The Spain + Italy excursion. Part 1: Spain.

To keep this post from being too long and boring, I will try to write only about a few highlights from each city we visited. For visuals with a few more written details check flickr.


15-17 Barcelona

We kicked off our 2 week adventure in Barcelona, Spain. Barcelona is a lively city with a nice mix of big city, ocean and architecture.

Our hostel was right on the beach which made it convenient to spend the mornings laying on the beach writing in our journals and soaking up the sun to the sounds of the ocean and "massaje? massage?" .

Gaudi's architecture is everywhere you turn in Barcelona. It's so organic and looks straight out of a story book. Park Güell was stunning. Gaudi was deeply inspired by nature– which is inspiring to me. He is brilliant. "The great book that is always open and which you should strive to read is the book of nature."–Gaudi

One of the most exciting events in Barcelona was randomly finding out Jason, Bethany, Simon and Dave were also in Barcelona. We met up and went out dancing until 5am at club on Las Ramblas that had 3 rooms with different music in each. It was really great to see everyone. A wonderful little surprise.

Las Ramblas is a long street filled with shops, cafes, artists selling their work and street performers of all kinds. Everyone has their own little scheme. There were acrobats, a man dressed as a tree, a man who posed on a block with a skateboard for several minutes at a time..etc. Amanda and I watched a guy perform on a hoop contraption. You go inside hold on and then kind of cartwheel down the street. After the performance we bamboozled him into letting us try it out! We decided we should stay in Barcelona, paint by day and street perform by night.


18-20 Madrid

Madrid is filled with old architecture, charming little alleyways and has about a thousand different plazas. I'm pretty sure we walked through each of them.

While in Madrid we visited two art museums. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia is home to Picasso's Guernica, his protest of the Spanish Civil War. The painting is huge! (and amazing) Amanda and I must have starred at it for a good 10 minutes. They also had a bunch of process work for Guernica which was almost equally as intriguing. At Museo Nacional del Prado we saw Goya, Velazquez, Caravaggio and other artists we learned about in art history. It was cool to know the history behind the paintings and be able to use our art lingo- "this is so Caravaggesque".

One of the highlights for sure was the chocolateria we visited. (I think food was my favorite means of experiencing the culture :P ) Sitting at a table outside of the chocolateria tucked in a hidden alleyway, sipping coffee, dipping our churros in a hot cup of chocolate and having a discussion of life, we thought the moment could not be any lovelier. Then a man playing a clarinet appeared. It's the simple things in life.

Many times during our travels we felt as though we were on a honeymoon. Every place was just so romantic. I guess if I can't have a hot Spaniard, Amanda is the next best choice :) On our last afternoon we rented a row boat and took turns paddling around a huge pond in Parque del Retiro.