National Art Gallery of Catalonia and the Catalonian Archaeological Museum

I descended from the Olympic Ring down the hillside (a very attractive descent I should add) to the National Gallery.

One disappointment here was that the modern section was closed, leaving one with a lot of very early gothic art. Its difficult to get too excited by early Christian art which tends to be formulaic and well, a bit crap  really. They were not very good at drawing. But there is a fine Renaissance collection too, all housed in a remarkable gallery.

 As ever, big on martyrdoms. This unfortunate was, if my memory serves me right, St Vincent, here being barbecued.

St Vincent again. One would like to think that he is being given a good scrub but one suspects that is not a bath brush.

 The early Christian stuff has been peeled off the walls of chapels and carefully recreated in the galleries

 A good example of how bad they were at painting at this time (reminiscent of the Bayeux tapestry - not far off in date). Note the particularly unconvincing attempt at portraying a chap being sawn in half top left.

 The gallery also houses a coin collection. Not thrilling to photograph. This is the most photogenic representative of the collection.

 Back outside there are grand vistas down the hill to the City

Then a right turn through an attractive little park to the archaeological museum.

 The quick way up and down the hill/mountain