10-21: Gaudi Stands Alone

Plot and Duck visited four of the most famous Antoni Gaudi sites in the city of Barcelona. Of these, the first was without parallel. It is called the Battlo House and was built in the first decade of the 1900s.

Sagrada Familia cathedral, a work began by Gaudi around the same time and unfinished still today, though work continues around the clock and has since 1926 when Gaudi died, defies the way you will ever look at a church again. This is quite a thing to say here in the Country of Cathedrals.

But with all its fantasmigorical construction, it is still a church. All the stained glass in the world can't hide dear old twisted and suffering Jesus suspended from what looks like a giant jellyfish suspended over the pulpit.

And the building is so enormous it loses its human scope. You stand in awe in Sagrada Famila, but Plotnik wants to move into Casa Battlo.

The third site, Parc Guell feels like someone let Maurice Sendak loose with a blueprint in his hand. And maybe Plot and Duck were tired when they saw Casa Mila. They charge you a lot to get in, then show you almost nothing. To both Plot and Duck, nothing compares to Casa Battlo and Sacrada Famila Cathedral, BUT those Jesi-like sculptures on the roof of Casa Mila, dreamed up by Gaudi around 1900, are indeed where George Lucas got the idea.

Gaudi takes Plotnik's breath away, most of all with his audacity. There has almost certainly never been another like him.

We can't sort photos. But here are a bunch. By the way, tonight we are in cozy Girona, said to be the birthplace of kabbalah. We haven't seen Madonna anywhere, though her namesakes are easy to locate. It's nice to have a few days away from Barcelona.