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The adjacent
church
(usually 11am–1pm & 5–8pm) is a simple, single-naved
structure, which retains some of its original fourteenth-century stained glass. In
the chancel, to the right of the altar, the foundation’s sponsor, Elisenda de
Montcada, wife of Jaume II, lies in a superb carved marble tomb.Widowed in
1327, six months after the inauguration of the monastery, Elisenda retired to an
adjacent palace, where she lived until her death in 1364.
Sarrià
If
modernista
buildings are high on your agenda, the exteriors of a couple of
other important Gaudí buildings can be seen in the
Sarrià
district, east of
Pedralbes. Not far from the science museum, the
Torre Bellesguard
(c/Bellesguard 16–20; FGC Avgda. del Tibidabo), built from 1900 to 1909 on
the site of the early fifteenth-century palace of King Martin I (the last of the
Catalan kings), is a neo-Gothic house of unremarkable proportions; the
Col.
legi de les Teresianes
(c/Ganduxer 85; FGC Bonanova) was a convent
school, embellished in 1888 by Gaudí with an iron gate and parabolic arches.
If you are going to poke around these nether reaches of Barcelona, you may as
well venture into the heart of Sarrià
itself.Atthe northern end of its narrow main
street – c/Major de Sarrià (FGC Sarrià; c/Mare de Deu de Núria exit) – stands the
much-restored church of
SantVicenç
(at Plaça de Sarrià; bus #64 from Pedralbes/
Plaça Universitat also stops here on its way to and from the monastery).This flanks
the main Passeig de la Reina Elisenda de Montcada, across which lies the neigh-
bourhood market,
Mercat Sarrià
, housed in a 1911
modernista
red-brick building.
Traffic-free c/Major de Sarrià runs downhill from here, past other surviving old-
town squares, prettiest of which is
Plaça Sant Vicenç
(off c/Mañe i Flaquer),
where there’s a statue of the saint. If you make it this way, don’t miss the
BarTomás
,
just around the corner on c/Major de Sarrià, for the world’s best
patatas bravas
.
CosmoCaixa
A dramatic refurbishment in 2005 transformed the city’s science museum into
a must-see attraction, certainly if you’ve got children in tow – it’s an easy
place to spend a couple of hours, and can be seen on your way to or from
Tibidabo. Partly housed in a converted
modernista
hospice (built in 1904–09
by Josep Domènech i Estapà),
CosmoCaixa
(Tues–Sun 10am–8pm; €3, first
Sun of month free, children’s activities €2, planetarium €2;
T
932 126 050,
W
www.fundacio.lacaixa.es) retains the original building but has added a
stylish, light-filled public concourse and a huge underground extension with
four subterranean levels.The main exhibits are all down on the bottom floor,
centred on the enormous open-plan Sala de la Matèria (Matter Room),
where hands-on experiments and displays investigate life, the universe and
everything, “from bacteria to Shakespeare”. Many of the exhibits, and their
densely worded explanations, require a very large thinking cap – younger
children are soon going to be zooming around the open spaces. But there’s
no denying the overall pull of the two big draws, namely the 100 tonnes of
“sliced” rock in the Mur Geològic (Geological Wall) and, best of all, the
Bosc
THE NORTHERN SUBURBS
|
Sarrià • CosmoCaixa