The Pillars of Catalan Art Nouveau or Modernisme, Palau de la Musica, Barcelona

The Palau de la Música Catalana built by Lluís Domènech i Montaner between 1905 and 1908 and declared a "World Heritage Site" by UNESCO in 1997 is considered one of the pillars of Catalan Art Nouveau or Modernisme.

In times of industrial expansion, growth of the local bourgeoisie and increasing opposition to Castilian rule a movement of artistic revival or Renaixença comes to life.

An intellectual and cultural development expressed in music, poetry, theatre, newspapers, visual arts, politics or architecture known as modernisme appears.

This sort of "anxiety" about being modern, inspired by France and other European cultural powers, became a generational fight to detach from the conservative society still anchored in the imposed manners of the early eighteenth century Bourbon dynasty.

By the way, many of you already know that it is almost impossible to frame this façade properly as the Palau is surrounded by narrow streets like Sant Pere Mes Alt  thus the odd angle.

If you manage to climb on top of the neighboring buildings and take a good picture just let me know how you did it!

Juicy Barcelona

On the way up to Plaça Sant Jaume along Jaume I street and coming from Via Layetana, there is this small cafeteria where you can stop and drink some juice made out a good selection of fruit. I am always tempted by the colors when I pass them by and I see tourists standing there refreshing their throats after a long day's walk. It is weird but I have never tried those before in this part of town, maybe because there is this secret rule that it is foolish to spend money happily in the most touristic parts of the city, especially when I have Santa Caterina market nearby and I can fix myself a bucket full of juice. Lousy tight pocket! Hey, no joking now, have a sweet happy weekend, and do try this place if you come to Barcelona.

Bush in Flames

That is all there is to it, a pile of bush in flames. A huge amount of branches in fact, next to a country road. I thought it was beautiful so I pulled over and took the risk. But upon writing this post I realized the word "bush" was great not because of President Bush of course but because it is sadly an important keyword. So as I am also interested in SEO I decided to give it a try. Thanks to this a read something about the burning bush and the miracle of God in wikipedia, so you see some bushes have enriched my knowledge. I should explore variations of the word "fire", maybe "firing Bush" or "Bush Office is on fire". We could talk about search engine optimization some other time if you are interested of course. The photograph was taken on a hurry as we were on our way to lunch and besides it was burning hot!