Barcelona | Gaudi’s Barcelona

1 Reply

There can be few cities and architects in the world whose names are more closely linked than those of Barcelona and Antoni Gaudi. Born in 1852 (died 1926) he became a leading figure in the Catalan Modernist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but inspired by the forms he found in nature he developed a style of architecture and decoration that transcended labels and is nowadays seen as truly unique.

For the visitor to Barcelona there are four Gaudi creations that are absolute must-sees.

sagrada familia photo courtesy of wikimedia

Sagrada Familia

The Sagrada Familia, or Basilica and Church of the Holy Family (it’s not a cathedral – Barcelona already has one of those), is considered to be Gaudi’s masterwork. He took control of the project in 1883, shortly after it began, and as of today, more than 130 years later, it is still under construction, though there is a target for completion of 2026 to mark the centenary of his death.

Both the scale and the intricacy of the work are amazing. The eight (so far) tapering towers rise out of a fairly mundane suburban backdrop, and the church’s three facades, representing the Nativity, the Passion and the Glory, are adorned with scenes from the life of Christ. As with all Gaudi’s work, it’s the attention to detail that fascinates, especially the more whimsical elements, like the tortoises that form the bases of some of the pillars.

Be prepared for long queues, which in the summer heat call for considerable fortitude and plenty of water!

parc guell tiled benches in Parc Güell

Park Güell

Quite different is Park Güell, originally conceived as a housing project, but now a municipal garden on a hill overlooking the north of the city. Here you can find some of Gaudi’s best known work, including the mosaic salamander, and the entrance pavilions that always remind me irresistibly of gingerbread houses, The hypostyle hall, with the terrace of curved benches that forms its roof, has an Egyptian inspiration, and like many of the architectural elements seems almost to have grown out of the ground.
Entrance to the park was free until last year – now there is an 8€ charge.

Casa Mila (La Pedrera)

Down on the Passeig de Gracia (Barcelona’s main shopping street) you can find the first of the two most famous Gaudi houses, designed and built by Gaudi for a wealthy Catalan businessman, the Mila House. It’s most obviously notable for being built almost entirely of curves with very few straight lines or surfaces. My favourite things here are actually the “witch-scarers” on the roof, which bear a striking resemblance to Star Wars stormtroopers, but the whole building is worth exploring at length.

casa battlo “dragon’s back” rooftop of Casa Batlló

Casa Batlló

My favourite Gaudi of all, however, can be found a little further down the street. Casa Batlló, like the Mila totally renovated for a wealthy businessman, is also known locally as the “House of Bones”, and it’s easy to see why. The balconies of the façade closely resemble skulls, and the window supports of the main floor do look remarkably like bones. From inside, the effect of the curved windows is really stunning, but as at Mila, everything seems to be curved, and gives a slightly eerie feeling of being inside something living. Make sure to see the interior light-well, the atrium, with its bright tiles extending dizzyingly right up through the full height of the building.

Veoapartment has recently acquired several new additions to our holiday rental properties, many of them in the stylish Eixample and boho Gracia neighbourhoods, close to these fabulous Gaudi buildings and other important sights.

Granada | Apartments with Parking

Leave a reply

As in many historic Spanish cities, driving a car into the old centre of Granada can be quite a challenge. Private cars are forbidden to enter many of the central areas, or entry is restricted to residents, but even in areas where it is permitted you still need to be careful. Many of the main streets have a bus lane on the right, which you can’t use, and these are all watched on video cameras, so it’s very easy to get fined if you don’t know the neighbourhood.

You then have the problem of finding parking for your car. Street parking isn’t really an option, as there are hardly any spaces, which leaves you with the two following possibilities.

1. Public car parks

Public car parks are scarce in most residential and historic neighbourhoods, and also expensive, usually around 20 Euros a day. You should look up a list of Granada Car Parks before travelling and enter the address of your choice on your GPS navigating system, but even after arriving successfully there is no guarantee that there will be free spaces.

