03-30-2016: Hop on/Hop off to Ta’Qali, Mosta and Mdina

Today Eve suggested we join her and her friends Katie and Michaela on the north route around Malta on the Hop On Hop Off bus.  We thought this would be a great way to just get an overview of many of the places we’ll be visiting in more depth over the next couple of months.  We walked over the hill down to the Sliema harbor and bought our tickets for the bus.  The girls were having breakfast in a café nearby, so we found them and had a cappuccino.

Then it was off to the bus where we sat up top in the double decker.  Unfortunately, our audio for the tour commentary wasn’t working, so we just enjoyed the scenery.

Malta is a very congested place in the cities and larger towns.  Everyone has a car it seems, so traffic is awful.  In the little towns and villages, there is one road in and one road out, it appears, so the traffic is especially clogged.  And, with all the tour buses, it really gets difficult to move around.  But we didn’t have to worry about any of that; we could just sit back and take in the sights, sounds and smells.

Our first hop off was Ta’Qali crafts village.  We remembered this place from our visit in 1985 and wanted to see the glass blowing place we all recalled.  The village is much more touristy now.  The little streets are lined with Quonset huts and shops where you can purchase souvenirs, jewelry, stone items and glass.  Malta is famous for its glass and glass blowing.  We did find a place that seemed somewhat familiar and watched for a few minutes men working with molten glass and shaping items.

Really beautiful glass items were displayed.  It’s easy to understand Christine’s love of the color teal or aqua.  You see that color in the sea and in glass, and all around the island.

Then we hopped back on the bus to our next stop, Mosta.  Here is a church, referred to as the Mosta dome, that is the 3rd largest unsupported dome in the world.  It’s a wonderful building and the dome is very beautiful.  What’s really interesting about the Mosta dome is that during WWII a very large bomb fell through the dome and hit the center aisle of the nave, skittered down the aisle, but never exploded.  The dome remained intact, except for the hole where the bomb dropped through.  It’s an amazing story.

 

Back on the bus our next hop was Mdina, the old capital of Malta.  It is a walled city that sits high on a hill, a very impressive ride up to it.  It has been known as the silent city and when we visited in 1985, no cars were allowed inside the gates.  But, it is now a huge tourist destination.  The origins of Mdina can be traced back to 1500BC.  Impressive nobleman palaces line its narrow, shady streets.  Mdina is one of Europe’s finest examples of an ancient walled city and extraordinary in its mix of Medieval and Baroque architecture.  This will be a place to which we will return to explore in depth.

We had lunch at the Bacchus restaurant in Mdina.  We had to work hard to figure out the bill as the server kind of miscalculated.  Eve, Katie and Michaela had their heads down, calculators on mobiles out, trying to figure things out.  Christine and I were probably the cause since we asked for a separate bill and failed to identify our total share of the bill.  At any rate, things got sorted out.

We hopped back on the bus and stayed on the bus the rest of the way around the circuit.  We went through big, lush farming valleys.  Most of the farming still is done in small plots by families.  Potatoes are a big crop and a major export.

The area around St. Paul’s Bay is beautiful.  It was in this area that it is believed St. Paul was shipwrecked and stayed about 3 months before being rescued.  It is a very touristy area, but nonetheless, has beautiful views of the sea.

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Michaela, Katie and Eve

We all hopped off the bus not too far from our flat.  Eve, Katie and Michaela were off to meet some other ASL colleagues.  So we bid our goodbyes.

Christine and I went to our neighborhood market to buy some food for dinner.  Again, we marveled at the amount of stuff there is in that little store.  With good eats in hand, we returned to the flat for a nice, low-key evening.  We’re really starting to like our apartment.  It is beginning to feel like home.

03-29-2016: Exploring Sliema – Home Sweet Home

Did I mention that we have a fabulous view from our flat?

We spent the morning settling in to our flat.  A night’s sleep and unpacking did a lot for our appreciation of the flat.  We reorganized things and made room for our stuff and so it feels more like home.  We both think we’ll be quite happy here.  We’ll probably buy a few things to improve our use of the available space, but over the next few days, we’ll settle in just fine.

We then set off to find a Vodaphone store so we could equip ourselves with a local SIM card and internet access.  We located an address for the store in a shopping mall on the harbor side of Sliema.  Walking from our side of the city to the harbor side means uphill, then downhill.  We kind of meandered our way down all sorts of little streets.  We stopped at a Boots the Chemist shop for sun screen, which we desperately needed. We also stopped at a shop that Christine thought was the bookstore she loved as a child.  It still sells some books, but is now more a stationery and office supply place.  We located the Vodaphone store, after a couple of false starts, and got help from a very nice young woman who got a kick out of us two elder ladies trying to understand what we were purchasing.  But success.  We have a Malta phone number and internet connectivity.  We’re trying out only one phone with the SIM card, Christine’s.  We’ll see what happens.  She’ll likely get sick of me asking to see her phone so I can look something up, so I may end up purchasing a new SIM, too.

