My New Favorite Architect: Gaudí

Ah, Barcelona, where to start?  We did so much in 5 days.  I think I will cluster posts by artist/topic instead of a timeline.  Welcome to the Gaudí post!

I have discovered that I love Gaudí.  I would recommend that if you are in Spain, save the Sagrada Família until after you've seen the rest of Gaudí's work.  Everything else pales in comparison.  Thus, the order of the Gaudí buildings below is not the order in which we viewed them.

We started with the block of Discord, which includes buildings by Gaudí and others.  We did not go inside any of these.  Here's Gaudí's Casa Batlló:

And Casa Batlló among other buildings:

Then, there's Casa Milà, a wavy apartment building

with a crazy rooftop:

The windows you see below the railing in the foreground are in one of the building's two courtyards.

One of the courtyards has a stairwell that is quite pretty as well:

Then, there's Parc Güell, which includes a great view of the city,

mosaics,

crazy structures:

and great benches:

And finally, there's the Sagrada Familia.  I'm less impressed with the outside, although it looks pretty at night.  Perhaps it's all the scaffolding.  When it's finished, it will be have a tower much taller than the church is now.

But the inside is breath-taking:

Ceiling of the cathedral

with lots of incredibly colorful stained glass windows:

There's a museum as well, and Paul was impressed with a technique for devising the correct shape for arches by using hanging strings and weights:

Hands down, my favorite church in all of Europe so far.  I would love to see it when it's finished, which is projected to be in about 2030.

CSI Barcelona: The Funicular

Paul and I laughed repeatedly at a sign that I declared indicated "no cowboying."  Sadly, I have no photo of this one, but it was in the subways to indicate that you should not to walk through when the doors where closing.  Maybe we'll see it again, and I'll get it picture.

As a result, we started paying more attention to the signs we see.  Thus, I have decided we need a series of blog posts called CSI: Creative Sign Interpretation.  Here are several from the funicular that takes one up Montjuic in Barcelona:

CSI: "Do not pretend to be Link leaping from pot to pot."

CSI:  Well, since the first sign had a slash over it to indicate "no," this one clearly means "Please practice your balance by standing on the very edge of the platform on one foot."

CSI for the one on the left: "When the alarm sounds, do not run from the funicular."  or "Do not run screaming from the funicular."
CSI for the one of the right: "While it may hurt, please feel free to stick your arms and baggage in the way of the closing doors."

We welcome other interpretations!  Please leave them in the comments.

Carcassonne by the Numbers

This post is for our nephew, a lover of numbers and the game Carcassonne.

There are two parts to Carcassonne - the really cool old walled city and the modern city.  Our hotel was in the modern city and as we made our way to the walled city of Carcassone for the first time, we realized that great things were in store.  This guy was clearly giving the city +10 points.

And he was right, it's definitely neat!  Paul pointed out that it's an interesting situation - no one actually lives there, it's just for tourists.  I thought it felt like a Renaissance fair.

We also saw this cute train that we think a certain Mr. F. might like. +5 points!

After wandering around for a while, we came upon a church and had a look inside.  It contained many beautiful stained glass windows. +5 points

While we were wandering around the church, three men began singing a song somewhere between a hymn and chanting.  I am sure they would have sounded lovely on their own, but the sound of their voices amplified by the hollow space of the church was breath-taking.  +10 points!

We also saw a gentlemen using a remote control tractor!  +3 points

Having not had enough sugar, we gorged ourselves on nutella banana crepes, orange juice, and a delicious cappuccino.  +3 points

Then, Kate got in trouble and this very serious guard told her to behave. -20 points

But then a nice couple from Calgary, Canada, bought our dinner after a wonderful conversation about Canada, the Rockies, and not to buy into that tourist nonsense by purchasing bear bells - you just sound like "dinner's coming!"   +10 points!

What is the total number of points for the city of Carcassonne?

Playing Carcassonne in Carcassonne!

Then we thought that even better than awarding points to all the cool things about Carcassonne was to play an actual game of Carassonne - IN Carcassonne.  Can you figure out who won?

Paul claimed this finished road that went all the way around the city (12 tiles):

Kate claimed the city of Carcassonne (4 tiles):

Paul claimed the farmland outside the city that touched two cities:

And finally, Kate claimed a smaller, 1 tile city (okay okay, it was part of the larger city, but for the sake of this game, we are considering it separate):

Travel Tools - Mobile Phone

We decided it would be a good idea to have a cell phone that works during our trip, and I took on the responsibilty of figuring it out. Kate's phone is a simple Verizon phone. We didn't even consider carrying this because it doesn't support web browsing, GPS/maps, and isn't GSM (the phone technology used throughout Europe). My phone is an unlocked, Android, GSM phone with T-Mobile. At home I use a cheap monthly plan that won't do international roaming (even for a fee).

