Part 61: Barcelona!! (continued again) Jan 2-4, 2013

Day 3:  Barcel-loooooonaaa!!!

On my last day in Barcelona, I stopped off a the mall in the harbor to buy a new memory card for my camera (it was a prolific trip) before walking up to the top of a giant hill to visit Castell de Montjuic.  The castle is free and if you walk around the grouds you can get some great views of the city and the sea. 

From there I andered around the Olympic park and visited the Olympic stadium.  The stadium is free to visit and has a nice little exhibition on its history. It was originally built in 1927 in an attempt to get the 1936 olympics, but that did not pan out.  It was renovated for the 1992 Olympics. 

I got back down to the city by going down many, many stairs in front of the national Art Museum.  This took me by some amazing fountains, however, none of them were working (more on those later).   My last main site in Barcelona was the Palau de la Música Catalana, another modernist building made by Lluís Domènech i Montaner.  It was spectacular (and for what they charge for the tour, it better be).  The interior of the theatre is full of windows and a giant stain glass inverted dome.  They also have the computer play the organ for you so you can experience the acoustics.  It was amazing.

The day was pretty much done and most things were closed except for the Muhba Placa Del Rei.  This museum covers the history of Barcelona by taking down in an elevator through time to the Roman archeological site and the medieval palace above it.  They also had an exhibit on how calico is made (which I had never actually thought about before and it's really cool) and a small exhibition on the history of film.   

That evening, I walked back over to Font Magica de Montjuic.  This fountain, which had been off when I walked by it earlier does a Belagio style show in the evenings.  It is impressive.  It was designed for the Olympics and one of the main songs is the theme song from the games (hence the title of this post).  It also did some Christmas songs since I was there during the holidays.  I stayed for probably more than an hour before heading off to bed.