Details

As I've said before, this isn't a vacation-photo blog with postcard-ready, wide-angle shots of popular sights in Barcelona. These are images that you probably won't see on Frommer's or tripadvisor - the ones you have to be on foot to get to, or at least be willing to crop much of the image to isolate something even more interesting. (2nd blogpost of the day! I'm on a roll!)

(Plus, I don't even have a wide-angle lens :) this leaves me with only tight crops anyway!)

So, here's a bunch of photos I took last week while wandering around:

Casa Comalat

This is a detail of a building that is a couple of blocks from my apartment. Amazing mosaic work! It is under construction/renovation right now, which is really sad for me because if you click here you can see it's a cool building. At the moment there are huge sheets covering the front. If you compare this view with one of the others that are in the above link, you can see how the construction has dirtied the spaces between the tiny tiles. I hope I am still in Barcelona when they finish construction.

Around the corner is this mosaic on the side of a church. "Mare de Deu Del Carme."

J. Murria, 85 Roger de Llúria

Wow.. This is a beautiful store. It's a gourmet delicatessen that dates from 1898 and is part of the Modernist Route of Barcelona. A complete image and their site is here. Below are more details..

Vinos de Alella

Marques de Monistrol

agh shiny!!

Chartreuse! Tarragona is a town not far from Barcelona.

Modernist Farmácia

Plenty of these in Barcelona. I believe this one is also on Roger de Llúria. The window-box above the pharmacy is typical of this area.

Around the corner - dragon detail in a gate. Plenty of dragons to be found in Barcelona.

?? It looks cool. :)

This door is on my street. Elaborate!

The next street... spanish redundancy. Redundancy and graffiti. Sounds about right!

My street

I love the interior plaza!

The corner of my street, at sunset. Take that, Cedar Park!

Casa Milá/La Pedrera

Well, here is one of the wide touristy shots I told you would be uncommon - but I had to put this in order to put a better perspective on the next photos and I have never posted about this building before. This is Casa Milá, also called La Pedrera. It's one of the most famous landmarks of Barcelona, and has a very interesting history - see the link if you like! Also, it is famous for going against city building code on multiple counts... what do you think of that, mom?
Casa Milá / La Pedrera wiki link

Famous streetposts on Passeig de Gracia

Now that you've seen the building, I can show you the man painting it! Also you have a better idea of how huge it actually is.

Close-up of the painter

One night in Gracia, wine, and 50s ads

It was a late Tuesday night. Carlos and I were out of wine and headed to Gran de Gracia to see if we could get anymore from the Opencor store, which is open later than regular grocery stores. On the way there, we came across a pile of decades-old belongings that someone had thrown out onto the sidewalk. I can tell you that because of the wine, we picked up most of it and took it back home (without more wine in hand). Now with a clear mind, I find that our late-night pickup is pretty interesting:



Old suitcase, full of books. Dates range from the 30s to the 80s, most of them from the 50s. National Geographics in English, Readers Digests in Spanish, La Hora XXV which seems to be a medical magazine, some trashy comics, catalan comics, and a few random letters, stamps, language books, etc.

The arithmetic book is from 1933.

Honestly I'm more interested in the ads and logos of the time. Here's what I found:

Reader's Digest is full of alcohol ads like this for Gran Garvey Brandy. Most are for brandy or sherry.

Guess the year! go!!

An old map with Diagonal's old name, Generalisimo Franco. Very cool because the street we live on now is included in this small section.

From Reader's Digest, the olivetti 84. Hm... modern magnetic typewriter something?

hahahaha this car is HUGE

THE BEST LIQUOR ALL THE TIME!! (or so they say)

Modern diagram for a watch

This picture for the Vespa ad could have easily been taken last week, but it's from 1954.

I just really like the logo - Jabon Maja (Soap)

"The Intellectual Capacity of a Negro."
uhm... Reader's Digest, 1954.

Minolta auto zoom 8E!

Philips sho' went all out.

Firestone logo hasn't changed much, nor have Pirelli, Special K, Del Monte, or Sherwin Williams.

Beat Anorexia!!
He did it. No worries here! This one is from a medical magazine.

The man with the... Black Pruritis!!

Panemón Forte..

!!!!
From the other side of the map.

Paris part 3: walking through the city

Many European cities are deceptively compact, which means that not having a car is no problem. Traveling by foot through Paris is a great way to see much of the city in just a few days. Of course there's always the (OLD) metro to speed things up a little, but who really wants to travel underground in a city like this?

A quiet street in Montmarte.

The last vineyard in Paris, also in Montmarte.

A view of the Seine river, Eiffel Tower, and the island.

One of the many garden stores to the side of the Notre Dame. It was a really relaxing place to be after navigating through the tourists and trying to find a meal for less than 30 Euros. (We failed... and it was Chinese food. wtf?)

!!!

There's probably some kind of story behind these pokey deals (and a better name...) They are spread throughout the city and most of them have some different, elaborate design to keep people away from some thing or another. This one is called "Devil Fork Tails in a Hurricane." I bet I could still climb over it, no problem...

hm. picnic time?

Champs-Élysées fountain surrounded by sculptures.

As you can see, the French love their hedges and sculptures. It was incredible how many famous sculptures we saw outside, especially in this section.

And finally, a view of Paris from above. Not a very nice picture but I still like it.