We had a nice lunch at Oggi’s Café on the harbor front and then we headed for home.  On the way back, we went exploring around our neighborhood.  One of the reasons Christine selected our flat was for its location.  Christine was born in Malta and lived here four different times until she was 10.  Her father was in the British intelligence business during and after WWII and so his location was reassigned every 18 months or so.  He chose a Malta return every other assignment so that Christine’s mother, Rose, who was Maltese, could be back in Malta to see her family.  Our flat is very near where Christine lived.  So we went up and down the small narrow streets trying to locate various residences, including where her grandmother lived.  The streets in Sliema are generally very narrow, and most of the properties, once you get away from the seafront, are old, old buildings.  What we like are the many Maltese balconies on the second floors of buildings.

Christine’s grandmother lived on Stella Maris Street, which we found, but Christine couldn’t remember the street address.  We’ll track that down later.  But at the end of Stella Maris Street is Stella Maris Church, imagine that.  We both remembered this street and church from our visit here in 1985.

We located one of the apartment buildings the Tyrrells lived in, really beautiful old stone building with wonderful windows and shutters.

Another Tyrrell apartment is just down the street from our flat.  Christine knows the location, but the original building is gone now, replaced by a new high-rise apartment building.  There is so much construction and building going on everywhere in Malta.  It’s such a shame that so many old buildings are being torn down.  But Malta now is a tourist destination and high-rise buildings are going up like crazy.

On the way back home, we stopped at a little market up the street around the corner from our flat and purchased some things we needed.  The market has lots of vegetables on display outside.  One would think this is a little mini market (as the sign indicates), but I think we would find whatever we needed in there.  It was amazing how much stuff was in that little store.  We’ll do most of our shopping there, I’m sure.

We then had a real treat.  Christine has a second cousin still in Malta, Carol Farrugia.  Carol had found Christine on Facebook a couple of years ago.  They have communicated a few times and so when we were coming to Malta, we agreed we’d meet.  We met Carol for a drink.  She is a very interesting, charming woman.  She’s just 2 months younger than Christine.  She has lived in Malta her whole life.  She remembers Christine a bit from childhood.  Christine and Carol spent their time together piecing together the family tree and recounting recollections from childhood.  It was great fun listening to their histories unfold.  We’ll be getting together with Carol and her husband Joe with Eve on Thursday evening.  Should be great fun.

We walked along the seafront promenade for a spell with Carol and then walked her back to her apartment, just a few blocks from our flat.  We returned home happy and tired.

 

 

Off to Malta!

Monday morning 4:30 a.m. – ughh!  We started our day of travel to Malta.  Originally, we had booked a flight with Vueling Airlines that would get us to Malta by direct flight, arriving around midday.  However, we were notified that the flight had changed and arrival was going to be something like 1:00 a.m.  We didn’t want that since we didn’t exactly know what to expect upon arrival in Malta.  So we booked a Lufthansa flight, but it wasn’t direct.  We had to fly to Frankfurt and then to Malta, and with a nearly 4-hour layover in Frankfurt.  Oh well, couldn’t be helped.

We took a taxi from the hotel to the airport.  I think our driver was practicing for Spain’s Indianapolis 500.  A 25-minute ride to the airport was over in 10 minutes.  I was just happy to arrive in one piece.  The Barcelona airport is a swanky, glitzy place, even at 6:00 a.m.  Fortnately, we didn’t have any issues with our carryon bags upon checking in.  However, we learned that we apparently booked “economy light” tickets, which meant we did not get one free checked bag each, so we did have to pay for our checked bags.  We waited for our flight and finally boarded and were on our way to Frankfurt.

The wait in Frankfurt wasn’t too bad.  What was nice is that the banks of seats did not have armrests so one could lay down across the seats, which Christine did, and napped for a bit.  We purchased sandwiches for lunch and boarded our flight to Malta.20160328_062953 (1024x576)

We arrived at Luqa airport in Malta on time.  Being part of the European Union means that there is no immigration checking or passport stamping going from country to country.  I wasn’t aware of that, but it makes it easy to just pick up your luggage and go; no long lines to stand in waiting for entry into a country.

The caretaker of the apartment we rented arranged for a driver to meet us at the airport.  Miguel and his 4-year-old daughter met us and drove us to our apartment.  We visited Malta in 1985 for two weeks.  What a difference 30 years makes!  Malta has been growing and building like crazy and it is now a big holiday destination for many Europeans, especially Brits and German.  Where we stayed in 1985 along the seafront is now all glamorous high-rise apartments and condominiums.

