La Pedrera

After La Sagrada Familia, we went and had tapas for lunch before heading over to the next Gaudi stop: La Pedrera, which means The Quarry.  While Gaudi was creating during the Art Nouveau period of the late 19th-early 20th century, he really was an art form all to himself.  He followed traits of Art Nouveau: curved lines, elements of nature, wrought iron and wood.  But when you see his shapes and creations, they are so unique, it really is hard to put a label on him.  

Warning: lots of photos to follow!  I recognize that Gaudi may not be everyone's cup of tea, but oh my...he is definitely mine!

 So La Pedrera is an apartment building.  Tourists are able to go up to the roof to see the unique chimneys, and to one of the floors to see what the apartments looked like when he designed the building 100 years ago.

 The front doors.

 The entry way.

 We went straight up to the roof to see the chimneys.  It was a bit like walking around inside Dr. Seuss's mind.

 The building is oval shaped, with the center hollowed out.  The roof was clearly designed to be walked around on...and yet there was no original wall or railing to keep people from falling down in the center!  A chain-link fence was put up for obvious safety reasons.

 Looking out over Barcelona.  You can see La Sagrada Familia over on the far left.

 Inside, we saw a model of the building.

 The entry way again on our way out.

 From the street.

We hopped onto the metro and headed down to the Old Port to have paella for dinner.  I ordered a fresh tuna and vegetable paella, and oh man!  It was so good.  I'd never had fresh tuna before, and was pleasantly surprised that I liked it.  (I used to not like fish, but have been branching out for years to try different kinds.)  And--paella is just YUMMY.