Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Exciting Barcelona!
We are in Barcelona now.
On our full day in Florence we started out at 9am at the Accademia musuem.
There we made the mistake of renting the audio guide, for two people, which
basically meant that we were tied together by our headphones and this tiny
cord. And the guide wasnt that good anyway. Oh well. We saw Michelangelo´s
David and his unfinished Prisoners and Pieta statues. The Prisoners were
really incredible. They say Michelangelo, unlike most sculptors who make
plaster casts and marks on the stone and stuff, just started chipping away
freehand in fits of activity at the block to reveal the figure that he
believed was put there by God and was just waiting to be revealed. I find
that really amazing, and it was even more amazing to see his unfinished
works, especially the Prisoners, becuase you get to see a little of his
creative process and the figures really do look like they are trying to get
out of the stone. Almost like there is a figure of a man laying in a pool of
water and you can only see the
parts that are above the surface. Then of course there was David. We
looked at it for a while. At first it strikes you just as massive and
incredible in that respect. But after you look at it for a while it almost
seems like he is going to come to life and stride towards you. The muscles
and veins are that real.
After that we got some lunch before heading over to the Uffizi gallery.
There are lots of famous works in that gallery, mostly of the Florentine
Renaissance, which we learned was characterized by very soft colors and lots
of beauty. Like in the famous, Birth of Venus, or Venus in a Clamshell as
most people recognize it. It had a hazy quality to it that was just
beautiful.
We also saw the duomo and the baptistery doors facing it that were designed
by Ghiberti in a competition. They were amazing in their detail and 3D
effect. They are bronze reliefs and so a little 3D anyway, but the bronze
used was only a few centimeters thick, and they look much more 3D than they
actually are. We also saw the Ponte Vecchio bridge which is really
beautiful. The bridge has all these little buildings on it that are used as
jewelry shops, but from either side of the bridge they are just multihued
buildings practically on top of one another that provide a really beautiful
facade along the river. Oh and we ate lots of Gelato, because that is the
Florence thing to do and it was really good.
We left Florence with no real definite plans of how to get here three days
ago. We planned to stop in Pisa to see the tower then spend the night in a
town a little farther on - like Genoa maybe. On the train to Pisa though, we
decided that we wanted to go straight on to Nice if we could only stopping
to see the tower since we were there already. Well as it turned out the only
train out of Pisa that would get us to Nice - connecting in Genoa - left a
half hour after we got in, so we didnt have time to see the tower. So yeah
we went to Pisa but we didnt see the tower. Oh well, I have heard it isnt
all that great anyway but as long as we were there it would have been nice
to see. So we stopped in Genoa for an hour and a half, didnt see much there
either, but the reason we didnt stay the night there as planned is that the
guide book said it was kind of seedy. Well the area near the train station
sure was. I mean the area near train stations is never nice, but we have
stayed in those
areas lots, like in rome, and it wasnt as bad as genoa. Even the train
station was depressing in Genoa. Seth said the little cafe in the train
station that we were sitting in is the kind of cafe where you would sit
every day and write a really depressing novel, like Crime and Punishment or
something.
So we arrived in Nice around 8:30pm and found our hotel with no problem. (we
had called from pisa when we decided to go there.) the hotel was nice - ha
ha nice hotel in nice. we had our own room. Nice was really expensive
though. all the food was pricey unless you ate just sandwhiches, and even
those were more expensive than we are used to. We stopped in nice for two
reasons, one was that it was about half way from florence to barcelona and
the other is that there is a chagall musuem there and we both like chagall.
