Picasso and Santa Maria

Today we went to the Picasso Museum. Admission is free on the 1st Sunday of the month, so we were blessed to get in along with 500 amigos that were ahead of us in line. The line gave us an opportunity to take turns going into the nearby church: Santa Maria del Mar, without losing our place in line.

To make this blog completely sensory, I'll describe the smell inside Santa Maria: Eau de candle.

The church had beautiful stained glass windows. 

On one side the glass is beautiful and the sun streams in and lights up all the colors. On the other side of the church the windows are covered in black soot, most likely from Eau de candle.

Here is the magnificent organ, with some of the above referenced, soot emitting, candles.

The flying buttresses fly in:

A new stained glass window:

After church we got into the Picasso Museum. Picasso spent his early years in Barcelona so they have a lot of his early works, as well as enough work from throughout his life that you can see his incredible progression of styles. No cameras are allowed except in this small outdoor section:

No backpacks are allowed, but if you take it off your back and sling it over one shoulder like a purse, you're in. Thanks for the tip, Rick Steves! They do have lockers if you don't want to carry a purse.