Barcelona, Spain

This is another relatively extreme tourism type entry, basically I was in Barcelona one week for a work conference.
While I could have made it out of the hotel more than I did, I really only spent one afternoon taking photos and being a tourist.

SO! 3.....2.....1.... lets do it... first up I went for a leisurely stroll through Barri Gòtic (the Gothic Quarter), this was basically a recommended area for anyone with an interest in old buildings, and trendy alternative type individuals sipping lattes.

As pictured here... some old buildings! And a statue of a man on a horse!

One thing I really liked in the Gothic Quarter were these cool little side streets that were super narrow... when us dirty foreigners think of Europe, this is exactly the kind of James Bond shit we are imagining!

Here is a pretty old church, the Cathedral of Santa Eulàlia, or more simply the Barcelona Cathedral... if you are a savage mouth breathing foreigner.

Then we wandered a little further to Plaça del Rei, the "Kings Square" which is a 14th century medieval public square. Inside of which is the Museu d'Història de la Ciutat, which sadly we did not have the funds or time to visit.

This was a beautiful big statue thing... the funniest part was the creepy owl on the other side of it...

That owl wants to eat your soul.....

Here we finally made it to Sagrada Família which is a famous church designed by Anton Gaudi, to be honest one of the most hideous churches I have seen in Europe, it looks like somebody consumed a lot of psiloybin mushrooms a handful of LSD and then created a church.

And next up some photos of the venue for the conferences party, at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

And a bonus pug I spotted while out and about!

Barcelona - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barcelona
Gothic Quarter - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_G%C3%B2tic
Barcelona Cathedral - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Santa_Eul%C3%A0lia
Placa del Rei - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pla%C3%A7a_del_Rei
Sagrada Família - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia
Anton Gaudi - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoni_Gaudi
Museu Nacional Art de Catalunya - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museu_Nacional_d%27Art_de_Catalunya

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Prague, Czech Republic - the rough version

I will confess now, so as to avoid your future heartbreak... I went to Prague simply because I was going to an IAMX concert.  And I got so vigorously trashed at the concert that a lot of my tourism was conducted as an afterthought while severely jaded and hobbling around on a torn calf muscle.

But here goes...first up a quick photographic duck through the grounds of Prague Castle...

Here is yet another gold gilded gate... with requisite cherubs and such finery...

And of course the mythological hero slaying some poor fool for daring to gaze upon the gold with his filthy beggar eyes.

Haha, I hope you have the correct permissions to observe my shininess!

These guys are rather a lot like the guys at Buckingham Palace, only they use the letter Z way more often in their words.

Oh look another massive Gothic styled church...um, yes, we have seen these quite a few times now.

This one has some brightly coloured graffiti though!

This is the view from the castle grounds... you can see in the distance the Charles Bridge... its rather a big deal which is why I have no dedicated photos of it.

Then we scurried away from the seriousness of the castle..

And encountered this glorious example of street lampery!

And this... um... I don't know what this is trying to be, but it was unnerving.

Then we apparently teleported inside the world famous Astronomical Clock, which is so famous I have no pictures of that either.  But I did take this rather vertigo inducing picture of part of the main square.

And this one too, which shows the big important statue I can't remember the name or meaning of.

There was also this church, it had some significance, something about a god.

Oh good grief what this? probably some other religious thing or a town hall.... I don't know.

OH! But here are some things I do remember.

IAMX were absolutely amazing as always...even during the sound check I got to see before the show

And Chris Corner was a truly awesome man, the other meet and greet visitors and I chatted with him for a little while, we all swooned like teenage girls for a little bit, and then I watched the best gig of my life.

Ok guys that's all I have for this entry... I am actually heading back to Prague next month, so I will try to document things a little better this time around and either update this article, or write a much better one then.

References:
Astronomical Clock - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Astronomical_Clock
Prague Castle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Castle
Charles Bridge - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Bridge
IAMX - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IAMX
Chris Corner - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Corner

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Famous Graves, and Cliche Landmarks, Paris, France

The Paris Blogs... EXTREME TOURISM filler entry!

So... when we left we were still roaming around Montmartre and had just finished the visit to Espace Dali... next we had a brief stop for a coffee at one of the cafes near Place du Tertre, which is where I took this cute photo of their neat wall painting.

Then we began walking down the hill towards Montmartre Cemetery...

This random guy phasing through the wall was pretty cool... much more interesting than random graffiti.

Random shot while strolling through Montmartre... and finally we made it to the cemetery where my friend visited the grave of Vaslav Nijinsky a very famous Russian dancer, member of the Imperial Russian Ballet, witness to the Bloody Sunday massacre of St Petersburg, and schizophrenic.

I must confess this is one of the most beautiful gravestones I have ever seen...