The apartment we rented is in a building called Taormina Court.  The caretaker Felix met us and took us up to the 4th floor apartment.  Of course, Christine had booked this online and so we only had photos of the place to go by.  TripAdvisor had reviews of the place as well.  However, when we entered the building and got into the apartment, we were both somewhat disappointed.  The place does have a million dollar view of the seafront, but the place has seen better days.  The main living area is quite nice, but the bedroom is tiny and the bathroom, although adequate, is also small and a little dingy.  And there is very little closet and storage space. But, I think our initial reaction was because we were also tired and a little dingy.  We’ve been through 9 days of whirlwind travel and touring.

Shortly after arriving, Eve and her friend Michaela arrived.  Eve and some ASL colleagues are spending their Easter holiday in Malta.  The four of us went down the street to a lovely restaurant, Piccolo Padre.  We sat in their covered patio overlooking Balluta Bay right at water’s edge.  It was a great spot and I’m sure we’ll return there for dinner over the next 3 months.  After dinner we walked a little around the seafront a bit to another place Eve and Michaela were meeting friends.  Christine and I returned to the apartment and I began unpacking.  We rearranged some furniture and I moved stuff around to make space in a cabinet.  I think once we put our stamp on the place, it will work out very well.  This flat is really used by folks on a week or two holiday, not for longer term living.  So, we’ll needed to equip the place with daily necessities.  Once we settle in, everything will be just right.  Did I mention we have a million dollar view?

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Barcelona – Sunday

We began our day with a nice breakfast at the hotel.  I don’t think we realized breakfast was included when we booked the hotel, but we’ve really appreciated it.  It was quite a spread.

After breakfast we hopped on the bus and were heading to the Barri Gotic, the old city of Barcelona.  I was interested in wandering around the narrow, twisting streets and seeing the Barcelona Cathedral.  But, as we were riding by another of the famous Gaudi houses, Casa Batllo, we decided to hop off and take a closer look.  It’s just down a few blocks from La Pedrera and it seems that Passeig de Gracia was the fashionable place to live at the start of the 20th century.  All the rich and famous had homes along that street.  Gaudi was hired to renovate the building because it was drab.  So Gaudi glitzed it up, for sure.  We didn’t tour the building, but you can see from the outside what a wild and crazy guy Gaudi was.

The exterior is so unusual, all decked out in purple champagne bubbles and masks.

We then wandered down the street and saw a building on the corner that had really wonderful carvings and windows.  We took lots of photos of the exterior of this place.

We then read a sign outside the door and learned that this was Casa Lleo Morera.  We couldn’t decide whether or not to pay the admission fee for a tour.  We turned away, but then went back at least 3 times, but finally decided to go and see what it was all about, and we’re sure glad we did.

Casa Lleo Morera was built and designed by Domènech i Montaner, one of the predominant architects of Catalan Modernism.  And what a fantastic tour we had.  We were a group of only 2 with a tour guide for 30 minutes inside several rooms of this phenomenal place.  Where Gaudi was surprising and even shocking, Domenech I Montaner was gloriously artistic and beautiful.  Every room had fantastic wooden floors and ceilings, marble, beautiful plaster stenciling, incredible sculptures, lovely mosaics and stained glass.  The place was stunningly beautiful.

This was a really wonderful find.  It’s hard to believe that the touring public hasn’t really flocked to this house.  We loved it.

We then walked down to Placa de Catalunya, which hadn’t gotten crowded yet Easter morning.  We sat on a bench and enjoyed a street performer, and older guy playing the accordion.  We laughed when he played When the Saints Go Marching In, as it was quite unexpected.

Then we strolled down the main street into Barri Gotic.  We visited a lovely little church, Santa Anna, and then found El Quatre Gats,the Four Cats, where reportedly Pablo Picaso hung out with his artist friends.  All these little side streets were really narrow.

We made our way to the Barcelona Cathedral.  I was hoping that we’d see a sardana, a patriotic dance in which proud Catalans join hands in a circle.  On the steps of the cathedral was a Catalan band playing tradition music and in the square in front of the cathedral was a sardana.  It was so interesting to watch.  Most of the dancers were elder Catalonians who, I’m sure, really enjoy getting together to do this patriotic dance.

