More Barcelona Pictures
Posted 30 more pictures from the weekend in Barcelona starting here.
Amy’s Giant pictures will mixed in with them just out of perverse spite.
Enjoy
Barcelona – a City of Giants
Amy & I are back from Barcelona. It was a whirlwind two days shooting from site to site.
Just a quick post before I go into the city in detail.
In keeping with the theme established here in Vancouver:
I’m posting a series of pictures of Amy next to giant items we found throughout Barcelona.
PS – I’ve taken over 530 pictures so far. There’s no way my server or my bandwidth could handle such a presentation. So, I’m selectively passing some your way. If you’d like more, I’ll look into building a DVD type system that you could download and play in chapters as movies.
Amy goes to Spain
Hey all,
Just a quick note. Amy arrived safely in Spain today. We’re catching up on sleep and then taking the Night Train to Barcelona for a couple of days.
I hope to post this trip and my trip to Segovia when I get back.
I placed some pictures from Segovia starting here. Take a look at this quaint town that just happens to have a fortress, one of Spain’s largest cathedrals, and a Roman aqueduct.
Ciao,
Joshua
(PS I know Ciao is Italian, but they say it here too.)
El Escariol & the Valley of the Fallen
Took a day trip to El Escariol and the nearby Valley of the Fallen.
El Escariol is a huge monastery that was built to celebrate a victory of the Spanish in the Netherlands. It was later turned into a palace and then back into a working monastery.
The most impressive part was the library. It contained over 15,000 original, ancient tomes displayed in a room covered in frescoes depicting kings of Spain and Roman embodiments of Philosophy, Arithmetic, etc. and the famous philosphers and scientists who were instrumental in their development.
I want to own this room. And once again, I curse my inability to read Latin. I really need to remedy this soon.
Following that, I went to the Valley of the Fallen.
This is a basilica and monument that the Spanish dictator Franco commanded to be built to honor his supporters that fell while overthrowing the democratic government of Spain in the 1930′s.
It’s also the first instance of facist architecture I’ve ever encountered.
The church was literally bore into the mountain by 20,000 “political prisoners.” It’s scale is intentionally overwhelming. Tapestries depicting the end of the world cover mammoth walls. Extremly large statutes of faceless angels bearing mighty weaponry loom over parishoners. The lighting consists of more shadow than actual light.
It may be the most evil church I’ve ever visited.
The darkness also prevented my pictures from turning out.
On top of the moutain, towers a 150 foot cross that is visible from miles away. The base is surrounded by representations of the four authors of the gospels.
Visitors are able to walk to the base of the cross and look out at the view over the surrounding countryside.
Even with the amazing view, the air seemed tainted by the history that led to such a monument.
There are several more pictures from this visit. They start here.
Parlimentary Pictures
By Joshua and has no comments yet.
Starting here are some pictures from the infiltration of Parliment