Wandering and wondering

As usual, I seem to be having a difficult time keeping you up to date on here, but that may have changed. Suddenly for some unknown reason I'm able to pick up a strong wifi signal in my hotel room. Prior to this I had to go to the first floor (That's the second floor back in the states.) to be able to email or post or tweet or otherwise play around on the world wide web. This is wonderful so far. I hope it lasts.

I've been all over the place since I got here. I've walked the Ruta de Modernisme, rambled all up and down La Rambla, and nibbled my way through the Boquería all the while taking photographs like a fiend. I've been looking at mosaics and ceramic tile work anywhere I can find them, which seems to be just about everywhere, from the obvious places like Gaudí's Casa Batllo and Park Güell, or Domènech i Muntaner's overwhelming Palau de la Música Catalana, to the odd bits and pieces hiding over doorways or decorating pharmacies all around the Old City. It's been a safari of sorts. Each corner I turn reveals some new jewel like vista.

Barcelona is old, old in a way that is hard for me to even conceive. It was founded by the Romans and bits and pieces of its Roman past pop out when least expected. A little over a block from my hotel is a portion of a Roman necropolis that has been excavated. Sticking off the Cathedral is a bit of Roman wall. Here there's a bit of Roman wall jutting out or it may be just as likely hiding in the back of a restaurant.

I ate lunch in a restaurant, Set Portes, that was opened the same year, 1836, that my hometown of Houston was founded.

I've been to all the major Gaudí sites, La Sagrada Familia, La Pedrera, Casa Batllo, Palau Güell, and Park Güell. I still have a few of his creations to tour. I've also learned a little about other Modernist architects. Turns out Gaudí didn't build Barcelona all by himself! Imagine that! I have to admit that he is pretty outstanding.

I've been to Montjuic and gone to the Fundacio Joan Miró. I've photographed Miró's large mosaic in the middle of La Rambla and tracked down his family home where he was born and where he lived and worked after World War II.

I've walked the neighborhood where the young Picasso lived and painted, and visited the Picasso Museum. I had lunch at Els Quatre Gats, the hangout for anybody who was anybody in the Barcelona avant garde art scene of the early twentieth century. Picasso designed a menu cover for Els Quatre Gats when he was 19 years old.

So, you can see I haven't been sitting still. I still need to make it north to the Costa Brava to see the place where Salvador Dalí started out and ended up and south to see the birthplace and childhood home of Antoni Gaudí. Then, if there's time, I hope to make it over to Palma de Mallorca to visit the Pilar and Joan Miró Foundation and the Cathedral. Gaudí worked on the Cathedral in Palma for ten years, but he didn't finish the job. He walked away from it with little or no explanation.

I've taken literally thousands of pictures, even though some local thief picked my pocket and stole my camera. I replaced the camera the next day and was right back at it! I won't subject you to all my pictures, but I'm posting the best of them via Flickr and Instagram. Try www.flickr.com/photos/jean999/ You can also find them posted on my FaceBook page and on Twitter. I'm on Twitter as @jean999.