Gin and Tonic at Casa Fuster, Barcelona

Gin and tonics have been with us since 1858. I have missed millions of them since then but the way things are going I will be catching up soon. Now that you know one of my favorite hobbies...taking pictures of spirited beverages while enjoying them, I think you'll agree with me that a place may be the extra additive that makes all the difference. Casa Fuster, a historical building restored into a five star hotel, is a great place to try your favorite gin while admiring the incredible modernist architecture and the colorful furniture of its Café Vienés.

Kids Don't Care, Barri de Gracia, Barcelona

Here is a scene older than history, repeated over and over again in every place on earth. Who hasn't be an actor in this play? 

Look at these children, everybody is having fun in their own crazy way and yet it all seems as if there was some kind of plan. I am sure, there was a first call, a starting idea: hey, wanna play? Yep, it always began just like that, with a simple, unbiased act of human communication later hidden under hundreds of layers of social 'learning'. 

The place: Plaça Rius i Taulet, one of those wonderful squares worth visiting in the bohemian Barri de Gracia, in Barcelona. There is a big tower with a clock in the middle so no way you can miss the square. Those giants (Cat. gegants) out there at the back, have names, they are called, Pau and Llibertat and they are about to give those kids yet another happy day before they grow up.

Art Nouveau Mosaics: The Trencadis Technique

Parc Güell, that amazing jewel of Art Nouveau, where Gaudi left his unmistakable legacy in spite of being part of a housing project that was bound to fail, is a vast green area where your eyes are immediately seduced by curious shapes, impossible lines, incredible designs and innovative ideas. Such is the case of the mosaic benches around the square facing the entrance to the park. Serpentine benches waving around the central arena, feature spectacular combinations of colorful shards of mosaic that apparently at first sight do not make any sense but that are part of an intelligent meaningful composition, a sort of magic snake showing off her shiny scales on top the 86 Doric columns that hold the square. The scales are really thousands of little shards, fragments of mosaic carefully assembled to create a sort of mural in which chaos generates beauty and such technique is called trencadis.