Bolger Family Travels: A Good Walk, Unspoiled

After oddly weird Casa de les Punxes tour, we wandered down the famous Diagonal Avenue to Palau Baro de Quadras, another one of Cadafalch's works. It's closed on the weekend, but the outside is worth checking out (and it's free!) on both the front and back of the house. It's very cool on the outside.

A brief description from Wikipedia:

"The Avinguda Diagonal façade has one of the most impressive Gothic revival balconies seen in Modernista architecture. The artisans Alfons Juyol and Eusebi Arnau used carved stone for their design.

"The rear façade, facing Carrer Rosselló, has floral motifs extending horizontally and vertically along the three balconies and down the four floors."

The front facade.

Gargoyle. It looks like a cross between a

deranged chipmunk and a small water dragon.

His cousin.

Sant Jordi. And his dragon.

We see them a lot. (Spoiler

alert: It doesn't end well

for the dragon.

Top of the back side of Palau Baro de Quadras.

Our next stop was De Tapa Madre for lunch. A tapas restaurant a few blocks south of Diagonal and

east of Passig de Gracia, this restaurant will always hold a place near and dear to our hearts. A lot of Barcelona restaurants close down for August (which is also a very touristy time). Several of the restaurants we had wanted to go to in 2009 were closed, so the concierge recommended this one. I was worried we were shunted off on a lousy restaurant, but we had thoroughly enjoyed it.

It was nice to see it again (earlier in this trip), so we vowed we would try to get back to it. (Editor's Note: "Vowing" and "trying" is not exactly an impressive promise. Writer: It wasn't exactly a hill to die on!).

Our final lunch in Barcelona was good, and so we decided to walk back to the apartment from there. It's a pretty long walk, but this way we could finish out our time with a stroll through some of our favorite parts of the city.

We also decided to it Family Circus style, so we did not go the direct route. First we walked back over to Passeig de Gracia, so we could be blown away once more by the facade of Casa Batllo. That also meant we passed by a few other Modernisme houses.

Casa Batllo

Our next arrival was to Placa Catalunya, the pulsating heart of the city. Not only was this where the Spanish Civil War's first battle in Barcelona occurred, but it is a lively part of town. Then we detoured through some narrow side streets to El Quattro Gats to get a better look at the building.

Gate at El Quattro Gats.

An original winged monkey.

A dude.

Looks like an old Seahawks logo.

I think this is a person hanging

out with an alligator.

Werewolves of Barcelona.

Stop dragon my heart around.

I'm not lion, he's ferocious.

Our next stop was at the Palau de Catalan Musica. We had gone to a performance with Don and Jennifer at this UNESCO World Heritage site by Domenech, but that was at night. We had not really looked at the outside until today.

We went into the lobby. We decided not to take the tour for two good reasons. First, Carol wanted to get to packing. (Yes, she packs for both of us, because she thinks I do a poor job of packing. She's under that impression primarily because I DO do a poor job of packing!). Second, we had just missed the last English-language tour. I don't get as much out of the Catalan or Spanish tours.

Carmela, by Jaume Plensa

This cool sculpture is just

outside the Music Palace.

The Palace of Catalan Music.

Cool ticket window.

This is a bust of Bach, who was

definitely not a bust, even bach then.

Staircase in the Palace

Then we wandered past the Santa Caterina market, and over to the Cathedral for a little more souvenir shopping and a bit of reminiscing. A bubble guy was there, and he was delighting the kids and adults a like with his massive bubbles. It was like the first day in Parc Ciutudella. I

Feeling nostalgic, I dropped a one Euro coin into his change cup. He was quite appreciative, but he was wrong. I was the appreciative one -- appreciative for the whole city.

We stopped at our gelato place, Gelateria Giovanni, on Career de la Argenteria. We took our gelato and sat on the fountain across from Santa Maria del Mar. It wasn't our last taste of Barcelona, but it was close. We went out in style.