Casa Batllo

We went to another Gaudi house called Casa Batllo yesterday and it was magnificent.  I took terrible pictures, but I'll show them to you anyway.

First we went to lunch because we're not much fun on an empty stomach.  I had duck with a red wine reduction:

Yum!  Aaron had roasted chicken:

Also yum!  Now we're ready for Gaudi!  The Batllo House was originally owed by someone else (I can't remember who, it's not important) and designed by Gaudi in 1877.  It was a classical building and had no remarkable characteristics.  It was purchased by The Batllo Family in 1900 and in 1904 they commissioned Gaudi to redesign it as he saw fit.  They wanted it to be totally unique and knew Gaudi was the man for the job.  The renovation lasted from 1904-1906.  It's known as one of the most unique houses in Barcelona and a Gaudi masterpiece.  Here's the front:

It's nicknamed "House of Bones" because of the bone-like pillars on the main window.

When we entered, we saw this "spine" staircase.

and these intricate vases:

All the walls had this scale pattern:

and when you get up really close, you notice it's all HAND-PAINTED!  Marvelous!

We got these audio guides for a self-guided tour around the house.  They were also interactive, as they displayed pictures of the room we were in as the Batllo family and Gaudi had it decorated in 1906:

Okay, so this room looks the same...boring!  Let's go upstairs!

Ah ha!  I found a difference!

Whoa!  That's a trip!  It's basically only furniture, but still neat to see where they put everything.  

Moving right along:

This fireplace is shaped like a mushroom:

Okay, time for a **DISCLAIMER** There are people everywhere and it's impossible to take any pictures without people in them, so just try to Photoshop them out with your mind.  And yes, I'm well aware that usually the main people walking through my pictures are Aaron and Beard (it's an entity within itself), so Photoshop them too if you must.

We're now walking into the main room (the bones window from the outside):

As you can tell, I'm obsessed with this ceiling and this fixture.  Amazing.

Here's the bones window:

Isn't it gorgeous in it's uniqueness?  Even random doors and staircases are completely thought out and unlike anything I've ever seen.  

The tiny details are quite impressive and can't be captured in pictures (especially with my crap iPhone).

The courtyard in the middle of the building is tiled and goes from white (at the bottom) to dark blue (at the top).  It's ombre before there was even a word for it!

It was impossible to get a picture showing the ombre, so I took pictures as we walked from level to level:

I want this in my house!

Next room:

This is supposed to look like a droplet of water falling into a pond upside down (remember Gaudi used things in nature as his ultimate inspiration), but even the audio guide admitted it looked like a nipple:

Hey, nipples are in nature too!

Back patio:

So back in the day, they had a covered patio:

And this installation was for flowers:

Building from the back:

Detailing on the roof:

Back inside, we took a short break on weird orb chairs:

More light fixtures I'm obsessed with:

and another random cool door:

This scaling was done with iridescent paint and I LOVE it:

It shines as you walk by.  I'm doing this in my house!  See, up close you can tell it's done by hand:

 This must've taken FOREVER (you can't tell, but I'm saying 'forever' like they do in The Sandlot).

I found a video of it because I couldn't stop saying it.

Another Gaudi chair collection:

We watched a Gaudi-inspired video on this model of the building:

I missed the first 10 seconds...oops!

This staircase takes you to the roof:

Here we go!

O.M.G.

This famous street-facing side of the roof represents the spine and scales of a dragon:

It's so Gaudi, I can't even take it.

Attic:

Again, so very Gaudi.

Gift shop had neat, but ridiculously expensive trinkets, such as these mini sculptures of Gaudi's famous works:

Gaudi was famous for the tiniest details, including handles.  He shaped all the door/window handles in his houses using his own hands, so they would be ergonomic and fit perfectly to your hand:

The ones on the far left are the ones I've seen in most Gaudi attractions and if you want them in your house, they are not cheap!  The price made Aaron want to jump out the window:

This is what I wanted:

Perfect way to end our stay at Casa Batllo.

On the way home, we stopped to try a churro (they're kind of a thing here):

Unfortunately we ended up getting the most expensive (2.50 for this tiny turd!) and most stale churro in existence.  Churros here are done with chocolate.  You can get them chocolate covered like this, or fresh with a cup of chocolate and you dip at your leisure.  I wanted the latter, but didn't go on enough of a hunt before I just needed to shove my face in one, hence the grossest churro ever.  Churros here are nothing like back home, they aren't coated in cinnamon/sugar, it's just chocolate, so it basically just tastes like a donut.  In fact, it tasted exactly like a donut.  Wow, I really went on and on about churros, sorry.

We got a coin at Casa Batllo and added it to our coin collection:

We're total nerds.  Not to mention each one of these costed 3 Euros!  This is 9 Euros worth of worthless coins.  Yay, tourism!

Today, we walked around the Gothic neighborhood, so look forward to that coming soon!