Flashback Friday #4

In January 2017 I wrote several posts about the amazing Sagrada Familia which I visited with my daughter on a mother/daughter holiday to Barcelona in October 2016. A most wonderful trip even if it was quite exhausting!

On 11 July 2010, the Sagrada Familia was consecrated by Pope Benedict XVI and elevated to the status of a basilica. It is not, as some assume, a cathedral as it is without a bishop’s headquarters. But the huge dimensions of the interior is worthy of that status.

Stepping inside the Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família is like stepping into an enchanted forest. Tall trees towering above us; their branches creating a canopy. The streams of coloured light; the verticality and the enormous, seemingly empty space takes your breath away. At first I didn’t know what to look at, where to begin the tour, what to focus my camera on. Double-storey height windows flood the space with a light never before seen within a church.

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The nave is a sight to behold. A work of mathematical genius with natural light flooding in through clear glass leaded panels to allow as much light in as possible.

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The columns are modelled after a forest and form a light canopy of palm leaves.

ceiling

I’m not going to go into all the symbolism of the basilica, you can find that out for yourself, instead I shall just let you have a look at some of the bits that caught my eye and where I could actually get a shot without dozens of people in the way. Continue reading Flashback Friday #4

Travel Photo #1

Burens Sculpture – Paris

Su Leslie (aka Zimmerbitch) invited me to join her and other bloggers posting a travel photo a day for ten days. The deal is I also invite someone else each day to join in, and ping-back to my post. But as several bloggers I know are already busy with the challenge I am going to resort to inviting “anyone who feels like joining in”

Day Twenty-five

The theme for Becky’s  April Squares challenge is ‘top’ 

    1. On Top of the World – summit, crown, peak or uppermost part of something
    2. Under the Big Top – topping or covering (or if you’re really lucky circus)
    3. Room at the Top – first or highest in position
    4. Cherry on Top – something made even more wonderful by becoming square
    5. Top and Tail – or maybe you’d prefer to play around with word combinations such as top dog, top stitch, top full, top line, top fruit, top hat, top secret, top knot, top drawer and top dollar!
top-drawer

top-drawer (adjective) – If you describe someone or something as top-drawer, you are saying, often in a humorous way, that they have a high social standing or are of very good quality.

April Squares | Day Twenty-five

Day Twenty

The theme for Becky’s  April Squares challenge is ‘top’ 

    1. On Top of the World – summit, crown, peak or uppermost part of something
    2. Under the Big Top – topping or covering (or if you’re really lucky circus)
    3. Room at the Top – first or highest in position
    4. Cherry on Top – something made even more wonderful by becoming square
    5. Top and Tail – or maybe you’d prefer to play around with word combinations such as top dog, top stitch, top full, top line, top fruit, top hat, top secret, top knot, top drawer and top dollar!
 topless

 “Lely’s Venus”: Aphrodite surprised as she bathes. Marble, Roman copy from the 2nd century BC after an Hellenistic original. British Museum.

April Squares | Day Twenty

October Squares | Day Sixteen

This month Becky (the Queen of Squares) has challenged us to find lines. In Squares naturally. That is the only proper ‘rule’. I have been dipping into the archives for this one, as well as finding local lines.

infinity blue

A huge ceramic sculpture, rising almost to the roof of the Core building in the Eden Project, pays homage to one of the world’s smallest but most important organisms: cyanobacteria.

  • Designed by Studio Swine
  • 8.5 metres tall
  • ‘Breathes’ vapour rings

October Squares | Day 16