsburg's Low Countries.
A few houses down is Montaner's Casa Lleo Morera. Again a mixture of styles with Classical Greek Columns on the ground floor, followed by Gothic balcomies higher up, and above it Moorish stucco work.
Another common motif among these archictects was the addition of hints of modern life like the box camera, electric lights, and gramophone.
We could have walked straight up Passeig de Gracie, but we detoured and took a less frequented but lovely Rambla Catalunya. Our ultimate destination for the day was Gaudi's La Pedrera, which means stone quarry.
Here Gaudi took two city blocks and created a very unique apartment complex. The building can be admired from the outside, but it is well worth the somewhat steep admission price to enter the building. Most of the building is occupied by tenants. Admission allows you to see one of the two unique atriums that allows light to enter the complex, the spectacular roof top which is what makes the admission price worthwhile.
One also wanders through the attic which is a small Gaudi museum, and one of the epoque furnished arpartments can be toured.
We spent a fair amount of time visiting La Pedrera, and were getting tired when we exited. The weather was also threatening so we decided to take a metro back to our neighborhood rather than risk getting soaked once again far from home. When we exited the Metro, we spied a cute tapas bar and decided to have a glass of wine a some tapas.
We ordered two servings of two different tapas and a glass of Rose each. We realized that it would have been wiser to have bought only one serving of four tapas instead, and split them so that we could sample more. Tapas, are small, and it is easy to order more. So we ordered one serving of two more. Unfortunately, tapas, while tasty, are small and not that filling.
As we walked along the boulevard, we wondered what we might have for supper when we fell upon Dunne's Irish Pub. While not typical Cataluan cuisine, we decided why not, ordered a couple of pints of beer, and some food. Hera had their Irish Stew while I had a Fish 'n Chips. As far as pubs go, this was a good Irish Pub. Reasonably priced with very good food, located at 19 Via Laietana.
Home was just a short walk away, and while it never did rain, it was getting late, and we were tired, so we headed to our apartment. Tomorrow, with the stores finally open once again, it will be time to get some basic shopping out of the way.
