Americans for Catalonia

10/11/2026

MNAC says timetable remains provisional as it awaits formal confirmation

10/06/2026

Gaudí's serpentine bench at Park Güell is 360 feet (110 meters) long. And it's not just a seat. It's the railing of a giant balcony over Barcelona.

It runs along the edge of the park's big open square, the Nature Square. Under your feet is a hall of 86 columns. In front of you, the whole city slopes down to the sea.

The waves aren't only for looks. Each curve makes a little nook, so a few friends can sit and chat face to face, even when the square is busy.

Legend says Gaudí got the shape by having a worker sit naked in wet clay. Nobody can prove it. But sit down and you'll feel how well the backrest fits.

The colors are the work of Josep Maria Jujol, Gaudí's young collaborator. He used trencadís (Catalan for "broken up"), a mosaic made of thousands of pieces of broken tile and glass. Look closely and you'll find words hidden in it: little prayers to the Virgin Mary, in Catalan and Latin.

And when it rains? Small holes at the bottom of the backrest let the water drain away, so the seat dries fast. The rain from the square runs down through the columns into a big tank under the park. When the tank is full, the extra water comes out of the mouth of the famous mosaic dragon at the entrance.

10/06/2026

https://www.reuters.com/world/court-ruling-clears-key-hurdle-separatist-leader-puigdemonts-return-spain-2026-10-06/

Spain's two top courts cleared ‌the way on Tuesday for self-exiled Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont to return without being arrested, just as Spain is gearing up for an early national election on November 29.

10/06/2026

Supreme Court judge Pablo Llarena withdraws warrants against three Catalan pro-independence leaders after Constitutional Court backs amnesty

10/05/2026

Gaudí designed this tile for a house, not a street. Today it covers the sidewalks of Passeig de Gràcia, Barcelona's grandest avenue, where his Casa Batlló and La Pedrera stand a few blocks apart.

The story starts in 1904. Gaudí created the hexagonal tile for the floors of Casa Batlló. The manufacturer, Escofet, couldn't deliver it on time. So Gaudí used it in his next building on the same avenue, La Pedrera. And not in the elegant apartments. In the service rooms.

Look closely and you'll find three sea creatures. Plenty of people see an octopus, a snail and a flower. It's actually a starfish, seaweed and an ammonite, a spiral-shaped fossil from the ocean. You need seven tiles side by side to see the full design.

The city first paved the avenue with an oversized version in the 1970s. In 1997, it switched to a smaller tile, about 10 inches (25 cm) per side. The pattern was pressed into the surface instead of sticking out, which makes it less slippery under your feet.

One more surprise: Gaudí's original tile was blue-green, not gray.

So every time you stroll between Casa Batlló and La Pedrera, you're walking on a Gaudí for free.

10/04/2026

10/04/2026

Catalan pro-independence party say they will send their own housing decree proposal to Spanish executive

10/04/2026

Gaudí didn't only show Jesus as a baby or as a preacher. On the Sagrada Família, he also shows him as a teenager at a carpenter's workbench, learning the family trade.

The scene is on the Portal of Faith, the right-hand doorway of the Nativity Façade. This doorway covers Jesus's "hidden life," the long stretch between his birth and his preaching that the Gospels barely describe. Nearby, Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, and a slightly older Jesus teaches in the temple.

Why carpentry? Joseph was a carpenter, and the Gospel of Mark calls Jesus a carpenter too. The original Greek word, tekton, can also mean builder or craftsman. Pretty fitting on a building that has been under construction since 1882.

Gaudí wanted these figures to look alive, not frozen. So he worked from real people. He found the right pose, photographed his model in front of mirrors to capture several angles, then covered them in plaster to make a mold. Before anything was carved in stone, he hung the plaster version on the façade to check how it looked from the street.

His models were not celebrities. According to the Sagrada Família's own archive, they ranged from bishops and soldiers to ragmen, goat herders, tavern hands and laborers. Neighbors and workers from the building site, in other words. He even made molds of animals.

The Nativity Façade is the part Gaudí oversaw himself, and in 2005 UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site.

10/04/2026

If you were outside the Sagrada Família this morning, you got much more than a view of Gaudí’s basilica.

You got a crash course in Catalan tradition.

On Saturday, October 3, groups from across Catalonia gathered outside the Sagrada Família for four hours of falcons, gegants and esbarts — three traditions that can look wonderfully unusual if you’ve never seen them before.

The gegants, or “giants,” are enormous figures carried through the streets by people hidden inside them.

Different Barcelona neighborhoods and Catalan towns have their own characters, some with traditions stretching back generations.

Then came the falcons. They create human towers and elaborate acrobatic formations using nothing but people, balance and a remarkable amount of trust.

And the esbarts are traditional Catalan dance groups, preserving dances, costumes and music that might otherwise have disappeared.

Today’s event brought together groups from Barcelona neighborhoods including Gràcia, Clot, Sagrada Família and Sant Martí, as well as groups from Piera, Vilassar de Mar and Girona.

There was something particularly fitting about seeing all of this beneath Gaudí’s towers.

The celebration is part of Gaudí Year, marking 100 years since the architect’s death in 1926.

Barcelona isn’t only Gaudí, beaches and tapas.

Sometimes the best way to understand the city is to stand among the locals and watch traditions that are still very much alive.

10/03/2026

The Picasso Museum doesn't fit in one palace. It takes five.

They stand side by side on Carrer de Montcada, in El Born: Palau Aguilar, Palau del Baró de Castellet, Palau Meca, Casa Mauri and Palau Finestres. Built between the 13th and 15th centuries, they are now connected inside, so you move from one medieval mansion to the next without going back out to the street.

Five hundred years ago, this was the most exclusive address in town. Nobles and merchants who got rich from sea trade built their homes here. Today the street is considered the finest collection of medieval civil architecture in Barcelona.

The biggest surprise came in 1961. While restoring Palau Aguilar to open the museum, workers discovered medieval paintings running along the top of a room's walls, in a band about 6.5 feet (2 meters) tall. They tell the story of King James I conquering Mallorca in 1229. They were painted around 1285, nearly 700 years before anyone found them.

The twist? You won't see them in the Picasso Museum. They were carefully peeled off the walls and moved to the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) on Montjuïc, where they are still on display.

The street's good times didn't last. In the late 1800s, many wealthy families left for the brand-new Eixample district. In 1947, Carrer de Montcada was protected as a national historic and artistic site.