So we stayed two nights which gave us like one day. so on the first day we
went to the train station to find out about trains to barcelona or avignon.
we were deciding if we wanted to take a really long train to barcelona or
stop again in avignon. and we found out that there was a night train from
nice to barcelona that we didnt know about and was different than the
expensive one from milan. So we booked in on that the next night, which gave
us two days in Nice. Then we
headed up the hill to the chagall musuem. Well werent we surprised when it
was closed for renovations until sometime in 2005! so we decided to hang
around Nice then decide about maybe a day trip the next day before our 10pm
train (Cannes and Monte Carlo are close). We basically decided to just take
it easy becuase I am STILL sick. nothing big just a cold but it is really a
drag. So we napped and watched tv (which we hadnt seen in a while, but only
CNN was in english). The next day we did laundry and hung out some more, and
went down to the water where it was pretty cold. We spent a lot of time in a
coffee shop planning out our time in Spain and we made some reservations for
Paris and Barcelona. Oh and in Nice, we had a lot of Beaujolais Noveau ( I
probably spelled that wrong) it is the first wine of the season from
somewhere in the north of France, and THE thing to drink at this time of
year, it is like tradition one waitress explained to us. And I dont blame
them, it was really
good. It tasted fresh and fruity and wonderful.
So last night we got on the train in Nice at 10pm and arrived on the Spanish
side of the border at Port Bou around 6:30 this morning. We had to wait an
hour for another train to take us to Barcelona. But it was ok becuase we had
some time to get some food. We got here around 9:30 am and found our hotel
with a little difficulty (we were not at the train station that I had
suspected) But our hotel is nice even if it is on the 4th floor!! I was so
tired I could barely make it up the stairs.
We had a cheap lunch before heading to the Cathedral (which is under
renovation and we can´t see other than the picture of it on the tarp that
covers it). In front of the Cathedral on Sundays the locals, and I am sure a
few tourists gather and do this dance. I cant remember the exact name
something like sardana. There was an orchestra there to play the music and
mostly older people gathered in circles, placing their bags and coats and
things in the center (to symbolize community one book said, but also I
imagine so that they can dance without having someone run off with there
stuff) then they hold hands and do this slow kind of hokey pokey dance. Ok
not quite the hokey pokey, but they dont go around in circles or anything,
they more of shuffle their feet back and forth adding the occasional toe tap
toward the center or little hop from one foot to the other. It was really
interesting becuase these people werent being paid, or anything, they just
hang around after mass and do this
dance if they want, and people just kept running up and joining in. It
certainly wasnt spontaneous since they do it after mass every sunday and
someone arranged the orchestra to be there, but it was really neat anyway
becuase it was like real culture, real people. Supposedly it is the national
dance of Catalunya. ( the state that barcelona is in.) Oh another thing that
is interesting here is that the signs are all in Spanish AND Catalan, and
sometimes english if they choose a third language. I guess the Catalan
dialect of Spanish is that different (and they are that patriotic about it)
that they feel they need to have both Spanish and Catalan.
After that we headed to the Picasso musuem. I wasnt really impressed. It was
well done in that it told the story of his life and the evolution of his
works, but most of the stuff there were this little tiny postcard sized
paintings. I felt like the just gathered anything they could find by him and
put it in this musuem. It was interesting, dont get me wrong, and I would
recommend anyone who came here to go, but it just wasnt as good as I thought
it was going to be from all the stuff I had heard.
We took a long siesta this afternoon becuase we didnt sleep well on the
train. Then we went out and had tapas! It was really cool. We went to this
place recommended by both of our guidebooks, but there seemed to be just as
many spanish speakers there as tourists, and the place wasnt large tacky.
(nevertheless maybe we can find a more authentic place later) It was just a
bar basically with all these plates of tapas on it like a buffet and you get
a plate and take what you want and each one has a toothpick in it and when
you are done you pay 1.20euro for each toothpick on your plate. It was
really fun we tried all sorts on things, everything on a piece of crostini
bread. Like different cheeses, mostly cream cheese like consistency but with
different flavors and all sorts of additions. I had cider to drink, which I
guess is the thing to drink there. The waiters pour it like over their head
into the cup at like waist height. It was really good though and cheap. The
whole meal only cost
us 20euro and that included 3 ciders and a beer and enough tapas to fill
us up! It was really fun. Then we storlled along the main pedestrian street
which is interesting becuase it was so crowded and it is Sunday night! Seth
says Barcelona is just a party town, but everywhere else in europe that we
have been sundays are dead so it was a nice surprise.
Wooo that was long! sorry about that.