We then hopped on the bus and went in another circuit.  We traveled along the seafront and went through the Olympic Village, which is now a residential area.  The athlete housing constructed for the 1992 Olympics, is now apartment buildings.  20160327_071226 (576x1024)We passed the really weird bullet-shaped building that is visible from nearly everywhere in Barcelona.  It is the Torre Agbar and is the gateway to the technological district in “new” Barcelona.  We continued on to where we hopped off to go to Park Guell, another Gaudi standout.  Unfortunately, the hop off stop is quite a distance from the entrance to the park and the directional signage wasn’t very helpful. Lots of people were going in both directions. We asked someone coming down the hill if we were going in the right direction.  The answer was yes, but that tickets were all sold out until after 7:30 that night.  That made us turn around.  We decided to find a place to sit and have a cup of coffee, but that was difficult because there wasn’t much in the way of cafes.  We did finally find a little place and we had cappuccino and a yummy slice of tortilla de patata, or Spanish omelet.

After fortifying ourselves, we did trudge back uphill towards Park Guell.  It being Easter, loads of people were also visiting the park and the entrance to the park was a mob scene.  The part that is most famous for the Gaudi designs has an entrance fee, but we were directed to the free entrance to the green zone of the park.  We could see the stairs to the Hall of 100 Columns from the entrance gate.

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We very much enjoyed strolling through some of the park.  Gauid created a really whimsical park.  It was originally designed to be a gated community for the rich folk, planned to have 60 private homes on the hill overlooking Barcelona.  Gaudi used manmade materials to imitate nature.

We found the Gaudi museum, which was a house Gaudi lived in while managing the construction of the park.  The exhibit wasn’t very large, but one of the most interesting things was a short movie narrated by an old nun who used to take care of Gaudi while he lived in the house.  She talked about Gaudi’s habits and lifestyle and it gave an interesting perspective about the man.

We did get some great views of Barcelona from the park.  Gaudi could see the Sagrada Familia from the house at the park.  He was a busy guy designing and managing the construction of such grand projects.

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View of Barcelona from Park Guell

After enjoying the park, we took a cab back to the hotel as we needed to get packed and ready for the next day’s departure.  After packing, we went next door to Piscolabis for tapas and wine.  Then we walked across Avenida Diagonal to see an interesting building up close.  From our hotel room window we could see this tall building that had lots and lots of plants growing on all the terraces and balconies.  It was a very “green” building.  It houses a large media company, Planeta.

And that brought to an end our 3 days in Barcelona.  We covered a lot of ground and saw many, many wonderful sights.  Everyone says how much they love Barcelona.  Now, we’ll be saying the same.  We love Barcelona!

 

Barcelona – Saturday

Today our planned activity was to visit La Pedrera, an apartment building designed by Antoni Gaudi and constructed between 1906-1912.  After breakfast at the hotel, we again set off down Avenida Diagonal walking to La Pedrera, about a half hour walk.

20160326_041150 (1024x664)La Pedrera, quarry in Catalan, is a several story apartment building.  It got its name from the rough stone appearance.  It is, quite frankly, a weird looking building, all wavy and having unusual things sticking up from the roof.  The tour starts in one of the ground floor patios, which is open all the way up through the building to the sky.  It must have been really something originally, but now the beautiful colors of the paintings are quite faded.

From the patio, you take a lift up to the roof and there you see very unusual things, but all brilliantly conceived by Gaudi.   Gaudi transformed a space that was not usually given much thought when a building was designed, into a universe of shapes and textures.  Chimneys, ventilation towers and stairwells go beyond their role and are converted into sculptures of disturbing form.

Gaudi probably would win an Oscar for set design in the 21st century!

After the rooftop terrace, we went to the building’s attic, which I found to be the most fascinating.  Gaudi used catenary arches, 270 of them, to support the roof.  In the attic, originally the building’s laundry, is an exhibit of Gaudi’s life and work and presents his creations through scale models and plans, objects and drawings, photographs and videos.

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Hanging from ceiling

A couple of exhibits were most fascinating.  One showed how he visualized for structural form of his buildings.  He would draw the floor plan and tack it to the ceiling.  From the plan he would hang chains and from each end of the chain it would droop into an arch, a catenary arch.  He did this designing Sagrada as well as for La Pedrera.  One of the exhibits was a model of the structure chains hanging from the ceiling over a mirror so one could see what the structure would look like when constructed.  It was fascinating.

Here are several views of the catenary arches, beautiful brick structures.

The tour included a “demo” apartment as it might have been in the early 20th century.  Gaudi designed all of the fixtures, hardware and details.  I liked the mouldings the best, lovely wavy patterns all around the doors and windows.  I won’t bore you with pictures of that.

After our visit to La Pedrera, we had a coffee break across the street.  Then we boarded the Hop On Hop Off bus, having purchased a 2-day ticket.  There are two different circuits around Barcelona and over 2 days, we rode both circuits which allowed us to take in a lot of Barcelona from the top of a double-decker bus.

