Sunday, October 6, 2019

Barcelona, Spain - Day Two

Today we started our day at Barcelona's Arco de Triunfo.  It was built in 1888 as the main entrance for their World's Fair. 

 So many beautiful buildings here


Our second stop was the Chocolate Museum.  We always try to do one quirky, silly stop on our vacations, and this was Barcelonas.  We bought our tickets ahead of time, but I can say that it wouldn't be necessary to do so.  It wasn't busy.  Our entrance ticket was a chocolate bar which made this a hit for the kids.  The museum is small and only takes about 30 minutes to walk through it.  We ended the tour by buying some chocolate to snack on for the day.  Yum.

 The had quite a bit of Game of Thrones chocolate molds, which I enjoyed 




 George R. R. Martin




After we got our fill of chocolate, we took a metro ride to see Barcelona's Human Pyramids.  One of Mat's co-workers (who was from Barcelona) said they do these Human Pyramids only on this weekend each year.  And they are something to see.  They had the smallest children climb all the way to the top of these people (helmets in place) to make these stories high pyramids.  It was fascinating.












We see the Cantalonian flags everywhere.  This area continues to wage its war against being its own country apart from the rest of Spain.

Our next stop was a tour of the Palau de la Musica.  We took a guided tour of this beautiful building (and I think this is the only way you can get inside).  We bought our tickets ahead of time, and this was definitely necessary.  It was packed.

This concert hall was built between 1905 and 1908 of a local choral society.  IT was funded mostly by Barcelona's wealthy.  It has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  They do over 300 performances a year varying from musical concerts, to dance, or choral.  The only thing it doesn't have is Opera because there isn't enough room on the stage for both the Opera and the orchestra.

We really liked the guided tour.  The building is really beautiful and we even got to hear the organ play while we were there.  What a sound!








Our last stop for the day was Cathedral de la Seu. (Cathedral of Barcelona)  This cathedral's construction began in 1298 and continued through the 15th century.  It is a Gothic cathedral.  The cathedral is dedicated to the martyr Eulalia who suffered during Roman times.  Her body is in this church's crypt.

We had a timed ticket to enter this church (another must), and we took the audio tour.  It is a really beautiful historical building, and worth your time.  The garden which containes 13 geese (who are there to represent the age Eulalia was when she was killed) are beautiful.




 The crypt of Saint Eulalia who died in 304 A.D.




After we finished our tour we walked Las Ramblas and headed down toward the ocean to look around.  We walked past a huge statue of Christopher Columbus, and a large floating mall.


  

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