Meg and Seth
On our full day in Florence we started out at 9am at the Accademia musuem.
There we made the mistake of renting the audio guide, for two people, which
basically meant that we were tied together by our headphones and this tiny
cord. And the guide wasnt that good anyway. Oh well. We saw Michelangelo´s
David and his unfinished Prisoners and Pieta statues. The Prisoners were
really incredible. They say Michelangelo, unlike most sculptors who make
plaster casts and marks on the stone and stuff, just started chipping away
freehand in fits of activity at the block to reveal the figure that he
believed was put there by God and was just waiting to be revealed. I find
that really amazing, and it was even more amazing to see his unfinished
works, especially the Prisoners, becuase you get to see a little of his
creative process and the figures really do look like they are trying to get
out of the stone. Almost like there is a figure of a man laying in a pool of
water and you can only see the
parts that are above the surface. Then of course there was David. We
looked at it for a while. At first it strikes you just as massive and
incredible in that respect. But after you look at it for a while it almost
seems like he is going to come to life and stride towards you. The muscles
and veins are that real.
After that we got some lunch before heading over to the Uffizi gallery.
There are lots of famous works in that gallery, mostly of the Florentine
Renaissance, which we learned was characterized by very soft colors and lots
of beauty. Like in the famous, Birth of Venus, or Venus in a Clamshell as
most people recognize it. It had a hazy quality to it that was just
beautiful.
We also saw the duomo and the baptistery doors facing it that were designed
by Ghiberti in a competition. They were amazing in their detail and 3D
effect. They are bronze reliefs and so a little 3D anyway, but the bronze
used was only a few centimeters thick, and they look much more 3D than they
actually are. We also saw the Ponte Vecchio bridge which is really
beautiful. The bridge has all these little buildings on it that are used as
jewelry shops, but from either side of the bridge they are just multihued
buildings practically on top of one another that provide a really beautiful
facade along the river. Oh and we ate lots of Gelato, because that is the
Florence thing to do and it was really good.
We left Florence with no real definite plans of how to get here three days
ago. We planned to stop in Pisa to see the tower then spend the night in a
town a little farther on - like Genoa maybe. On the train to Pisa though, we
decided that we wanted to go straight on to Nice if we could only stopping
to see the tower since we were there already. Well as it turned out the only
train out of Pisa that would get us to Nice - connecting in Genoa - left a
half hour after we got in, so we didnt have time to see the tower. So yeah
we went to Pisa but we didnt see the tower. Oh well, I have heard it isnt
all that great anyway but as long as we were there it would have been nice
to see. So we stopped in Genoa for an hour and a half, didnt see much there
either, but the reason we didnt stay the night there as planned is that the
guide book said it was kind of seedy. Well the area near the train station
sure was. I mean the area near train stations is never nice, but we have
stayed in those
areas lots, like in rome, and it wasnt as bad as genoa. Even the train
station was depressing in Genoa. Seth said the little cafe in the train
station that we were sitting in is the kind of cafe where you would sit
every day and write a really depressing novel, like Crime and Punishment or
something.
So we arrived in Nice around 8:30pm and found our hotel with no problem. (we
had called from pisa when we decided to go there.) the hotel was nice - ha
ha nice hotel in nice. we had our own room. Nice was really expensive
though. all the food was pricey unless you ate just sandwhiches, and even
those were more expensive than we are used to. We stopped in nice for two
reasons, one was that it was about half way from florence to barcelona and
the other is that there is a chagall musuem there and we both like chagall.