We got off the bus for a late lunch at a place called the Rad Café and then hopped back on the bus to Placa de Catalunya, one of the main plazas in the city.  It being Easter Saturday, the plaza was jam packed with tourists and families.  Christine had fun watching little kids chasing pigeons.  We then joined 20,000 other people in a ramble down Las Ramblas, probably “the” tourist area from the plaza down to the seafront.  I guess we did it to just say that we did it.

At the seafront, we decided to take a sunset boat ride and boarded Las Gondolerias.  We went out into the sea and travelled parallel to the beach for about 45 minutes, and then back to the shipping and cruise ship port and then back into Port Vell.  It was fun seeing the sights from the water.

After our boat ride, we hopped on the bus again to return to our hotel.  We had to ride the circuit again, but this afforded us nighttime views of Barcelona from Montjuic, one of the highest points in the area.  We also got a glimpse of the Magic Fountain, one of Barcelona’s best tourist attractions.  I’m sure the entire fountain show is spectacular, judging from the little we saw.

We eventually got to the stop a block away from our hotel and returned to our room happy and tired.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Barcelona – After Sagrada

As I posted, Friday we went to Sagrada Familia in the morning.  Our tickets were for 9:00 a.m.  We walked from our hotel, which ended up being a long walk, nearly an hour.  But early in the morning the Barcelona streets are deserted.  Good Friday is a national holiday, so some things were closed and there was an abbreviated bus schedule.

We walked down Avenida Diagonal along which is a blend of old and new buildings.  The older architecture is wonderful.  Buildings have interesting features and details.

After our fantastic time at Sagrada, we were ready for lunch so we strolled around the area and found a nice little tapas restaurant, Café Copa.  DSC00190 (1024x768)It was a nice little hole in the wall place.  The server was a friendly fellow, but didn’t speak much English, although they had an English menu.  We had nachos and guacamole and salad.  Christine ordered a Sangria, which made her silly (she rarely drinks).  I think we were both happy about being in Barcelona and having such a great experience.  We’re really enjoying being here.

After lunch we strolled up Avenida Gaudi to the Hospital de Sant Pau, and then we decided to catch a bus to go to the seafront.  We’re getting very good at navigating around via public transportation, thanks to Citymapper.  We arrived in the area known as Barceloneta.  We, and thousands of other people on holiday, strolled around the marina and down the walkway along the beach.

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We sat and watched a street performer for quite a while.  He was hilarious.  He would imitate people walking by, do all sorts of funny things to people riding by on bicycles, and would get volunteers from the people watching to do weird things. He also strung a rope between two poles and did some tricks on the rope.

There are lots of places to eat and drink and vendors along the walk are hawking their wares.  Sand sculpting seems to be one way folks earn a little money.

We took in the sights and, as it was beginning to spit a few raindrops, we decided to have dinner along the beachfront.  We pick an upscale place called Platja – Ca la Nuri.  We ate outside under a covered area protected from the raindrops.  We had a spectacular dinner, one of the best I’ve ever had I think.  Christine ordered paella and I had grilled shrimp. I don’t typically take pictures of food, but I couldn’t resist because it looked so nice.

After dinner we located a nearby bus stop and rode the bus back to the hotel.  This day was a really wonderful day, starting with the incredible experience of Sagrada Familia and ending with a fantastic dinner along the beach.  We are so blessed and so lucky to have this opportunity to travel and see such wonderful places as Barcelona.

 

 

 

Sagrada Familia

When one thinks of Barcelona, one of the first things that come to mind is the Bascilica of the Sagrada Familia, Antoni Gaudi’s masterpiece that has been under constructed since 1882.  Its completion isn’t until 2026.  Our visit to Sagrada today was something I will never forget. DSC00174 (1024x768)I don’t even know where to begin talking about this amazing building.  I will say that it is impossible to see and take in all the details and architectural wonders in the building.  We had seen a 60 Minutes story about Sagrada just a few weeks ago and we learned, then, some of the brilliance of Gaudi’s architectural genius.  Even today, it has taken technological advances in design software to figure out how Gaudi had imagined this building.

Since the building is still being constructed much of the exterior, especially the towers and upper facades are covered over. But what you can see is totally overwhelming.  The details of the sculptures covering the 3 facades is unbelievable.  The Nativity façade explains the main facts about the early years of Jesus.  You better know your Bible stories to really appreciate all that you see on this façade.

Gaudi also included lots of animals.  Our friend JoAnn will especially appreciate the chickens.

The Passion façade, on the opposite side of the basilica, depicting Jesus’s death and resurrection, is quite unusual and has, as Gaudi put it, a rather sinister air.  Gaudi only sketched his ideas for this façade, and so others had to keep true to all the pain and sorrow Gaudi envisioned for the Passion façade.  The sculptures are very unusual because they are more modern and the figures are block-headed.  It’s such a stark contrast to the beautiful sculptures on the Nativity façade.

