Bougainvillea

Walking along the beach at Sant Pol de Mar near Barcelona I spotted these beautiful bougainvilleas hanging from a white balcony right in front of the sea. Don't forget to check my previous posts about flowers.

barcelona barcelona+photoblog barcelona+photos barcelona+pictures barcelona+photography barcelona+images bougainvillea nikon+d70s

Corn Cobs: An Ackward Design by Mother Nature

Feeding human kind from time immemorial, corn or maize, from Spanish maíz, is the largest crop in all of the Americas. Ears are female inflorescences. The tufts of hair are stigmas known as silks. Young ears are edible even if raw but once the cob grows in the summer it becomes tougher and the silk dries so you innevitably have to cook it before it dries. Maize is used as a biomass fuel, such as ethanol, to reduce fuel costs. Such practice has caused an increase in food costs and results in extremely profitable crops for farmers who obviously reject other products. The use of hybrids has grown substantially and big extensions of forest soil have been cleared up for the sake of money at all cost. Little by little, who knows, we will have "greener" cars on an emptier stomach. Talking about green and ecology, Mr. Al Gore, the Nobel peace laureate, received the prestigious Prince of Asturias award in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo.

Links to the kind fellow bloggers that have tagged me recently: Budapest Daily Photo by Zsolt, Flagstaff Daily Photo and this one goes to Sydney Daily Photo by Sally for all I owe to her :)

barcelona barcelona+photoblog barcelona+photos barcelona+pictures barcelona+photography corn barcelona+images nikon+d70s

Casa de Convalescencia, Sant Pau Hospital, Barcelona

Casa de Convalescència, on the corner of San Quintin and Maria Claret streets, is part of Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau and was built by Pere Domènech i Roura, Lluís Domènech i Montaner's son. Pere Domenech was a cathedratic professor at the School of Architecture of Barcelona and architect director of the 1929 Barcelona International Exposition.

Meant to be a maintenance building it finally lodged the wards for terminal patients and a church.

Back in 1969 it was granted to UAB (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona). At present it is the headquarters of Fundació UAB, Fundació Doctor Robert and Josep Laporte library, UAB Idiomes Barcelona (language school), Institut de Ciències de l'Educació and Escola de Doctorat i de Formació Continuada.

This representative of the last stages of Catalan Art Nouveau or modernisme is the perfect place for important events in the health field which in fact are held more than often in its high quality facilities.

Today's picture was taken inside the Aula Magna, a place that is not open to general public. Tourists are only allowed in the entrance hall on the way to the hospital venues.

I wanted to share this beauty with all of you, the amazing brick work of the dome and the light coming through the elaborate stained glass windows.

See also this link to all my posts featuring Sant Pau Hospital.