Museum Hopper

After we wrapped up in Casa Batllo, we headed over to La Pedrera  or Casa Mila .  Jason had bought two tickets to La Pedrera, one for a day time tour and one for a guided night time tour.   I’ll start with the day time tour.  We again bought a specific entry time for this.  We were there late afternoon and it was relatively quiet.  For this apartment complex, you start in the top floor, move out to the roof, and head down to an example apartment.  The family that owned this building lived on the second floor (1 floor in Spain) since this ensured that they did not have to rely on elevators.  Penthouses were not popular in the 1910s!  Jason’s favorite fun fact is that they had the first underground parking structure in Spain!  Gaudi was moving towards the combination of nature and Catholic religion in his designs.  Entrance to the "penthouse" on the second floor You have the option to take the stairs up, but...

After Sagrada Familia, we headed over to the Casa Batllo .  It was within (a long) walking distance.   We bought tickets in advance for this as well.  Of the Gaudi spots that we visited, this was probably my least favorite, but we (obviously) still enjoyed it.   At this visit, we were given virtual reality tablets to get a perspective on what the house looked like when people lived in.  What surprised us was that people still use/live in parts of the building.   This was initially a "normal" apartment building that an owner hired Gaudi to come in and transform. Entrance to the main floor of the building In the former main living space Ceiling in main front room The main floor feels a bit like you are in an aquarium  through most of the apartment building really. View of the street -- practical windows that open to get the fresh air The back patio is outside of the master bedroom on the second floor of...

I booked a few things in advance for Rome, one of which was the Galleria Borghese .  The museum requires booking a two  hr time slot.   When we went at the end of June, they were booked for the entire upcoming week, so I do recommend booking your slots in advance.   Everyone is ushered in at the same time and then they clear the museum out very promptly.   And for that reason, I would recommend getting there even a bit on the early side, since you do have to go through security to get in, which caused a bit of a queue.   I would want to maximize the time in there.  Since it is relatively small, the art work they had was quite concentrated and strong.  There were audio guides that you could purchase, but we ended up not getting those.  They had some printed "placemats" in each room in English that we both read.  They were comprehensive enough to understand what we needed to look at in every room.  One tour group did have ...

Our first stop in Monaco was to head up to where the royal family lives, the Palace State Apartments .  We got up there a little earlier than the palace opens.  It turns out that our phones with our Europe sim cards did not work in Monaco, so we were navigating “data” blind. We walked around the top of Monaco while we waited for the palace to open.  I recommend getting to the museum either right before it opens (so that you are first one in) OR come solidly after opening.  We squeezed in right before three (seemingly) huge tour groups.  The museum did give us audio guides.  They were very thorough audio recordings.  They also had the most awesome pronunciation of Monaco – something like maaan-a-co.  The recordings covered lots of details about the room.  Like the details about artist.  We get to go through ten-ish rooms of the palace.  No photographs.  They had some paintings of Princess Grace Kelly and her kids....

I have been somewhat dreading writing this post since there are so many things we could talk about here.  That being said, I was really looking forward to seeing the Sagrada Familia .   We definitely bought tickets in advance.  The tickets we selected were the "top view," which included an audio guide and a visit to the towers.  We selected the birth facade as it has better views. We picked our tickets up on the nativity side. To get to the tower, you take an elevator up and walk the stairs down.  We spent about 30 minutes in the tower.   It was a beautiful view of the city. We then spent about two hrs in the rest of the basilica.  The tour starts outside with a history about the church and Gaudi .  This was Gaudi's final work.  He started on it in taking over in the first few years of construction.  He ended up dropping all other construction to focus solely on this project.  He ended up moving close t...

This post is probably going to be rather short!  We went to the Castle de Montjuic .  I will admit that I heard the name and definitely thought we were headed to an actual castle.  It was definitely a prison / jail!   The main part of the jail is not open.  The main courtyard has some galleries.  We headed up to the roof, which had a beautiful view of Barcelona.   The museum was not very expensive to get into, so probably worth it for the views from the top.  I was a little anxious about the sun at this point! While we were there, the gallery showed scenes from the Spanish revolution.  An artist had also gone to as many of the execution sites and taken photographs of the burial sites.  It was rooms of these photographs.   Time in fortress: 45 minutes Times visited: 1 Overall: B

  One of the key places, we had to visit on the trip was Monaco, home of the Monaco Grand Prix.  And with that, when in Monaco, we had to visit the Car Collection of the Prince .  This was recommended on a number of websites, but I was a little apprehensive as to what to expect.   It is a little off the beaten path in Monaco (and our data plan didn't work in Monaco!)  It was one huge room.  It was not very busy either, which was rare in Monaco and on our trip overall.  I was surprised! We did buy tickets in advance as group ticket that included the royal apartments.  I think we got a slight discount buying them together; otherwise, you really did not need to buy this ticket in advance.   It truly is a private, eclectic collection.  It ranged from early cars to high performance super cars to truly quirky and unique cars.  The cars arranged chronologically.   Take this car for example -- Jason said he has...