Barcelona - episode 6

Sunday, our last full day in Barcelona and another cold, wet day. Emma and Brit had told us about the Hospital Sant Pau and that they thought that it was worth a visit so on their advice we set off to find it. There is a pedestrian walk, similar to La Rambla, which runs between The Sagrada Familia and the old Hospital Sant Pau but  because of the rain we went on the metro to the stop with the same name as the hospital only to discover that we had arrived at the very new Sant Pau hospital, not the old one. After much consulting of the map and asking for directions we made it to the old hospital - and what an amazing place it is.

 There are conducted tours in different languages and sure enough, by the time we got to the right place inside the hospital grounds the English language tour had gone, but another guide offered to take Barry and I around which was very decent of her. In the chatting it was discovered that she had been Emma and Brit's guide a couple of weeks before, a nice coincidence.

This photo is of a picture of the hospital. The bright light is the reflection of a ceiling light.  

 The front building was the hospital entrance, administration and admission block. Each separate building behind is for the specific areas of medicine. On the left side of each building is a water tower and on the right side is the day room. All the buildings are connected by underground tunnels.

We were getting geared up (hairnets, hard hats and fluro jackets) which we had to wear because it's classified as a construction site when 2 more people arrived. I think that they are Chinese, they spoke very good English, surprise surprise - not, and they were happy to join us on the tour. Turned out they are both nuns. It was great that there were only 4 of us on the tour. It was like we had our own personal guide - a very ernest lady with a real  passion for the hospital. 

  All dressed up and ready to go inside.

It was one of the most interesting places I have been in. Again, it's the thinking behind the design that I really, really like. 

A snippet of background info from Wikipedia -  'a wealthy banker from a Catalan bourgeois family who had emigrated to Paris, Pau Gil i Serra, bequeathed some of his fortune for the construction of a new hospital in Barcelona, the Hospital de Sant Pau. His will stipulated, among other things, that the building had to be the best hospital from technological, medical and architectural points of view, and that it had to bear his name.

As a result, the Hospital de la Santa Creu Board and the executors of Pau Gil's will joined forces and agreed to build the Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, a project that solved the healthcare crisis in the city and its environs. The architect commissioned for the job was Lluís Domènech i Montaner (1850-1923), a major figure in the Catalan Art Nouveau movement known as Modernisme'.

The building of the hospital began in 1902 and to was opened in 1930. The bottom line philosophy for the design and construction was that the patients would have natural light, sunshine and fresh air along with beautiful spaces, both inside and out, accessible to them for their use and well being. Rainwater was collected, fresh air vents are everywhere and each building had a  'day room'  with floor to ceiling windows - I simply cannot describe all that this entailed and do this place justice. You'll just have to go to Barcelona and see it for yourself.

The new hospital came into action in 2009 and this one, which has been designated a World Heritage Site, is now under reconstruction/refurbishment and will become a center for international organisations involved in education, sustainability and health. Apparently tours will continue to be conducted during and after the  reconstruction.

 Water tower on the left and day room on the right

  

Looking up

   I think this is where the operating theaters were. Our guide is the lady on the left - they are standing by an entrance to the tunnel system

    

   one of the wards - look at all the windows.

   

 The front entrance from the outside. From here we turned our backs on the hospital and ambled down to the Sagrada Familia

  

   and there it is right in front of us once again.

   

and here we are, too.

It was a shame that the weather was still crappy, not conducive to wandering along all over the place at all.  Sometimes the rain was really heavy and after a while we were just wet and cold so the we headed for the metro and back to the apartment to put more clothes on. 

Karl, of the Ruth and Karl partnership  who'd come to Azpeitia, had told Barry that he thought that La Pedrera, another Gaudi  edifice, was well worth a visit, especially the roof. We'd gone there the day before but the roof was closed because of the weather so we decided that we'd come back another time. However, given that the weather on this day was no different we decided to go there the next morning before getting the train back to San Sebastian. 

Instead we went to find the Picasso Museum. Well, we did find it along with a very, very long queue

The photo was taken just before the entrance and once inside the queue wound backwards and forwards like the queues at airport check-in counters. We reckoned that if we got on the end of the queue we'd still be waiting the next morning. Needless to say we weren't doing that so we called the day quits and off we went to find some dinner. I must have used the flash because it was actually quite dark when I took this photo. Opposite the museum entrance were 2 musicians standing in a doorway playing. The photo below was taken without the flash just after I took the photo of the queue. One of the guys had a violin and the other a small piano accordion. They packed up just after this. Can't say I blame them because it was so, so wet and cold.

   

   Opposite our apartment building is a huge Chinese restaurant - we went in there for dinner and found the biggest Chinese buffet EVER! There was everything, well, except for 'chilli hot' anything. 

it was a decent price and full of Chinese people so must have been ok and enough of a recommendation so we tucked in. It was pretty good, but, I have to say that Kingsland's Canton Cafe still wins hands down, no question. And that was another day done.

The next day we were off to La Pedrera, rain, hail or otherwise.