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Published: December 15th 2008
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After hearing only fantastic reviews about Barcelona, I was nervous that people were talking it up too much for me and that I would be disappointed. My dictionary.com word of the day for Friday, Dec 12 was
beatific: bee-uh-TIF-ik, adjective, 1) exaltedly happy; blissful, 2) blessing or making exceedingly happy. I knocked on wood multiple times before leaving England so that the numerous predictions I received for a great trip would not be jinxed. After a long day of traveling, my friend Jo and I finally reached our hostel in Barca, and the second we stepped back outside the next morning to start our adventure, I instantly started to understand everyone's unanimous fondness of the city.
It was a glorious morning - bright sunshine and warm breezes. We started our tour with a visit to
Parc Güell, which is farthest opposite of the sea. Part of
Parc Güell is an actual park featuring the highest point in Barcelona, so there were absolutely amazing views of the entire city and the sea in the distance.
Parc Güell - including the gardens, park, and a large architectural area - was designed by the Catalán architect Antoni Gaudí and was built in the
early 1900s. It is a gorgeous combination of palm trees, mosaic tiles, rocky hills, and musicians scattered throughout the park playing various interesting instruments. We ended our visit by briefly touring
La casa/El museo de Gaudí, a cute pink house that looked like it should be featured in
Hansel and Gretel.
We then headed towards the coast, stopping multiple times at inviting souvenir shops. Barcelona overflows with really interesting ceramics, tile-works, seductive paintings of flamenco dancers...and witch figurines. All of the artworks mimic the style of Gaudí. I have no idea why witches are popular in Barcelona. It's really weird, too, because there was a Christmas market that we stumbled upon that had everything a Christmas market should have - poinsettias, mistletoe, ornaments, snow globes, various Christmas figurines - except half of the stuff had a witch theme. So, the poinsettias and mistletoe bouquets had witch toys stuck in the middle, ornaments and snow globes featured witches, and there were witch figurines for sale. No comprendo.
After lunch at a nice Chinese restaurant, we walked further to
La Sagrada Familia, a massive Roman Catholic church still under construction (it began in 1882!!). It was designed by Gaudí who
worked on it until his death. Its design calls for 18 towers: representing the Twelve Apostles, the four Evangelists, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus Christ. The goal is to have the church finished in 2026, the 100th anniversary of Gaudí's death, but so far I think only eight towers have been completed, so I wouldn't really hold my breath. Not only is the entire thing gigantic, but every single square centimeter - exterior and interior - is intricately designed and tells its own story. Jo and I laughed at each other for paying to view a construction zone, but that's how the church is funded. In one part, there was a museum depicting the history behind the construction of
La Sagrada, and it was a bit worrisome to see that models of the church are decaying and the church itself is not near completion. Jokes aside, though, it really is extremely impressive and beautiful. I would definitely come back to Barcelona later in life to see the completed masterpiece.
Jo and I then took the metro to
La Rambla, a really long, really busy street in the middle of Barca in the region of
Barri Gòtic. It's actually a
series of shorter streets that have different names and collectively they can be called
Las Ramblas. Running down the middle of
La Rambla are lines of trees, painted people in various costumes, and countless artists and vendors. It was really fun looking at everything....everywhere I turned, there was something different to see, laugh at, enjoy. On either side of the boulevard are hundreds of shops, cafés, and restaurants. We stopped at a café to relax for a bit and then decided to wander without using our maps. We stumbled into a few squares/plazas that featured government buildings, more cafés and restaurants, and shops. By then, it was dark, and the buildings were lit up with colored lights. I was expecting it to be a lot more Christmas-y, but it was still very pretty. There was one really exciting street that was a miniature version of
La Rambla, except it was in a much older part of town and was limited to pedestrians only. We dined at a nice Spanish restaurant that featured a lot of Gaudí-inspired details; for example, the plates had mosaic tiling and were interestingly shaped. The food was great - I really enjoyed the fresh seafood that
Barca had to offer.
The next day did not have such beautiful weather, unfortunately. It was overcast and chilly when we started our morning, and then it started to drizzle a bit later in the afternoon. We thought we left rainy weather in England, but it is annoyingly following us around Europe (it is supposed to rain while we are in Rome).
We took the metro to the high-end, ritzy area of Barcelona, in the opposite direction of
La Rambla. It was fun to window-shop at seemingly endless streets beckoning to fans of Gucci, Prada, Burberry, Guess, Cartier, Dolce & Gabbana, Zara...etc (heavy on the
etc - it was overwhelming how massive the area was). There were some stores whose names I didn't recognize, so I'm guessing they were shops only found in Spain. Also excellent was the fact that every other store was a shoe store. Good thing Jo is a patient person because I think most of our morning was dedicated to me walking into shoe stores. Another thing I loved about Spain: the people are not afraid to wear colors! It was very fun to walk around a colorful world again.
Near
Plaza de Grácia, we saw two more of Gaudí's work -
Casa Batlló and
Ródtxenko, which is also still under construction to be finished next year.
Casa Batlló was a colorful building, and its architecture was made to look like the waves of the sea, which reminded me of Prague's
Dancing House. Gaudí, I have to say, must have been such a weirdo to come up with ideas like the things I saw. But, of course, mad respect to someone who died almost a century ago and people are still trying to complete his dreams.
We completed our tour of Barca with a trip to
Montjuïc, which, when translated, means
Hill of the Jews. It is a really broad, flat hill in the southeast part of Barcelona and overlooks the harbor. It features the Olympic stadium,
Palau Nacional (which houses the
Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya), a museum of archaeology, a museum of ethnology, and a modern art museum featuring works of Joan Miró. Unfortunately, upon reaching
Palau Nacional, Jo and I found out that museums are not open in Spain on Mondays, which was really disappointing, but, at the same time, both of us were exhausted anyway. It was nice
to relax at the hostel before our early departure to Italy.
It was really fun to be able to speak Spanish with various people during my trip to Barcelona. Residents speak Catalán and Spanish interchangeably, so sometimes I wondered why I couldn't understand a conversation I was overhearing and then remember that they speak Catalán here too. Surprisingly, a lot of the people at restaurants did not speak English very well, but that was just fine because it made me speak Spanish, which I really wanted to do while in Barcelona anyway.
And that was my first visit to Spain! Barcelona is amazing - just as wonderful as everyone said. I read in my travel guide that if you drink water in Barcelona's
Barri Gòtic, you will love the city forever. Maybe that's not just a myth and that there really is something in the water. In any case, Italy has a lot to live up to!
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Guadi
You're right; Gaudi was definitely a weirdo. He was dirt poor most of his life and he actually died in the street, dressed in rags and deathly-thin. For a long time people thought he was just another dead bum...:-)