Beautiful Barcelona & Marvellous Mallorca

A glorious few days in Catalunya; Barcelona, then Palma de Mallorca...

Quite brilliant cities to spend time & lovely sold out audiences too! Thank you La Caixa for inviting us back!

Mont Juic

La Sagrada Familia

Barcelona old town, more other Gaudi than you could shake a stick at:- including the magnificent Palma Cathedral...

Terrific food & blue skies/sunshine.... also the brilliant CaixaForum buildings themselves...
Here's the Barcelona one (a refurbished tile factory, we think!):

Difficult not to shower this blog with gorgeous photos... but we have been having a splendid time!

The concerts were both terrific, with audiences full of enthusiasm & enjoying out Catalan/Mallorcan speaking... All very happy joining in with rhythmic joy with Sarah-Ann's rendition of Rolling in the Deep (Adele).

Hoping very much to come back as these places deserve a very high level of exploration!

Many happy memories of previous visits abound... especially of our children over here...

After these sunny glories, it is off to The Netherlands & Belgium... as ever details on our site...

but Veghel, Mol & Deurne.... here we come!

PS: Very much enjoyed visiting this station in Barcelona...

(...for those of a Dutch/Flemish-speaking inclination, I assure you this word simply means 'idiot' in English; nothing more crude is implied....those of a nervous disposition, need not try to work out what I might refer to in this paragraph...)

Capital joys in Madrid

Marvellous Madrid... brilliant to be back at CaixaForum singing in another amazing architectural marvel; this time in central Madrid.

The green section on the right is a living wall, which was much less bushy when we sang at the opening of this venue!

Here it is at night:- (it's all flora!)

CaixaForum venues are always splendid, and this was as splendid as when we first came here; a wonderful auditorium with brilliant staff....

And a willing, enthusiastic and fun audience too!

Some hours to wander about Madrid were also a tremendous glory... there was all this...

Kew gardens (sort of) amidst Atocha Station:

...and even a Banksy (or so it seems):

We're back in Spain (Barcelona & Palma de Mallorca) in March.... but The Netherlands & Belgium & Turkey too in the next few weeks... as well as some recording...

Hooray!

Zaragozan beauty

In the wonderful city of Zaragoza....
...we last performed in this city, at the University, at Christmas in 1991 - that's a while back...

As with many previous Spanish excursions we are here at the behest of CaixaForum (The social arm of La Caixa Bank, based in Cataluña) - all banks in Spain have a social aspect, providing exhibitions, concerts and concert halls and other support all over the country...

Splendid to be in Zaragoza & to perform at the amazing floating building below:

A wonderfully enthusiastic and full crowd greeted us, and accepted our journey from Henry VIII to Adele, via Monteverdi's Lamenta della Ninfa & Tiger Rag... and they enjoyed our talking in Spanish (and maybe even understood us), as well as our singing of La Panaderita - the tale of an alluring woman Baker...

Zaragoza is a splendid place to visit & we had time to see the tremendous, huge Basilica in different lights & weathers... Here are three (the first with Chris in the foreground)!

All glorious - we have come to Madrid now; we have a little time to look around - hooray! - haven't been here for a few years; and then another concert tomorrow, in another excellently-architectured building... more pictures to follow!

¡Adios!