So we stayed two nights which gave us like one day. so on the first day we
went to the train station to find out about trains to barcelona or avignon.
we were deciding if we wanted to take a really long train to barcelona or
stop again in avignon. and we found out that there was a night train from
nice to barcelona that we didnt know about and was different than the
expensive one from milan. So we booked in on that the next night, which gave
us two days in Nice. Then we
headed up the hill to the chagall musuem. Well werent we surprised when it
was closed for renovations until sometime in 2005! so we decided to hang
around Nice then decide about maybe a day trip the next day before our 10pm
train (Cannes and Monte Carlo are close). We basically decided to just take
it easy becuase I am STILL sick. nothing big just a cold but it is really a
drag. So we napped and watched tv (which we hadnt seen in a while, but only
CNN was in english). The next day we did laundry and hung out some more, and
went down to the water where it was pretty cold. We spent a lot of time in a
coffee shop planning out our time in Spain and we made some reservations for
Paris and Barcelona. Oh and in Nice, we had a lot of Beaujolais Noveau ( I
probably spelled that wrong) it is the first wine of the season from
somewhere in the north of France, and THE thing to drink at this time of
year, it is like tradition one waitress explained to us. And I dont blame
them, it was really
good. It tasted fresh and fruity and wonderful.
So last night we got on the train in Nice at 10pm and arrived on the Spanish
side of the border at Port Bou around 6:30 this morning. We had to wait an
hour for another train to take us to Barcelona. But it was ok becuase we had
some time to get some food. We got here around 9:30 am and found our hotel
with a little difficulty (we were not at the train station that I had
suspected) But our hotel is nice even if it is on the 4th floor!! I was so
tired I could barely make it up the stairs.
We had a cheap lunch before heading to the Cathedral (which is under
renovation and we can´t see other than the picture of it on the tarp that
covers it). In front of the Cathedral on Sundays the locals, and I am sure a
few tourists gather and do this dance. I cant remember the exact name
something like sardana. There was an orchestra there to play the music and
mostly older people gathered in circles, placing their bags and coats and
things in the center (to symbolize community one book said, but also I
imagine so that they can dance without having someone run off with there
stuff) then they hold hands and do this slow kind of hokey pokey dance. Ok
not quite the hokey pokey, but they dont go around in circles or anything,
they more of shuffle their feet back and forth adding the occasional toe tap
toward the center or little hop from one foot to the other. It was really
interesting becuase these people werent being paid, or anything, they just
hang around after mass and do this
dance if they want, and people just kept running up and joining in. It
certainly wasnt spontaneous since they do it after mass every sunday and
someone arranged the orchestra to be there, but it was really neat anyway
becuase it was like real culture, real people. Supposedly it is the national
dance of Catalunya. ( the state that barcelona is in.) Oh another thing that
is interesting here is that the signs are all in Spanish AND Catalan, and
sometimes english if they choose a third language. I guess the Catalan
dialect of Spanish is that different (and they are that patriotic about it)
that they feel they need to have both Spanish and Catalan.
After that we headed to the Picasso musuem. I wasnt really impressed. It was
well done in that it told the story of his life and the evolution of his
works, but most of the stuff there were this little tiny postcard sized
paintings. I felt like the just gathered anything they could find by him and
put it in this musuem. It was interesting, dont get me wrong, and I would
recommend anyone who came here to go, but it just wasnt as good as I thought
it was going to be from all the stuff I had heard.
We took a long siesta this afternoon becuase we didnt sleep well on the
train. Then we went out and had tapas! It was really cool. We went to this
place recommended by both of our guidebooks, but there seemed to be just as
many spanish speakers there as tourists, and the place wasnt large tacky.
(nevertheless maybe we can find a more authentic place later) It was just a
bar basically with all these plates of tapas on it like a buffet and you get
a plate and take what you want and each one has a toothpick in it and when
you are done you pay 1.20euro for each toothpick on your plate. It was
really fun we tried all sorts on things, everything on a piece of crostini
bread. Like different cheeses, mostly cream cheese like consistency but with
different flavors and all sorts of additions. I had cider to drink, which I
guess is the thing to drink there. The waiters pour it like over their head
into the cup at like waist height. It was really good though and cheap. The
whole meal only cost
us 20euro and that included 3 ciders and a beer and enough tapas to fill
us up! It was really fun. Then we storlled along the main pedestrian street
which is interesting becuase it was so crowded and it is Sunday night! Seth
says Barcelona is just a party town, but everywhere else in europe that we
have been sundays are dead so it was a nice surprise.
Wooo that was long! sorry about that.
Meg and Seth