The facades are really interesting and one could look up at them for hours and still not see all the things there.  But now, let’s go inside.

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Nothing prepared me for the awesomeness of this church.  Your eyes go everywhere and see incredible beauty, light, color, and imagery.  There are 36 columns of varying heights and they are imitation of trees.

Gaudi designed everything to inspire meditation and prayer.  I found that I did just want to sit and think.  It was a very moving experience being inside the basilica, very spiritual.

The ceiling vaults were incredible.  We both said to each other that we’re going to have sore necks because of all the looking up, especially straight up, that we did.

And now, the light.  Gaudi wanted to really infuse the basilica with natural light and with his architecture design for the walls of the basilica, he was able to create massive windows.  Everything in the basilica has some meaning, including the stained glass colors and how Gaudi designed the way the light enters through the windows.  It is truly awesome to walk around the basilica and see how the sunlight filters through the glorious stained glass windows.

We were at the basilica over 3 hours.  We entered when it opened, and by the time we left, there were thousands of people milling about.  We visited the basilica on Good Friday, which is a national holiday in Spain.  I think probably added to the throngs.  Although we did sit for quite a long while just contemplating everything, and listening to the audio guide, we eventually decided we’d had our senses filled by Sagrada.

We did go to the museum in the crypt, which was truly interesting because it gave wonderful detail about the design and architecture of the basilica, with lots of Gaudi sketches of his design.  That could have taken hours to go through if we read all the information at the displays. There is an active workshop where they artists painstakingly create models of everything related to the basilica design and architecture.

This was an amazing place and we’re so happy to have had the experience.  We both left feeling very moved and inspired.

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We have hundreds of photos, so maybe I’ll post more at a later time.  If you get your post in email, you may not be receiving all the gallery photos, so be sure to go the blog via your browser to see what I’ve posted here, www.adventuresctlb.com.

 

Going to Barcelona!

5:00 a.m. came awfully early this morning. And of course, when you’re overtired from days of being a tourist, but excited about going to a new place, you don’t sleep very well.  Neither of us did, so it made for a little extra effort to get moving.  But once moving, we did fine.

Our taxi to Victoria was smooth.  The driver was an interesting fellow who emigrated to the UK from Grenada just a couple of months before the Grenada war in 1983.  It’s always kind of interesting to talk with people about where they came from; we learn things that way.  We also asked his opinion about the upcoming referendum in the UK about exiting from the European Union.  There is quite a bitter battle going on in the UK to remain or leave.  “Brexit” is the term used for Britain departing from the EU.  It will be interesting to see what happens.  This is quite similar to our visit in Scotland two years ago just a couple of months before their referendum on whether to leave the UK.

At Victoria, we got our Gatwick Express tickets.  We don’t have much luck with ticket kiosks and that wasn’t different this morning.  But there are helpful staff around to assist.  It is so amazing how efficient the transportation system is in the UK.  In America, we can’t seem to get a high speed rail between cities like New York and Boston.  Here in the UK, the trains move huge masses of people quickly and easily.  It took less than 30 minutes for the express to whisk us out to Gatwick.  I will say, however, it would be much easier for two getting older ladies like us to not have so much luggage to get in and out of the train.  And, at Gatwick, we had to transfer from the South Terminal to the North Terminal, up escalators, and with as much luggage as we have, that is fraught with danger.  Christine had a minor fight with an escalator that didn’t let her foot land flat on the step.  I’ll just say, the escalator won.

We also had more bad luck with the kiosk check-in.  The darn thing let us check in, but wouldn’t print our luggage tags for Barcelona.  And then that led us to more difficulty with the ticket agent about our luggage.  Apparently, British Airways is one of the most strict about the size of carry on bags.  We both had two, and neither would pass the restrictions.  I guess we looked sad and confused enough that she took pity on us because we were able to check a second bag at no charge (that’s about a $160 gift to us from BA!).  So we quickly moved stuff around to get our one carry on within the size guidelines, which means we smushed them down until they fit.

We arrived at Gatwick quite early, so we had time to sit and relax and watch the comings and goings.  People are so much fun to watch.  I also spent time uploading photos to the PC so I would be ready to add the museum photos to the blog.  Managing the image library for the blog is not an easy process.  It’s not as simple as just copying photos to WordPress.  But I’m learning some tricks and it gets easier each time I do it.

Our gate was finally listed just 40 minutes prior to our departure.  Of course, our gate was the very last one in the very long North Terminal.  We took off and walked for about 15 minutes to reach our gate.  But all was well and the boarded and took off to Barcelona.