2. Apartments with parking

granada-parking-1

The best option if you’re travelling by car, whether it’s your own or a rental, is to rent an apartment with onsite parking. Our preferred apartments for this purpose are veoapartment San José, located in the lower Albaicín, which is close to both the Alhambra and Cathedral, as well as being an important historic neighbourhood. These apartments have a spacious underground parking area large enough to accommodate minivans, and with plenty of room to manouevre.

granada-parking-2

An apartment with its own garage makes parking easy, and you can take your luggage up to your apartment in the elevator. The San Jose complex has apartments of various sizes and price levels available, many of them with private terraces with views of the Alhambra or Cathedral. For example, 2-bedroom Veoapartment San José, with a terrace looking towards the Cathedral.

granada-parking-3

The photos here show the apartment building in the square, and the entrance to the underground car park.

When you do a search on the veoapartment website, apply the “Parking” filter to the search results. This will reduce the number of available apartments to those which have parking at the apartment. If you want to use the garage, just fill in the space on the online booking form when making your booking.

The Bonfires of Saint John

Leave a reply

Next week, on the night of Monday 23rd June, the shortest night of the year, towns along the coast of Spain will be celebrating La Noche de San Juan, Saint John’s Night, the eve of Saint John’s Day. Despite the name, it is, of course, an essentially pagan festival marking the passing of the summer solstice, and is a time for rituals of purification, renewal, and the assurance of good fortune for the coming year.

bonfires la coruna La Coruña – photo courtesy of The Telegraph

Preparations for the festivities may go on for several days beforehand, particularly the building of the bonfires that give them their popular name, Las Hogueras, or the bonfires of Saint John. These are traditionally made on the beach, mostly of driftwood, but including old furniture, or indeed, anything else that you want to ritually dispose of. They are lit at dusk and often kept burning until dawn, and from a distance the sight can be both impressive and a little eerie. It’s also common to burn an effigy of Judas Iscariot, a Christian touch added to the original, and in Alicante satirical models of local figures that are specially made for the occasion and paraded around the streets before being added to the pyres (although influenced by it, this is not to be confused with the Valencian fallas festival in March). As with all such celebrations (especially in Spain), this is the time for families and groups of friends to gather round the flames, sharing food, drink and the communal spirit.

When the fires have burned down sufficiently, you are supposed to jump over them three times. This is said to purify and cleanse you, and to burn away all your problems, but if bonfire-jumping seems too risky, don’t worry, there are other ways to achieve the same effect. Women can prepare perfumed water, made with the scents of seven plants, including roses, rosemary and laurel, for washing or bathing. Most common is to take a dip in the sea at midnight, washing away your cares and making a new start for the new year. In many places it’s considered to be bad luck to bathe in the sea before Saint John’s Eve, and in a climate like Spain’s this may be why people are so enthusiastic about this particular ritual!

San-Juan-festival-in-Malaga Malaga – photo courtesy of The Guardian

One of the biggest Saint John’s Night parties is in Malaga, and thousands of people will spend the day preparing the bonfires, and everything else you need for an all-night beach party. If you’re in town it’s an unmissable experience, especially after midnight when the serious revellers get going in earnest, singing and dancing in the dying light of the fires. You may even end up sleeping out under the stars, but if not, you have a comfortable apartment to go back to.

In some parts of Spain it is customary for to go to sleep on St. John’s Eve with three potatoes under your pillow – one peeled, one half-peeled and the other unpeeled. When you wake up take one of them out without looking. If it’s peeled, you’ll have money problems, half-peeled signifies a year of ups and downs, and unpeeled means a year of prosperity and good health. No cheating now.

