I was asked a question about  how I felt about the galleries we visited in the previous post. Both MACBA and Tapies are excellent galleries. I would not make a special trip to Barcelona for them unless you had an unusual interest in Spain’s development from the civil war through the end of Franco. That being said if you were in Barcelona for any time and had a day to explore, do not miss them. Today as we prepare to depart in the morning we took the funicular from the Para’llel station to Mountjuik (Mount of Jews!) and  went to the Museu Nacional D’Arte de Catalunya. Add this one to the list of must see. We spent almost 4 hours just in the “modern” art galleries 1890’s to 1950’s. It also happens to be a short walk from the Miro. Also the lunch in the dining room on 2nd Floor was amazing with great views out a huge window

There are reasons beyond art galleries to come to Barcelona. Yesterday we took a tour of the Palau de la Música Catalana in the morning. 

This glass box contains an acoustically wonderful concert hall as we heard in performance last night. The program was listed as Bach Partita #1 Bernat Prat violinist and Adrian Diaz Martin, trompa accompanied by piano for the second half. I never looked up trompa and just assumed it was trumpet. To my absolute delight  Martin walked on stage with his french horn (trompa!) and played  3 pieces: Vignery,sonata for horn and piano; R Strauss, Andante for Horn and piano  and Bowen, Sonata for horn and piano. We were entranced! According to the guide in the morning there are about 300 performances a year in the building including the large hall and a new small hall beneath the terrace. For those who don’t know my instrument in my youth was French Horn.

We are preparing to leave Barcelona so glad we took the 7 days here to get to know it. What we learned is that even more time is required to get past just scratching the surface.