Hospital de Sant Pau: Gargoyles

Hospital de Sant Pau, a magnificent representative of modernism in Barcelona was projected by the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner in the year 1901. Construction finished in 1930. Of course this is a place you cannot miss if you are an art lover and it is just one subway stop away from Sagrada Familia.

Eusebi Arnau and Pau Gargallo were the sculptors of the stone figures among which you can admire these beautiful gargoyles. The pavilions have been restored and are part of a modernista complex now open to the general public. All of the previous services of the hospital were moved to the new Sant Pau Hospital  built just behind the premises.

Landscapes of Catalonia: Vallverd D'Urgell

This landscape picture was taken last month during a visit to Vallverd d'Urgell, a very small town in one of the most beautiful provinces of Catalonia: Lleida

Vallverd is famous for the Castell del Remei good wine cellars and recently for L'Estany d'Ivars i Vallverd, an old pond dried up by man that will be recovered with an ambitious 8.500.000 euros environmental plan and turned into a natural park intended to attract long gone species of birds to their primitive habitat among other purposes. I definitely enjoyed the intensity of the blue skies over the vast prairie.

Sagrada Familia: The Passion Façade Gates

The impressive portico of the Passion Façade at Sagrada Familia is full of precious details of religious scenes, verses, symbols and austere geometric forms as it is supposed to represent the Passion and Death of Christ. This part of the temple was begun in 1954. The sculptures by Josep Ma. Subirach of stern and sober design, look modern if compared to the ones on the Nativity Façade. As a "modest" sample of all that can be admired here, I show you this engraved metal gate, where among other things you can read a passage from a verse in Mathew 26:39.