Advertisement
Published: March 12th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Joining the companions for the morning, we departed for the
Gaudi tour of Barcelona. Our first stop was
La Sagrada Familia, or the Sacred Family - Gaudi's church. The church has been in the process of completion for over 100 years, and is likely to take 40 more years. Gaudi knew that he would not finish it in his lifetime, and so he first built one side of it, so the people of Barcelona would always have one side that was his. The finished church will focus on three sides: the birth, death and resurrection of Christ - Gaudi completed the death side, which depicts Jesus on the cross with a book instead of a head and hsi face seen on a cloth. Every piece of the church relates to the religious nature - Gaudi liked to build things as though they had simply sprung up from the ground around them. The sheer size of the church and its towers was formidable and impressive. The towers are 100 meters (or 200 feet) high and the plans call for ten additional towers to be built, including one that will be 200m high. The church will be incredible when it's finished.
We didn't go
inside, which turned out to be lucky for me, when I talked to one of the delegates later and he said that they had walked up a spiral staircase inside the tower, then walked across a catwalk with only a low barrier to keep them from falling and that even he was a little intimidated. Christina led us into the park across from the cathedral and we walked along a tree-shaded path, until we came upon a beautiful pond in the foreground of the cathedral. It was a perfect photo opportunity. Behind us though was something much more fascinating - a Bocci ball tournament. There were two "courts," one for practice and one for competition. We were distracted watching these elderly folks play Bocci ball and converse in Spanish or Catalan.
The gnats soon got us though, so we continued along, passing by a homeless couple. They were a mess and the woman looks very thin as the man held her in his lap and spoke softly to her in her ear.
We boarded the bus and drove further out to
Park Guell. Christina told us that Gaudi designed this park to be its own community, where the wealthy
could buy houses. This plan failed because the wealthy bourgeoisie wer being attacked regularly, and the park was then outside the city, where they felt at risk and vulnerable. So the only plots sold were to Gaudi's patron and his lawyer - whose family still lives there today.
The park was again representative of Gaudi's love of nature, with tunnels of bricks that seemed to be ocean waves, and a water filtration system set up under the courtyard. Everything was meticulously planned. We walked around the park, taking in the palm trees, resting a moment on the ergonomic stone bench, and travelling underneath the courtyard and seeing old cups and saucers smashed and glued to the ceiling.
The two houses at the bottom of the hill, past the dragon fountain, were typically Gaudi - they seemed to be melting into the ground and were reminiscent of birthday cakes. We rested at the cafe, where I bought an expensive Coke and met up with the other ladies. We finally regrouped and returned to the bus. We traveled back into the heart of Barcelona, to the
Passeig de Gracia, which is the equivalent of 5th Avenue in Manhattan. Christina pointed out the
two Gaudi buildings, which are now museums with long queues to enter. The buildings were identifiable as Gaudi designs and Christina continued to point out other architects who had been influenced by Gaudi.
We wrapped up our tour a little early, due to the parades and protests expected to begin shortly in commemoration of
Catalonia day. Catalonians used to be under their own rule until the Spanish finally won the war on September 11th. It was certainly NOT a day of celebration for the Catalonians.
Lunch was tapas in the old city. We were bussed in, and led through beautiful, old, narrow cobblestone streets and large courtyards. We were seated upstairs in a cosy restaurant. The food was great not too much that I ate, with a lot of seafood and vegetables, but I let my table companions give me the thumbs up or down for each dish. And we had a fantastically refreshing dish of sorbet to finish out the meal before the traditional cup of espresso, for which I was yelled at for adding sugar to. Then, we gathered the group to travel to the
Picasso museum. We watched the people as we walked along the narrow streets,
giggling over the guy selling the small paper dancing figures.
We arrived at the museum and I was one of the only ones enthralled by the artwork. I looked reverently at the Picassos that I had waited so long to see, and it was great to hear the usual stories about them again, as well as learn a couple of new facts.
Once the tour was over, we headed to the gift shop, where I picked out a mug and some postcards. I waited in line for-ever to check out - we learned quickly that it was the Spanish way to take their time. We barely made it back for the bus, but I was in time to make plans to relax by the pool for a while before dinner and I headed upstairs to change. It's a distinct possibility that I saw Josh Duhamel when I was leaving the building in my bikini. Ooh, I hope so.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.121s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0693s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb