Contents

  1. Preface
  2. San Francisco
  3. Amsterdam
  4. Amsterdam, Helmond
  5. Amsterdam, Zandvoort, Haarlem
  6. Amsterdam, Bruges
  7. Bruges, Brussels, Cologne, Berlin
  8. Berlin
  9. Berlin, Potsdam
  10. Berlin, Wansee
  11. Berlin, Prague
  12. Prague
  13. Prague, Karlstejn, Vienna
  14. Vienna
  15. Vienna, Salzburg, Füssen
  16. Füssen, Neuschwanstein, Munich
  17. Munich, Innsbruck
  18. Innsbruck
  19. Innsbruck, Zürich, Lauterbrunnen
  20. Lauterbrunnen, Jungfraujoch
  21. Lauterbrunnen, Schilthorn
  22. Lauterbrunnen, Spiez, Zermatt
  23. Zermatt
  24. Zermatt, Martigny, Chamonix
  25. Chamonix, Mont Blanc
  26. Chamonix, Mont Blanc, Courmayeur, Aosta, Turin
  27. Barcelona
  28. Barcelona, Sitges
  29. Barcelona
  30. Milan, Venice
  31. Venice
  32. Venice
  33. Venice, Milan, Cinque Terre
  34. Cinque Terre, La Spezia
  35. Cinque Terre, Pisa, Lucca, Florence
  36. Florence
  37. Florence
  38. Florence, Siena
  39. Siena, San Gimignano, Rome
  40. Rome
  41. Rome
  42. Rome, Sorrento
  43. Sorrento, Vesuvius, Pompeii
  44. Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi, Ravello
  45. Sorrento, Capri, Naples
  46. Naples, Bari
  47. Patras, Athens, Mykonos
  48. Mykonos
  49. Mykonos
  50. Mykonos, Paros, Santorini
  51. Santorini
  52. Santorini, Athens
  53. Athens
  54. Athens, Amsterdam, San Francisco


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28. Barcelona

This morning I visited MACBA, the Contemporary Art Museum, near my hotel. This housed a large temporary exhibit of work by Robert Whitman, a New York artist. Compared with the small number of works which cross the Atlantic to the US, the pre-twentieth-century European art I was finding during my trip was staggering. But for modern art, it seems the Americans may even have the upper hand — I often found more references to Warhol and others than to contemporary European artists.

Next I walked down Las Ramblas to Barcelona's Picasso Museum, an interesting and crowded chronological exhibit with lots of the artist's early work (quite different from the later stuff) in a lovely medieval-style building. After a reasonably cheap lunch of the local fish bacalao at Restaurante Peru by the harbor (with a nice open wireless network), I took the funicular up the hill of Montjuïc. This would have been a good place to go when I first arrived — great view over the city from the castle at the top. Also in this park, I visited the Joan Miro museum, with lots of the artist's book illustrations. Finally, I looked for the Font del Gat, but as in Sitges the guide's directions were totally inadequate. After going way off track, I think I got pretty close just below the Palau Nacional. But then it was time to go. I would also have liked to visit the Poble Espanol nearby, a park containing replicas of famous buildings from all over Spain, but time was too short.

Now it was time for the second (and fortunately, last) night train, bouncing back to Milan at 20:38. This time I had only two roommates, so it was a little less cramped. A cute young biologist from Seville, and an older man from Turin. Italian and Spanish are so similar that they can easily understand each other, but they also speak enough English to keep me from getting completely bored.

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