Before our current road trip through Southern France we spent a few days in Barcelona recuperating from the gotta-see-it-all site seeing we had done in Paris and visiting Alonna’s college friend Julien.

Ben and Alonna somewhere in Barcelona

Our favorite thing about the city was Gaudí – a sort of Picasso of architecture who did most of his work toward the end of the 19th century and left a number of distinctive buildings scattered around Barcelona.  I had never heard of Gaudí before, but he’s definitely up there with Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry.  Probably the best way to describe his work is organic, he tried to mimic nature as much as he could (“there are no straight lines in nature”).  His buildings resemble malformed beehives, or perhaps normal buildings with tumors.   To me, the real genius of architecture is how they look on the inside rather than the outside, not sure why.  It’s impossible to capture his buildings in pictures, but here’s a few anyway:

La Segrada Familia

Segrada Familia Interior

The Wave at Park Güell

Other than that, Barcelona was HOT.  Don’t visit in August.  Even Barcelonans don’t stay in Barcelona in August if they can help it.