Flight time was just 90 minutes.  I didn’t get to sit by a window, sadly, or else I would have been snapping pictures like crazy.  At one point, we were flying over beautiful snow capped mountains which I assumed were the Pyrenees.  And approaching Barcelona was beautiful flying along the coast of the Mediterranean.

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Avenida Diagonal

We had no problems disembarking or getting through immigration.  No line at all, and the customs was a breeze through the “nothing to declare” gate.  We got a taxi and drove about 20 minutes to our hotel.  Our room wasn’t ready yet, so we strolled along the Avenida Diagonal, the main drag in front of the hotel.  The sunshine was great to feel and the temperature was about 60.  I haven’t yet mastered Celsius, so I use a conversion app to know what the temp is.

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Piscolabis

We found a little tapas restaurant next door to the hotel, Piscolabis.  Clearly we’re in a tourist area because they had English menus, thank goodness.  What was also good was that in addition to English, they had pictures of all the various tapas selections. So, we had a really nice lunch of several tapas, all very yummy.  We walked back to the hotel and got into our room.  Christine is sleeping and I’m blogging.  Coming from London to Barcelona we lost an hour.  This weekend, the clocks are set forward an hour, so we’ll lose another hour.  Today in Barcelona, we’re 5 hours ahead of our time at home.

We’ll settle in for a good sleep tonight and wake up refreshed for our adventure in Barcelona.

 

London – Final Day

For our final day in London, we decided to take in a couple of galleries.  The two we chose were the Tate Modern and the Victoria and Albert Museum.  They couldn’t have been more different!

We set off to the tube station and made our way to Southwark (the “w” isn’t pronounced).  We’re feeling pretty confident underground now and have learned how to read the route map.  However, Eve told us of the best app for navigating called citymapper.  It does all the work deciding the best route and by which means of transportation.  It gives you the time the next vehicle will arrive, how long the ride will be, what the stops are along the way, and then if walking is necessary, it maps out your directions.  It’s really amazing!

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St. Paul’s Cathedral

The Tate Modern is a huge building, and getting bigger, along the Thames directly across from St. Paul’s Cathedral.  The Tate is a rather ugly building, all industrial-looking, but it is bright and airy inside.

20160323_054930 (576x1024)The Alexander Calder exhibit is subtitled Performing Sculpture.  Calder is widely celebrated as the originator of the “mobile,” not the phone, but the thing that hangs from the ceiling.  It amazed me that he was one of the first artists to think about art in motion.  This was in the 1930s.   He overturned many assumptions about sculpture.  His early work involved wire sculptures and he made lots of portraits.  These I liked very much because they hang and so the light and shadows behind them project various images on the wall behind.  Calder also was enamored by the circus and so for years he created all kinds of acrobats and circus performers from mostly wire and then he figures out how to attach motors to make the figures move.  I was disappointed with these objects because the motors no longer work so the objects did not move.  That’s technology for you.

Calder’s mobiles are very interesting, some more than others.  Unfortunately, there was no photography permitted in the gallery.  I walked around all these very large mobiles hanging down wanting to blow air or flap my program so I could get them to move.  I was surreptitiously successful on one or two occasions.

After the Tate, we went back underground and travelled to the Victoria and Albert Museum.  This is a classic British museum and bills itself as the world’s leading museum of art and design.  It’s brochure states, “the V&A enriches people’s lives by promoting the practice of design and increasing knowledge, understanding, and enjoyment of the designed world.”  It is a very impressive museum! Just the building itself knocks your socks off.

The Victoria and Albert Museum’s collections span two thousand years of art in virtually every medium, from many parts of the world, and visitors to the Museum encounter a treasure house of amazing and beautiful objects.  You would need several visits just to get through all the exhibits.

One of the reasons Christine wanted to go to the V&A is so she could eat in its café.  Now, I know that sounds crazy, but I’ll tell you that it was the swankiest café I’ve ever eaten in.  And the food was really excellent.

Since we only had a couple of hours, we trotted through several areas.  The tapestries were awesome.

Here are some other pictures of things we saw.  I thought my brother Grant would be interested in the scenery exhibit showing model sets.

I loved this image over one of the doors entering the museum.

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Better it is to get wisdom than gold

I could spend a lot of time in the V&A Gallery.  It was wonderful.  But other things beckoned so we made our way back to our Airbnb room and spruced up before meeting Eve for a tour of her school, the American School in London.  We then met up with one of her colleagues, Chris, and went to a lovely Thai restaurant, the Banana Leaf.  Yummy food!  We then walked back to the school to see a student performance of the Heidi Chronicles.  Some of it was a real walk down memory lane for Christine and me.  The students did a phenomenal job and we enjoyed the production very much.

