Barcelona - 2011

Park Guell

This city will always remain in my heart for so many reasons...I think it was love before first sight - a few googled photos of Antonio Gaudi's architectural masterpieces were enough to make me wait impatiently for this trip. And so, without knowing it, we transformed the visit of this Catalan capital into a quest for Gaudi's projects: Park Guell, Casa Batllo, La Pedrera, and Sagrada Familia.

Of course, other highlights of the city delighted us as well: the Catalan Music Palace, with its vivid floral decorations, muses, and its marvelous chandelier made of stained glass, the Aquarium, which brings you closer to the water-world than you would have guessed, and Barri Gotic, or the Gothic Quarter, famous for its medieval atmosphere, friendly pubs and delicious tapas.

But the new, revolutionary concepts introduced by the great architect left an everlasting impression. The mathematic, yet very imaginative principle governing his works makes every building, window frame or piece of furniture not only ergonomic but somehow organic, alive, as cavities from beings made of flesh and blood.