Day 71: Picasso Museum and Music Palace

Still no let up in the rain today, and if anything it was actually worse. So we decided that we'd make the most of it, and focus on indoor attractions. Headed out moderately early heading for the Picasso Museum, since obviously it was entirely indoors.

We'd booked fairly early tickets, since as with most things on tour it's better to get in earlier and avoid the large groups. The museum was quite good, though different from what I was expecting. I went in expecting a fairly retrospective style collection, with artworks from each of his various periods. But a lot of the collection focused on his early years, before he got into the cubism and surrealism. There were a couple of other periods exhibited (the "Blue Period" where he painted entirely in hues of blue for a year or so), and a large study of "Las Meninas", a Renaissance-era painting by Velazquez in Madrid's Prado museum which we'd visited about 10 days earlier. Picasso's study involved endlessly painting and repainting both the full thing and smaller parts of it (individual people etc) in his own style, which was really interesting.

But I guess it's important to remember that although Picasso was Spanish, most of his key creative output and influential periods came later in life when he was living in Paris and Cannes. He left Spain fairly early in his artistic career and only returned a couple of times. Still great to see a lot of his works, but not sure it was entirely up to expectations. I guess museums can only exhibit what they can acquire, and despite Picasso's enormous output, very little of it goes on sale so it's almost literally priceless. Alas!

We headed back outside into the rain and retreated to a cafe where we had a hot drink and shared a croissant. Had a couple of hours before our next booking, back at the concert hall (Palau de la Musica Catalan) so without the option of walking around in the rain, we decided to just amuse ourselves in cafes and restaurants.

Eventually ended up back at the same cafe opposite the concert hall we'd been to with Schnitzel the day before, where we had a more substantial meal (I had a Mexican egg dish and Shandos had a salad) and another hot drink.

Finally at 2pm our concert hall tour was ready, so we set off inside. Although the outside is interesting, it's in a couple of fairly narrow streets and is difficult to really get a handle on. But the inside is absolutely stunning. The main concert hall is large-ish, holding about 2200 seated patrons, but it's decorated absolutely beautifully.

The long sides are decorated with stained glass windows depicting Catalonian folk tales, there are statues of Greek muses around the back of the stage playing various world instruments, the proscenium arch has on the left scenes of nature and a huge bust of a Catalan folk hero, while on the right is a smaller bust of Beethoven and a sculpted scene of the Ride of the Valkyries from Wagner's Ring Cycle. Ironically, this arch takes up so much space it's impossible to have scenery on stage, so it can't actually host operas (nor is there an orchestra pit either).

The roof is made of stained glass as well, with an inverse dome patterned like the sun, reflecting both light and sound through the entire hall. It's incredible, and I'd 100% recommend anyone who comes to Barcelona visits and tours this building. Also of interest was the way Catalan Modernisme architecture finds its voice here (the lead architect Luis Domenech i Montaner was a leading exponent), the way that natural motifs like roses, leaves, trees, stars etc are brought inside the building. Fascinating stuff.

After all that we were fairly exhausted, so we hopped on the subway back to the apartment where we stayed the rest of the evening. I tried to cook a fresh supermarket pizza in the oven, but while it was heating up I noticed billowing smoke - there were a bunch of filthy pans and trays stuffed into the oven, some still covered in oil and food scraps! Gross. Thankfully we also had a small toaster oven, so I cut the pizza into slices and cooked it in there. This place isn't going to get a good review from us, that's for sure.

Off to bed around midnight after watching a boring and uninspiring Manchester derby in the football. But at least United didn't lose!Read more