Although this one has a certain sorrowful beauty to it too...
So having found the correct grave here, we started the trip towards Père Lachaise Cemetery to find the graves of Oscar Wilde (writer and poet) and Jim Morrison (musician and poet).

Passing by the Moulin Rouge during the day, which felt quite strange actually to see it so quiet, for contrast I include a picture of it at night...

Eventually we arrived at Père Lachaise Cemetery, and after quite a lot of walking, we found Jim Morrison's grave, it is tucked away behind several other plots, and is fenced off to prevent the public from causing any further damage to it.

His grave was quite simple really, but all around it people have written messages over the years, many peace signs and such are scattered around the immediate area, much as cemetery staff hate that.

This is Oscar Wilde's incredibly fancy tomb, which is now shielded from the kisses of his admirers since the chemicals in their lip sticks were actually eroding the stone masonry... keep that in mind people, you smear this stuff on your lips!

Aaaaand just to round this post out... here are your incredibly cliche landmarks!
Unfortunately for both, by the time I got to them conditions were not ideal and I was really unsteady on my leg, so both photos are quite bad actually... oh well its a perfect excuse to go back sometime soon and take some much nicer ones.

The Eiffel Tower did actually look somewhat pretty in the fog and hail, but there was no way I was bothering to climb up it in that weather.

And the Arc de Triomphe, I don't really know what I thought about this, it certainly is a big stone structure.... I personally think the Brandenburg Gate is prettier.

And just in case you feel studious about any of the topics in this super fast update, check the links below!

References:
Montmartre - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montmartre
Montmartre Cemetery - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimetiere_de_Montmartre
Vaslav Nijinsky - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaslav_Nijinsky
Bloody Sunday in St Petersburg - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1905)
Moulin Rouge - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moulin_Rouge
Père Lachaise Cemetery - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pere_Lachaise_Cemetery
Jim Morrison - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Morrison
Oscar Wilde - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_Wilde
Eiffel Tower - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiffel_Tower
Arc de Triomphe - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_de_Triomphe


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Sacre Coueur, Paris, France

Part Two of the Paris blog! Several months after it happened of course...

A visit to the Sacré-Cœur (or Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris as it is also known), this impressive basilica resides at the top of the hill in Montmartre (the famously bohemian neighbourhood of Paris)

The basilica was originally conceived of in 1870 as a form of penance by Bishop Fournier, who suggested that the reason for Frances failure during the Franco-Prussian war was due to the moral decline of their society.  It was for this reason that the basilica was erected in what was then Paris' most rebellious neighbourhood.

The basilica was constructed using Château-Landon stone, which is very high in Calcite, which gives the building its distinctive white exterior.

Within the basilica is also housed one of the worlds heaviest bells, the Savoyarde which weighs an impressive 19 tons... however we did not spend too much time inside... instead we visited the catacombs beneath the basilica.

Montmartre means the Mount of the Martyr, and within Sacre Coueur's catacombs you will find many, beginning with the most famous St. Denis... an interesting fact about martyrs... St. Denis is a cephalophore, which is a very specific type of martyr which carries its own severed head.
Clearly this happened enough that they needed to create an entire word for it... weird.  There are in fact over 100 of them in French history alone. (and it is my new dream to locate more cephalophores around Europe!)

St. Denis is quite the badass however... it is said that when he was beheaded in Montmartre he walked all the way to the suburb which is now named after him, and the entire way he continued preaching from his severed head.

St. Francois Xavier, is the patron saint of "Catholic Missions" and was quite the globetrotter, performing missionary work in India, Japan, and Indonesia.  It is said that aside from Paul the Apostle, he converted more people to the faith than anyone in history.

Shamefully I don't recall specific details about these next few gentlemen, but I believe they were the priests responsible for the building of the basilica. (shoot me a note if I am wrong)

The man above is Cardinal Leon Adolphe Amette who was archbishop of Paris between 1908–1920, he was also the man to consecrate the basilica in 1919.

Unfortunately this one I do not have any details about...

And above the main relic chapel in the centre of the crypt.  Interestingly there is some mystery around the crypts... it is said that somewhere inside lies a piece of the sacred heart of Jesus, this is where the basilica gets its name.
This is mentioned in several guidebooks, and yet no official church documentation exists to back these claims..  so if a piece of the heart does reside somewhere in the crypts it is certainly not marked in any way.

This man I am sure was a kind, godly and generous man who has some fantastic significance.  But I challenge you to not immediately think of the Emperor from Star Wars... this statue was very unnerving.

So there you go, a very brief summary of the roughly twenty minutes we spent at Sacre Couer!

Next up! Famous Graves and the Dali Museum!

References:
Sacre Coueur - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_Of_The_Sacred_Heart


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