Gaudi

Post by Wynette: I haven’t posted any yet except for small comments on Charlie’s posts.  It’s overwhelming.  Hard to single in on one thing. But, we are in Barcelona so have to talk about Gaudi.  Or GaudI (accent on final syllable) as they pronounce it here.  Yesterday we toured the Sagrada Familia, the famous cathedral Gaudi started and didn’t get to finish.  But he left behind plans and the people here are slowly finishing it.  The cathedral now has a roof and much of the interior seems finished. Charlie said that when he was here 10 years ago the interior was filled with cement mixers, etc.  I knew Gaudi made beautiful and strange sculptural places but didn’t realize how well designed the places were with respect to light and comfort.  Our first day here we toured his Batllo (sp?) house.  So worth the 16 euro each admission.  Below is picture taken on the roof. Pointy things on the left are chimneys.  Roofline on the right is meant to look like a dragon’s back (St. George’s dragon). It looks like people are talking on cell phones but those are the audio guide phones. Even though this looks whimsical, everything is designed to be extremely functional as well.