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Well there is certainly a lot of rumbling in La Rambla at night!
In between the women upstairs pacing up and down in their high heels, the slamming of the doors to the apartments, the comings and goings until all hours of the morning, and the super charged fireworks that echo across the city, probably the thing that kept us up most of the night was Kaspar’s new trick of lifting his feet up and slamming them down so the boards under his bed bounce. He’s a fast learner, we’ll give him that! His bed is on the mezzanine floor above us, and is actually just a mattress on the floor, but boy can he make some noise!
We had decided prior to getting to Barcelona that we would take a bit of a load off and do one of the open top tourist buses around the city to a) get our bearings, b) get a good overview of the city, and c) check out a few selective places in detail once we’d done the circuit. The city is expansive and it seemed a good idea in theory, but the combo or a baby, on a steamy hot Saturday
afternoon, and a group of 10 whining pommie girls on a pissy moany bitchy hens holiday was not the ideal start.
Beforehand we did have the pleasure of wandering through the narrow streets of the old town, past the homeless guys that had had a bigger night than us and were sleeping in, and stopped off at the Santa Maria del Mar church. An interesting choice this one…built in the 1300’s but gutted by arson in the early 20th century its interior was stripped bare to reveal a most austere stone structure that highlight its enormity and sense of space. It is true to say, not all churches are created equal - put this one on your list when in Barca.
So after getting on a bus and getting to the top deck to enjoy the views, we stayed on for a full lap of one of the circuits (there are 3 separate ‘lines’ that you can do), taking in as much as we could enjoying the views over the tops of the trees and traffic lights including some of Gaudi’s more intriguing home designs, Playa Espana, the Olympic Stadium, National Art Museum and the water front. We
then changed to the red line so we could check out THE must see when in Barca (even if you’re only here for two hours) - La Sagrada Familia.
Whoa! This creation is beyond words (but of course I will prattle on a bit about it). Over 100 years in the making so far, and at least another 20 to go - and that’s even taking into account the age of computer aided design and build - you could easily spend day upon day upon day here, wondering at just how Gaudi dreamt up this fairyland in the first place, AND then had the audacity to put it together physically.
Based on the theory that there are no straight lines in nature, Gaudi overtook this project that was originally designed to reinforce the traditional values of Spanish society - including hard work - in 1884, in the face of rising revolutionary activity. All well and good, Gaudi took the original design and in the true sense of ‘modernism’ at the time, he created quite the surreal masterpiece which he worked on for the next 40 years, and to this day is only a shadow of its potential self.
The only problem with La Sagrada is that you keep bumping into people. Everyone spends their time here completely dumb struck, with the heads tilted back at 90 degrees, gawking in amazement at everything that hangs over them. The crux of the structure itself its quite ingenious: it is based on the concept of hanging weights from the outside of a structure and moving inwards, hanging more weights at points of stress, eventually creating a natural concentric point of pressure in the very middle. The smart bit comes when Gaudi inverted the whole thing to create an opposite natural central point of strength. Of course as you wind your way up the extremely narrow stairwells in one of the four bell towers that you can climb, this is completely forgotten and you spend your time wondering how long ago they actually built these steps, and did they really know what they were doing. But then you just as easily forget your impending mortality amongst the almost fantasy-like creations around you, from the Venetian glass animals and fruit to the nativity scene that looks more like a scene from Battlestar Galactica. What was this guy on, cos we want some?!?
The highest point you can reach today is a knee knocker to say the least, as you step out on little balconies that were built 100 years ago and don’t appear to be supported by anything, but this is only about half as far as you will be able to climb in 20 years.
Despite the stairwells being about ¾ of a person wide, Gabor and Sarah and Kaspar managed to get separated and only found each other half an hour later at the bottom of the church. And this was with both parties thinking that they were ahead and then behind the other at points in their personal tours, despite there being nowhere to overtake.
It was truly a mind blowing experience, and one that deserved a beer or two, even if they did fleece us $4 euros each for a pint.
We wandered back towards our apartment through the old town and even managed to take in the Spaniards version of the Arc de Triomphe, and make friends with another Indian dairy owner that couldn’t resist Kaspar’s charms.
Tomorrow we intend to take in the rest of the red line open topped tourist bus,
the Gaudi park, Camp Nou, and the underground foundations of Barcelona. Ambitious maybe, but where would you be without a few far fetched dreams?
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