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Published: November 3rd 2009
Barcelona take two - September 8-9
I had an early start to head to Barcelona from Bled, a taxi picked me up at 6:45 to take me to the train station. The hotel breakfast didn’t open until 7 so they kindly packed me a breakfast for on the way.
At the station I purchased a ticket for Zagreb, I wasn’t really dressed for the cooler weather and the girl wondered if I was cold. I said no, but after the half hour wait on the small platform I was looking forward to getting onto the train. We all got ourselves ready for the arrival of the train, and then an announcement came over the speakers. Of course I didn’t understand it but thought it must be a delay. I went back to the ticket booth where I knew the girl spoke English and found out that the delay would indeed be about 45 minutes. Now I was getting cold!
Nothing much to do except eat my packed breakfast and watch the nearby factory at work. There was a man operating a claw type machine that was breaking up and moving what looked like a cargo container sized piece
of Styrofoam. The job was nearly done by te time our train arrived. The European international trains are very comfortable and I settled in for a pleasant ride across Slovenia. The border crossing went relatively smoothly and from there Zagreb was not far.
I had decided that I would change my plans from finding the airport bus, to catching a taxi given the train was about an hour later than expected. I thought I had done so well to get rid of my Croatian Kuna, forgetting that I was going back into Croatia for the flight to Barcelona, fortunately my taxi driver was happy to accept Euro’s. Zagreb is a fairly small airport and there was no queue to check in. Coffee and juice and catching up on the journal helped wile away the hours before the flight left.
Arriving back in Barcelona, I again changed plans from catching the metro to getting a taxi. It had been a long day of travel, and you wouldn’t think that sitting around would be so tiring. The taxi was inexpensive relatively and I was soon checked into a nice hotel. The following day was a day to explore the sights
of Barcelona, I had mainly planned on visiting the Gaudi buildings.
First was the Familiar Sagrada which was as amazing as the first time. This time I waited to catch the lift to the top of one of the towers and then walked down. I somehow missed the sign to cross between two towers but it was still good to have seen the building from the top. I caught the metro (have I mentioned how much I love metros) back to La Rambla, and walked in the opposite direction from when we were here in July. This took me to the harbour, which was quite impressive and good to see another part of this great city.
I walked back to one of Gaudi's most famous buildings the Casa Batllo, and took an audio tour through this amazing construction, with beautiful curves everywhere, and clever designs so that there didn’t have to be too many load bearing walls. The use of light and colour was also breathtaking, so hard to describe, but this is unlike any other house around. It really wasn’t a house however, the first two flours were for the owner, and then the floors above were
made into apartments that people still use today (lucky ones).
The attic and roof were equally impressive, with Gaudi adopting the novel idea that fresh air and ventillation were good for you. The chimneys on the roof were works of art and made to be seen, as opposed to the normal approach of ugly functional things to be kept out of sight.
Nor far from this house was a larger building that had originally apartments but was now a bank, the Mila House. They have opened one floor as set it up as it would have been as apartments, as well as having a museum in the attic area, and again the roof and chimney areas were works of art. The more you learn about Gaudi’s techniques the more you think of him as a genius.
Back to the metro, and out to the Guell Park to view more works by Gaudi. To get to the park meant ascending a huge hill and they had installed a series of escalators in parts to help you get up (but not down) to the park, The park had a monutment from where you could look out over the city,
a promenade area with Gaudi tile work, and some other curvy structures. It was fairly dry underfoot (no grass just dirt paths etc) but plenty of trees, which kept the area cool. Lots of musicians playing around the park, and people doing their exercise.
All too quickly the day in Barcelona was over, but it was worth stopping over on the way to Madrid to really see some of the things I missed from last time. I think this is a city you could spend a week in.
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