Palau de la Musica Catalana

Today we went to one of the prettiest concert halls on the planet - the Palau de la Musica Catalana.  The building was intended not just as a home for the Orfeo Catala choir, but also as an homage to the Catalan culture.  (Although Barcelona is in Spain, the main language and culture in this province is Catalan, and people here are fiercely proud of their heritage).  Architect Lluis Dominech i Montaner did his best to capture the Catalan spirit within the building's design.  The mosaics, sculptures, glasswork, and construction were all done by local artists and builders.  Built in the early 1900's, it is a masterwork of modernism with soaring glass windows letting in as much light as possible. 

The backdrop of the stage has sculptures of muses that appear to spring directly out of the wall.

More bright mosaics and sculptures decorate the building's exterior, adding a pop of color to an otherwise boring street.  We did a walk around the area afterwards, and it was definitely a regular, working-class neighborhood that just happens be home to one of the world's prettiest buildings.

We had a little something sweet for an afternoon snack.  This was our first experience with chocolate con churros.  We had expected something along the lines of a chocolat chaud l'africain from Angelina, but what we got seemed more like warm Jell-o pudding.  You know -- the kind you have to heat on the stove and then refrigerate before you serve it?  Well this tasted like that if you decided instead to just let it cool slightly and then tried to drink it.  I'm not complaining; I have actually done that a few times with boxed pudding when I was too impatient to wait for it to cool.  I've just never tried it with churros before.

After our snack, we went around to several terrace bars in the nearby plazas hoping to snag a table but they were all full and no one looked ready to leave anytime soon.  But then we stumbled upon a hidden beer garden just one street over from our house (okay, I'm not sure how it can be considered much of a "secret" since it had a chalkboard sign on the street saying "this way to the secret garden bar...").  You had to walk down a passageway, through a skate shop to the back of the store, up some stairs, past a janitor's closet and some urinals, and into a second-story courtyard that some enterprising soul converted into a bar.  It was surrounded on all sides by apartment high-rises, so who knows what the neighbors think, but we kind of liked it.  After all, we had a table outside and the beers were reasonably priced and cold.  What more do you need?