{"id":825,"date":"2023-11-09T22:51:14","date_gmt":"2023-11-09T20:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laszlo8360.com\/?p=825"},"modified":"2025-10-15T22:15:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T20:15:16","slug":"barcelona-2023-november-09","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laszlo8360.com\/en\/barcelona-2023-november-09\/","title":{"rendered":"Barcelona, 2023 november 09."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Az \u00fcvegm\u0171vesek temploma. |
The church of the glassmakers. |
L’\u00e9glise des verriers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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November 9, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MEALS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I managed to crawl out of bed this morning. Even though, if I want to adapt to the local conditions, any time until lunch counts as morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reka would be so happy about this habit. I think this city would inspire her. Not that she needs external sources of inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, let’s look at my usual simple breakfast: a nice baguette and a local salami from the supermarket, in our case, chorizo. All of this for only two euros. I sit in a park, savor the freshness. I don’t crave anything until the evening, just a bit of fruit. Recently, I’ve also developed a habit of fruit juices; I can drink a liter in one morning. It’s enjoyable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My ticket for the basilica is scheduled for one and a half hours. The walk would be half an hour, but I take my time. I have my breakfast in a park along the way, look at the tourist shops selling trinkets. The normal stuff isn’t on the tourist stalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SAGRADA FAM\u00cdLIA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact that I enter through a door that looks like a realistic bush already indicates Gaudi’s love for nature. And of course, his richness of details. Every randomly thrown motif is carefully crafted. And there are many of them. No wonder that, one hundred and forty years later, the building is still only half finished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I enter, my breath stays behind. What a sensation of light. How is this possible? Barely a window is visible from the outside. Such a feeling of space. But why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a spacious forest of columns. There’s almost no painting, but every column throws a thousand colors everywhere. As if they built a durable structure around the pink stained glass windows. I think this could easily be the temple of glassmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I go in and look everywhere. I don’t search for the altar with my eyes. Actually, maybe I wouldn’t even find it on the first try. Because there’s no main attraction here. The entire interior nave is a unified work of art. I’m looking for the lighting, then my next thought is: anyway, why? The whole interior is bathed in light. There are almost only columns and windows. Finally, viewed from the inside. Thanks to the colorful stained glass, nothing dazzles, but rather a subdued admiration fills the space. I wonder what color the walls are at night when the pink stained glass doesn’t tint the walls left by the materials. Will it still shine like a paradise? Will it keep the airy and spacious feeling? There’s almost no painting. Yet, there’s no empty surface. Everything has a pattern, which is also a symbol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if you don’t feel the dimensions – maybe because there are no large continuous surfaces. Nevertheless, the numbers speak for themselves. The central nave is forty-five meters high. This means that Reka’s ten-story apartment could easily fit in the middle. Anyway. Because the total diameter of the five naves is also forty-five meters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, I wonder whose idea the construction was and why? What was the motivation? Because it’s certainly not a proclamation of human greatness. Because there’s nothing monumental here. Monumentality is only in the numbers. 172.5 meters high. Sixty meters between the two side facades. The longest length of the temple is ninety meters. And all of this in an airspace! Moreover, if I add the cloister, the terrace, the small chapels, possibly the streets closed due to the crowd, the parks, then we get the dimensions of an entire neighborhood in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think construction will never end here because once they finish construction, renovation will begin in the building that will then be a century and a half old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, the lamps are in place. They are disguised as windows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have a bit of a feeling that all this doesn’t speak of the worship of the idol but of celebration. We came to celebrate birth, life, death. Celebrate everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I note that I’m not an expert, but it seems to me that this is a church based on Gothic foundations with Art Nouveau – Modernist decoration. Excessively decorated with an exaggerated amount (and therefore sometimes a kitsch feeling) of details. It would be more accurate to characterize it in a few words: detail-rich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the way, there’s a mini garden on the roof. You can’t see it from the street, between the west facade and the towers, they showed it in the digital presentation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I just sit and watch, there’s nothing like it. There really is nothing like it anywhere else. Really, this is not a miracle, because I saw the workers out there. I’m looking for words. What expresses both intimacy, greatness, majesty, pomp, peace, and balance with our environment? Fourth organ performance. So, I’ve been sitting in the same place for two hours and just looking for the right words. I’ve visited over four hundred cities, but I’ve never seen anything like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CHOCOLATE TONGUE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the basilica, I managed to miscount two squares on the grid – floor plan. That’s how I treated myself to an extra twenty-minute walk while finding an excellent artisanal coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At six o’clock, I arrived at the chocolate museum in the El Born district. My level of French is quite funny because I didn’t understand the words themselves, but I thought the receptionist would probably explain to me that I should first scan the barcode on the gift chocolate, then the door would open. Then she asked me a question, I told her I didn’t want it. (Later, it turned out she was asking if I understood. Was it okay? She looks at me with a “this is silly” expression. She asks if I’m French. I tell her no, I just work here, that’s why I have an accent. She told me her little sentence in French with two simple sentences to explain that it’s the code, there the scanner, and there’s the entrance. Ah, then it’s fine. I go. It’s about a half-hour program. With the six-euro entrance ticket, free chocolate, it’s a good value for money. It’s not exactly the level and content of the Valrhona chocolate museum, but for a chocolate enthusiast like me, it’s a good program. The chocolate sculptures are beautiful, they clearly explain the origin stories of cocoa and the process of making cocoa butter. By the way, in the other part of the building, there is a pastry school. It has glass walls, you can take a peek at the training. It’s rare to find a place where chocolate is labeled with the indication of the growing area. That’s their big selling point. After the six-euro entrance ticket, I bought gourmet chocolates for eighteen euros.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LOVE FOR PAELLA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ate a pan of seafood. In Hungary, I’m not willing to touch an ordinary carp, but here, I categorically refuse. With black rice. That crispy shrimp has a divine taste. All of this has a reason: last season, I had to break the backs of live lobsters. While they were alive. Then I squeezed the liquid from the squid with my two little hands. Since it happened that way, I tasted it. That’s kind of how paella is everyday here because yesterday, at the hotel,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the waitress, just casually, while reading, served a vegetarian version. I love it. Yes, the girl was nice too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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