Granada | 5 Free Things to do in Granada

Leave a reply

view of Plaza Nueva and Alhambra from Duplex Terrace

Granada is justly famous for its internationally famous monument, the Alhambra Palace, and also for the Cathedral and Royal Chapel. You will want to see all of these, and indeed, the Alhambra may be the reason you’re here in the first place (be sure you have booked your tickets in advance). They don’t come cheap, however, and you may find yourself wondering what you can do for the rest of your stay that isn’t going to cost you anything. In short you want a few freebies.

view of albaicin view of the Albaicin from Loft 6

Saint Nicolas Mirador (Albaicin)

The Albaicin is the hillside neighbourhood (also known as the old Moorish quarter) across the River Darro from the Alhambra. You can wander through it’s narrow streets and steep paths to your heart’s content without it costing you a dime (unless you stop for refreshments), but it’s good to have a destination, and in the Albaicin all roads (figuratively speaking, and you should expect some of them to end up in other places) lead to the San Nicholas Mirador – the lookout platform beside the church. From here, especially in the evening, you get the best views of the Alhambra, and can while away a pleasant hour wondering how on earth it was captured, or why Carlos V built that square palace in the middle of it.

Carmen Terrace 5 walled garden

Carmen de los Martires

Carmens are the traditional houses with a walled garden that are unique to Granada. The largest is the Carmen of the Martyrs at the end of the Realejo, south of the Alhambra, a 19th century house built on the site of a former convent, and surrounded by nearly seven acres of gardens with some fabulous views. Well worth taking the bus up and having a stroll around this delightful spot.

Bañuelo (Arab Baths) and Casa del Chapiz

Just off the Carrero del Darro, the street that runs alongside Granada’s tumbly mountain stream, the River Darro, you can find the 11th century Arab baths, probably the oldest remains of consequence in the city. They were preserved largely by chance as a private house was built over them early in the Christian period. A little further on is another stunning early Christian period house with a fabulous courtyard, the Casa del Chapiz.

Sacromonte Cueva 2 cave house

Sacramonte Abbey

Go a little further and you’re in the Sacramonte, the “gypsy” neighbourhood famous for its flamenco and cave houses. At the top of the hill is the 17th century Abbey of Sacramonte, a place regarded by some as being of mystical significance because of the Christian relics supposedly found in the nearby caves. It’s a bit of a haul if you do it on foot, but wort it for the views of the Alhambra, Albaicin and the rest of the city.

Tapas

Okay, this is cheating (a bit), but it’s still common to get a free tapas with your drink in the city’s bars. Or a tapa that’s included in the price of your drink, depending on how you look at it. But if you find the right bar you can certainly get fed with decent food, inexpensively.

Cordoba | Day Trip from Seville

Leave a reply

After Seville and Granada, Cordoba is probably the most famous of the romantic Andalucian cities of southern Spain. More than a thousand years ago it was the capital of the caliphate of Spain and one of the most important cultural centres in Europe, with a complex heritage of art and learning derived from the Moors, Jews and Christians, who lived here with a degree of religious tolerance remarkable for its time. You can still see this heritage in Cordoba today.

At this time of year especially, many of the city’s patios and alleys are filled with a myriad of flowers in brightly coloured pots. No visit to Cordoba would be complete without a visit to the symbol of the city, the Mezquita (the Grand Mosque, which is now a cathedral), with its vistas of horseshoe arches that entrance the eye, and an atmosphere of tranquillity despite the number of visitors. Also nearby are the Alcázar of the Christian kings and the Roman bridge across the river, which is still in use.

Between the cathedral and the remaining stretch of the western wall is the old Jewish quarter, a neighbourhood of narrow winding streets and courtyards full of mementoes of the Jewish presence here. You can visit the old synagogue, the Sephardi house and the zoco, or market, where you can find some of the traditional artesan shops selling the silver jewellery and leather goods for which Cordoba is famous.

Take time out to enjoy some of the traditional food, too. Cordoba is the home of salmorejo, the thick tomato soup often served with a garnish of jamon, of the flamenquin (rolled pork and cheese fried in a coating of breadcrumbs), and of fried eggplant with a sweet cane syrup sauce.

You can take a day trip from Seville to Cordoba by bus, with an Andalsur tour guide to take you to the Mezquita, and through the historic centre of Córdoba. Included: transfer by bus, entrance tickets and tour guide. Day trips from Seville are available every day and you can book a Cordoba city tour together with your Seville veoapartment.