texans on the autobahn

Pobles Espanol and MNAC museum

On Thursday, we would head out for another day of walking to visit Pobles Espanol situated on the Montjuic hill, overlooking the city centre. There we visited the Spanish Village, Poble Espanyol, which is a collection of Spanish architecture, with copies of buildings from all of Spain's regions. The students were given as assignment of choosing four cultures, learning about the buildings, food, art, etc, and then compare them to each other to determine the main differences. We ate lunch at a restaurant in the village and Sam and I tried paella for the first time, a delicious traditional Spanish dish of rice and seafood. The afternoon involved a trip to the MNAC, a museum of Spanish medieval art. It is housed in a magnificent palace that overlooks the city. Once there we toured for a couple of hours, and everyone was exhausted. After a short break on the steps of the museum, taking in the view and a bit of coffee for Senor Lopez and myself, we took another short walk – although really, when you feel like you’ve already walked 20 kilometers, there is no such thing as a short walk – we visited Estadi Olímpic built in 1929 for the Great Exhibition of 1929, with the idea that Barcelona would then host the 1936 Olympics (ultimately staged in Hitler's Berlin). Barcelona celebrated the attainment of its long-cherished goal by renovating the semiderelict stadium in time for 1992, providing seating for 70,000. Finally we headed back to the Metro and Las Ramblas for food (including several dozen orders of Dunkin Donuts) and back to the hotel.

posted by stuckinthemiddle @ 3:22 PM