The weather forecast for May 24th all week long called for 100% chance on rain and cool temperatures. Naturally that outlook was totally incorrect! The day was a bit cool but bright, clear and delightfully sunny.
Lee's celebration of his seventy-second birthday began with a visit to Casa Mila, considered one of Antoni Gaudi's residential masterpieces. We'd dropped by earlier last week but found the ticket line too long to bother with, but this time around we walzed right in without much of a wait at all.
The Mila family lived on the first floor of this multistoried structure and rented out other parts of the building as apartments and retail shops. Visitors today can tour a furnished apartment on the fourth floor, the attic area (set up as a multimedia museum tracing Gaudi's career as an architect) and the rooftop terraces, an unbelievable fairyland.
We began our tour on the roof with spectacular views of the city on all sides -- and surrounded by an army of alien invaders straight out of Star Wars! Gaudi treated his chimneys, elevator shafts, light wells and ventilation ducts as works of art, and nowhere is that more apparant than on the top terrace of Casa Mila.
The attic display followed with all its informative audio visual presentations, models and detailed architectural descriptions. The fourth floor apartment was especially interesting, not only because it was fully furnished but because it gave a nice sense of how apartment spaces were laid out curving around a light well with most rooms off a single corridor but with light streaming in from both sides: very elegant and surprisingly cozy.
Following a light lunch at a small local restaurant just off Passeig de Gracia, we returned to our apartment for our usual siesta, then ventured out later in the evening for a water fountain display at the foot of Mont Juic. The show, complete with music and lots of colored lights, lasted thirty minutes and attracted a huge crowd - better than candles on a birhday cake!
The entire spectacle is repeated four times a night during warmer weather; we wondered if the crowds are always so dense. We certainly found the people almost as much fun to watch as the cascading water!
Lee's celebration of his seventy-second birthday began with a visit to Casa Mila, considered one of Antoni Gaudi's residential masterpieces. We'd dropped by earlier last week but found the ticket line too long to bother with, but this time around we walzed right in without much of a wait at all.
The Mila family lived on the first floor of this multistoried structure and rented out other parts of the building as apartments and retail shops. Visitors today can tour a furnished apartment on the fourth floor, the attic area (set up as a multimedia museum tracing Gaudi's career as an architect) and the rooftop terraces, an unbelievable fairyland.
We began our tour on the roof with spectacular views of the city on all sides -- and surrounded by an army of alien invaders straight out of Star Wars! Gaudi treated his chimneys, elevator shafts, light wells and ventilation ducts as works of art, and nowhere is that more apparant than on the top terrace of Casa Mila.
The attic display followed with all its informative audio visual presentations, models and detailed architectural descriptions. The fourth floor apartment was especially interesting, not only because it was fully furnished but because it gave a nice sense of how apartment spaces were laid out curving around a light well with most rooms off a single corridor but with light streaming in from both sides: very elegant and surprisingly cozy.
Following a light lunch at a small local restaurant just off Passeig de Gracia, we returned to our apartment for our usual siesta, then ventured out later in the evening for a water fountain display at the foot of Mont Juic. The show, complete with music and lots of colored lights, lasted thirty minutes and attracted a huge crowd - better than candles on a birhday cake!
The entire spectacle is repeated four times a night during warmer weather; we wondered if the crowds are always so dense. We certainly found the people almost as much fun to watch as the cascading water!
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