And that brings to an end of our time in London.  We packed up Wednesday night and arranged for a taxi to Victoria Station to pick us up at 6:00 a.m. in the morning.  We are catching the Gatwick Express train for our flight to Barcelona Thursday morning.

What a fun time we had in London!

 

London – Day 4

Today, Tuesday, we woke up to sunshine and blue skies, a perfect day to visit the Royal Botanical Gardens, known as Kew Gardens.  You’ve probably figured out from some of our other posts that Christine and I are garden nuts.  We very much enjoy nature in all its glory and often ensure that our travels include various types of gardens.  So off to Kew for the day.

We got to experience more mass transit opportunities getting to Kew.  From the St. John’s Wood station we took the Jubilee line (that’sthe tube or underground) several stops northbound to West Hampstead.  Then the  new experience was taking the overground, as opposed to the underground, out to Kew Gardens station. The overground is the same type of train as the underground, but, you guessed it, it stays above ground. I liked that because we could see more as we passed through smaller towns.  One of the things I love about the UK is all the different town and village names, places like Kensal Rise, Swiss Cottage, Shepherd’s Bush and Harrow-on-the-Hill.  So quaint.  At any rate, we got off the overground at Kew Gardens station and walked a short distance to Kew Gardens, the Victoria Gate.

We opted for an introductory hour-long walking tour with a guide.  I’m glad we did that because Chris, our guide, gave us a good overview of the history of the gardens.  It was fascinating to learn how it all started in the 18th century. Two royal estates, the Richmond estate of King George II, and the Kew estate of his son, the Prince of Wales, Frederick, were merged. Frederick never became king due to premature death.  His wife, the Dowager Princess Augusta, started the garden at Kew in 1759.  Her son, King George III then inherited the estate and continued his mother’s desire for a huge garden.  King George III was often referred to as Farmer George, because of his love of gardening and what he did to develop Kew. After George III, the gardens declined because George IV spent all the money on a lavish lifestyle.  After this, in 1840, the crown gave the gardens to the people and the Royal Botanical Garden started its purpose, that being scientific and the collection of plants from all over the world.  Today, Kew has the largest collection of plants in the world.  They also have over seven million species catalogued in their herbarium (a library of pressed plants). They are experts in plant taxonomy and people come from all over the world to study. And they are now undertaking the Millennium Seed Project whereby they are amassing a collection of seeds from around the world.  I was very impressed by all this.  Kew is a fantastic resource, and awesomely beautiful.

Palm House
Palm House

One of the iconic Kew buildings in the Palm House.  When constructed, it was an engineering masterpiece.  It is full of tropical plants and in the basement there is even a marine exhibit with some really interesting fish and marine ecosystems showcasing the importance of plants.  Like did you know that half of the world’s oxygen comes from algae?

Kew is over 300 acres in size and has many different sections showcasing various trees, shrubs and plants.

If I had been a good horticulturalist, I would have written down all the names of the plants that were our favorites.  But, I didn’t, so here are just some lovely plants.

We were really struck by all the fabulous trees.  Some of them, which Kew refers to as the “old lions,” have been there for hundreds of years.  We saw one pine that Princess Augusta had in a pot that got planted after her death and now is a huge tree.  There was an ancient Japanese Pagoda tree that was really unique.  I fell in love with a maple called the Paper Bark maple because its bark was a beautiful orange color.  In 1987 there was a hurricane in the UK and over 1,000 trees were damaged or killed, a sad story.  However, one good thing that came out of it was that a huge old oak trees got lifted up out of the ground and it came down a little crooked.  Before the storm, the tree had been really sick and wasn’t doing well.  After the storm, it started to flourish and the botanists learned that  the injection of oxygen in the soil during the storm lifting the tree up is what gave it new life.  Now, injecting air into soil around sick trees is a common practice by arborists.  So now, I’m fascinated by all things trees.

One of the buildings in the garden is Kew Palace, which is where King George III lived in the summer.  It’s a beautiful house along the Thames, but there was noting palatial about it.  It was just very stately.

Orangery cafe
Orangery cafe

We had lunch in a lovely café that used to be the Orangery, yes, where the royals grew orange trees.  However, they had to stop that practice because the moisture and humidity needed by the orange trees kept rotting the structure.  But now it is a lovely café.

There was just too much to see at Kew for one day’s visit.  We ended the time there by taking a little trolley ride around the park so we could at least see an overview.  I could go on about our visit, but since I’m tardy getting this posted (no internet this morning), I’ll end for now and just say, the Royal Botanical Garden is not to be missed.

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Museum No. 1 seen from balcony of Palm House

 

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