After a bit of reading, along with suggestions from a friend who had also traveled in Europe, I decided to get a pay-as-you-go SIM card in Europe. Acquiring it was one of the first things we did in Ireland. No contract. In fact, aside from the intentionally unclear pricing, it was as easy as buying fast food and only a bit more expensive. This ease of purchase is not true for all countries. Some require a local address and more customer details.

After swapping my T-Mobile card for the Irish one I had a working phone. Once we left Ireland roaming rates started applying. A one minute "hi, I am here" call costs about $1. Expensive, but effective for emergencies. We went with a data plan that's 2 Euros for 50 MB that expire after 24 hours. We normally leave data disabled on the phone (to avoid paying at least 2 Euros per day), and only enable it when necessary. In the 6 weeks that we've been traveling we've only spent about 20 Euros in charges.

Avignon

Since Avignon was only a short 20 minute train ride away, we went there twice during our stay in Arles.  Avignon is bigger and more popular with tourists than Arles with many more restaurants and shops.  We wandered around quite a bit and were impressed by this huge church:

I think it might have been called the Palace of the Popes or something.  We did not bother to go inside.  It seems a bit shameful but by this point in our trip, we are a bit church-, museum-, and ruined-out, so we aren't spending as much time learning about these places.  My favorite part about this church was the lady who sang opera in the square outside it while her dog wandered around enticing people to throw it a stick.

Part of Avignon (the part we spent our time in) is surrounded by a wall, which is pretty neat:

They also do dreadful things to trees in Arles and Avignon.  And I thought Lake Como was bad!  They left more leaves on those at least.  This just looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.

I have no idea who he is, but I like this shiny, happy fellow:

And I really knew I wasn't in the US when I saw a sign for a happy hour at Subway:

I must say, I really like France so far.  Everyone is super nice here.  Maybe it will be different in Paris, but so far, I have seen no evidence of the whole "the French don't like Americans" thing.  They go out of their way to be helpful, they smile in amusement at our pitiful attempts at French, and they even have an American store (albeit with a rather interesting selection of items - apparently we are all cowboy bikers?):

Paul and I both agree that France, at least the few parts we've seen, feels the most like the US so far, which has been nice.

Travel Tools - Google Voice

Despite telling Visa we'd be traveling, Kate's card was rejected and disabled when we arrived in Greece. Annoying, but solvable. We just needed to call them. We'd even written down the collect number in case we had a problem. After some failed attempts and conversation with the hotel manager we realized that we had no idea how to call collect from a Greek card-based phone. We did a few searches online and still came up short.

Luckly, I thought of using the Google Voice calling feature.

Google voice calling: It's awesome. We've used it repeatedly since and I recommend it.

The calls go over the internet and work great as long as you have a decent internet connection (we've been using hotel WiFi). Open up gmail, and in chat (without hangouts) there's a little icon of a phone. Click the icon, punch in the number and off you go. It's that easy. Calling to the USA and Canada is free (yes, from anywhere in the world). We've been using it to call family without paying a cent. Calls to other places are extremely cheap. I spent five minutes on the phone with a hotel in Switzerland for ten cents.

We do have a cell phone (more on that later), but it's much pricier to use and the audio quality isn't as good. The improved audio quality is helpful if you're talking to a non-native English speaker.

The Pont du Gard

On our first day in Arles, we took a day trip to the Pont du Gard, which required catching a train to Avignon and then a bus out to this incredible aqueduct bridge, the second tallest remaining Roman structure (the Colosseum is the tallest).  At 48.8 meters tall, and spanning 272 meters, this is an impressive bridge in a beautiful location:

The arch that goes over the water is the widest one.  At 25 meters, it is one of the widest arches constructed by the Romans using a mortar-free technique.  We climbed up to several viewpoints for some other angles:

And checked out the aqueduct channel at the top of this bridge where water would have passed through:

The site of the Pont du Gard also includes a museum where we learned a number of interesting tidbits.  The Pont du Gard is just one part of a 50 km aqueduct from Uzès to the city of Nimes.  The route chosen for the aqueduct is by no means the shortest but was the most efficient in terms of elevation.  Construction began in about 19 BC, and the aqueduct supplied water to Nimes for about 300 years.  Then, from about 300-600 AD, the water was diverted for agricultural purposes before it reached the city.  After that, it was no longer in use.  The Pont du Gard withstood an incredible flood in 2002 that brought the water level up to the triangles you can see on the lowest level of arches in the first photo in this post (on either side of the widest arch).  Sure says something for Roman construction!

And finally, Kate and Paul at the Pont du Gard: