Barcelona day three

Today can best be described as a ‘Antoni Gaudi’ day. We went inside two of his other works, firstly a home he designed called ‘Casa Batllo’ and secondly the ‘La Pedrera’ both on the street called Passeig de Gracia.
From the outside the façade of Casa Batlló looks like it has been made from skulls and bones. The “Skulls” are in fact balconies and the “bones” are supporting pillars.
Gaudi used colours and shapes found in marine life as inspiration for his creativity in this building e.g. the colours chosen for the façade are those found in natural coral.
The building was designed by Gaudi for Josep Batlló, a wealthy aristocrat, as an upmarket home. Señor Batlló lived in the lower two floors with his family and the upper floors were rented out as apartments.
This building is a stunning and original work. (see pics) again it is amazing to see how much attention to detail Gaudi spent on his designs. Thinking about such things as varying window size depending on how high the window was from the top of the building. In this way he could ensure uniform lighting conditions in each room of the house. Then there was the font used specifically for the apartment numbers on the door or the door handles all modeled in brass based on his own hands fit.
The other building was the ‘La Pedrera’ built between 1906 and 1910 for Milà family.
This is one of the main Gaudí residential buildings and a most imaginative house, this building is more an sculpture than a building.
The façade is an impressive, varied and harmonious mass of undulating stone without straight lines where also the forged iron is present in the shapes of balconies imitating vegetal forms.
The lofts are supported by the traditional Catalan “totxo” (brick) arching walls following the style developed by Gaudí.
The roof chimneys designing in vanguard shapes remember warriors in a forest of surprising figures.
The building was recognized by Unesco as “World Heritage” in 1984.
Both of these buildings would be a builders nightmare as there does not appear to be a straight line any where, but are amazing to see.
Then we looked for some where for lunch and found an authentic Braseria called Campechano that was obviously poplar with locals. After the waiter translated the menu in pigeon English we ended up with a nice 3 course lunch plus drinks for €20.
From here we bused around some more of the tourist spots without getting off until close to the ‘Museum Erotica’ the name says it all. It was a museum of sexual habits and excitements down through the ages and in different cultures.
Then we visited a food market and got some free freshly squeezed fruit juice and some fruit packs for later. By this time it was 9:00pm so we headed back to the Hotel.