Tile

As I mentioned, I've been up for a while, everyone else is asleep, I just got that work I had to do finished, so let's post pics and blog madly with this fantastic Wi-fi here in Charlotte.

I really liked Barcelona (my daughter LOVED it and is ready to move there), but I think Sicily still wins. It was more..different. But then I must confess that even though we stayed in an apartment rather than a hotel in Spain, and it wasn't in a heavily touristed area, we still did mostly touristy things. That is, we weren't alone in castles and small vulcanic formations as much as we were in Sicily. In fact, we weren't alone at all. Standing in passport control in ATL, Katie said, "Oh, how great to hear English again!" and I said, "What? That's all I've been hearing for the past four days..." That and German. Oh, and a lot of Spanish and Catalan, yes. But much English, as well.

I will certainly think of tile when I think of Barcelona. Not just the broken, brilliant Gaudi tile, but also the tile we saw on roofs and facades, and even every day in our apartment:











Apartment via Negre BCN apartments - highly recommended.

It was one of the better orientations I've received for a vacation rental - very thorough and helpful, the apartment was spotless and charming - even though the lock on the front door of the building kind of drove me crazy. I always had to stand there and fiddle with it, feeling quite stupid, every time. But look at it - isn't it charming? Two bedrooms, tiny but usable bathroom, tiny but usable kitchen, especially since it was used mostly for holding Golden Grahams.

Across the stret was more tile, at the parish of S Francisco de Sales.

...this church is one of the most original and relatively modern ones in Barcelona. It's part of the Colegio de los Hermanos Maristas. This rather impressive building, dating back to the end of the 19th century, is made in plain red brick and decorated with colorful tiles and ceramics. Its architect, Joan Martorell, succeeded in giving the work the idea of reaching for the skies by using narrow and long capitals.

I took this late Sunday afternoon. It was opened, I discovered, because a baptism was about to happen. My camera's battery ran out of juice right after I snapped this, so you don't get the full effect, which is something - this all over the church, and more. Lovely.

 






This isn't tile, but I'll just toss the photo up here anyway. It was one of the views from our window - if you look at that rose-colored strip down the front of the building, you'll see the decorative images near the top: bats!