Casa Batllo - Gaudi House

During the month of February, I took one afternoon to go into Casa Batllo, one of Guadi's famous houses here in Barcelona. It is located right on Passeig Gracia and the entrance fee was only 14 euros for a student. The house is one of the most magnificent houses I have ever been in, and I wish that I lived there. It is said that the whole blue tiling interior of the house and all the walls and ceilings were meant to replicate fish scales. The house was many floors and was extremely interesting to go through. The house was originally built for a wealthy couple to live in along with their servants. It was constructed between 1906 and 1910. The house has no straight lines, instead it is all curved, even the banister for the staircase. The house is extremely colorful with many colored tiles especially on the rooftop and on the outside garden. My favorite part was the rooftop terrace. It has a great view of the entire city, and the roof top itself is beautifully designed with Gaudi's style of rounded edges and mixing of tiles. The house is also known as La Pedrera as a derogatory term for the design of the house which reminds people of a quarry. It was also great that this museum offered an audio guide which explained each room and each piece of artwork in the house. I would suggest to many other students abroad here that they make it to the house at some point or another. It is amazing to see Gaudi's artwork, especially inside of a house to see just how detailed his work can get into the walls, ceilings and door knobs. There are many places like this where I live at home. I always enjoyed going on school trips to places like Teddy Roosevelts' house because I think it is nice when they preserve things and leave them intact for later generations to see. The Gaudi House reminded me most of Monet's House and Garden in Paris. I am not sure why because Monet's house included the whole garden and was not set in a city, but for some reason I got the same feeling from the two places, possibly because I am in Europe and they were both two places preserved well from many years ago.