Barcelona!

Hola!

I took a weekend trip to Barcelona, Spain to see the other side of the Mediterranean and found beautiful gothic architecture, Roman ruins, and colors galore! The trip started out with a run to the Picasso Museum, where I got to see much of his early work and sketches that I have not seen before, and see the beautiful architecture of the building itself (first picture below), and also walked through the Barri Gotic area by the Gothic quarter (second picture below).

The second day of the trip involved viewing much of the more modern architecture, especially Gaudi's work. We went through Barceloneta and saw the Columbus monument, the port, and grabbed some quick food before a quick stop into the Maritime museum (they have the full hull of a pirate ship) around lunchtime. After that my favorite site to visit was the Sagrada Familia because viewing the stone from the outside I thought it to be impressive but had no idea of the absolutely beautiful colors and play of light I would see inside. The stained glass was beautiful! 

And the colors were so vibrant that they turned whole colonnades into green and yellow forests! 

We spent time admiring the great cathedral, and after that we were off to see the also colorful Parc Guell, a small area full of mosaics made of colorful ceramics of all shapes and patterns. 

We went to the Gracia area to look around after that, and though it was raining we found our way back to Barceloneta for paella.
Our sunday morning was nicer weather and equally fun as we walked through the gothic quarter to see the beautiful stonework in daylight - having never been in western Europe before the architecture was something I had never seen, and the size of it floored me. There was one gothic style cathedral that I thought was much darker on the inside than Gaudi's cathedral, but the stonework was beautiful.

And of course, I found Rome! The Roman ruins of El Born were a familiar sight for little classicist me to see, and it was cool to think that this was my first time in the western part of the Roman Empire, and that I was in a city founded by Romans. 

We had to leave around midday for our flight out, but Barcelona was a fantastic experience, and I wasn't finished adventuring just yet. We had a layover in Zurich, Switzerland that was conveniently close to the actual city - several of us decided to hop on the 10 minute train into the city, which was great fun. It was like an hour of intense tourism - run, stop and take pictures, run again, stop to take pictures, run to the river where we can see the largest clock face on a tower in Europe, stop for pictures, and take a 5 minute refreshment respite before running back to the train station (we got to our gate with plenty of time to spare). So I can say I've also been to Switzerland, which is sort of fun.

I loved Spain though, I'm so glad CYA decided to have this optional trip!