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Barcelona, Spain

Today’s visit to an Art Museum was a first for both of us and it was genuinely interesting. We chose this particular one as it was featured in our RS DVD’s and show cases Picasso’s work from the age 14 to the end of his life.

You may or may not be aware that he was a ‘genius’ artist in realism and other styles as well as the abstract cubism that he is probably most known for. It was his earlier work that interested us. His father was an artist also and taught him before he went to art school at around 15.

We were not allowed to take cameras in due to copyright so no photos to share, but I can say that it was a rewarding 2 hours wandering and marvelling at his talent. His earlier works show great emotion, and the way he used colour, brush technique and texture to subtly create 3 dimensional work is beautiful. We also liked some simple pen line drawings, charcoal, and coloured pencil ones. Neither of us get his later abstract work; probably because we don’t understand it?

We were really glad to have booked tickets as there were huge ques for about a block and it was cold – about 13 degrees and raining lightly. The way it works is that they only let so many in at a time, so those waiting would have to wait till others exited one by one. Bahahaha. Should have read a guide book and booked the tickets 🙂

After our dose of culture we tried to find a particular old church (without success) and some lunch – kind of got lost and a bit frozen but ended up seeing typical lanes and streets in the Gothic sector which was next on our to do on list. It was a neat area to walk through, old yet quite high rise for its day, different in style to Seville but still charming. We did a bit of a tapa crawl and enjoyed a nice cuppa and cake in a monastic bakery. Prices in the city are really horrendous compared to Seville and as mentioned before food is often a bit westernised so I make Vern walk and walk till we find something more authentic and cost effective. Speaking of western food a BK burger is nearly 9 euro which is about 15 or 16 NZD – OMG definitely wouldn’t pay that for it!

In the evening we went back to our ‘authentic – not so sure about the neighbourhood’ place for dinner where we were welcomed like adopted family. We indulged in pigs ears, artichokes, Spanish black pudding, pate croquettes, tomato bread, cider sausages, garlic prawns groan groan and then the waiter insisted on shouting us some liqueur for our digestions since we smiled, shook our heads ‘no’ and moaned holding our belly’s when he asked if we wanted dessert. We tried a fiery apple one and a date one. Nom nom it warmed us as like a slow golden flame as it slid down smoothly. It certainly helped our digestions and made me miss the blackcurrant one from Holland that got confiscated at customs (darn).

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