Barcelona - Palau Güell

One of my very favorite things about Barcelona is the architecture of Antoni Gaudí; a visionary architect whose works include La Sagrada Familia, La Pedrera, and Casa Batlló. I had visited all three of these sites on previous visits to Barcelona, and my personal favorite is Casa Batlló. In the not too distant future, I will devote an entire blog post to that dragon-shaped building. On this previous visit, I went to perhaps one of the lesser known Gaudi sites in Barcelona, Palau Güell, a building located right off Las Ramblas that was recently restored in 2011. I found this building to be unlike Batllo or Pedrera. The Palau literally is a palace, a monument of iron and stone with a mutli-story central hall. Although the interior is as organic as the rest of Gaudi's work, it was very dark and heavy, characterized by touches of art nouveau with a heavy hand of gothic architecture. In this house more than the others, I found myself breathing a sigh of relief when I got up to the rooftop terrace, which in typical Gaudi fashion, is characterized by a series of colorful tile mosaic chimneys.

One of the tile mosaic chimney vents on the rooftop of Palau Güell

My favorite chimney in the foreground, with a view of the Barcelona skyline behind.

A close up of one of the mosaics.

After spending the morning in Palau Guell, I walked across Las Ramblas to Plaça Reial where I kicked back with a big, fat, delicious glass of sangria and watched the world go by. This is an awesome place for a pit stop in the city.