Rail & Art Trip Spain · 2022
Barcelona · Valencia · Madrid · Bilbao
February 27, 2022
Modern Art and the Fire at the Guggenheim - Railtrip Spain II.
he Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, the city of arts and sciences, in Valencia, is one surreal looking complex of art and architecture. But near the end of our trip, we find an even more uniquely fantastic building and setting: the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. There we find a fog sculpture that billows toward us and from which an oversized spider rises. And at night, flames emerge from the fog, shooting upwards.
Come along to the second part of our train journey through Spain. As we leave the classic romance of southern European old-town alleys and begin to explore the fascinating modern art that can be much more fascinating than a meaninglessly daubed canvas that someone bought at auction for $90 million at Sotheby's.
February 3, 2022
Barcelona and the Architect of Dreams - Railtrip Spain I.
The oddly shaped stones above the entrance to Barcelona's still unfinished Basilica, Sagrada Família, hang over my head like a menacing colony of huge, stone rags. This bizarrely eccentric and monumental building of the century, designed by visionary and artist Antoni Gaudí, has been under construction for 140 years.
When my boyfriend and I heard about this building—not on Tripadvisor or in a guidebook, by the way, but in Dan Brown's bestseller Origin—we knew that we had to go and see it in person! So, it is off to Spain. And if you're already there, you might as well throw yourself into the train (in, not in front of!) and travel through northern Spain for two weeks on a hunt for art and madness. That's exactly what we did. But let's start with Gaudí’s Barcelona. Where we find the church of all churches, mosaic parks, labyrinths, and gothic alleys.