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Geo: 41.3888, 2.15899
So Barcelona has been good yesterday and today. We walked all over the city yesterday. First stop was the Sagrada la Familia. This was one of those places I absolutely had to see on my trip.. or I was gonna die a horrible death or something. Gaudi, a modernist artist from a lil less than a hundred years ago, started the cathedral building project. He got run over by a tram, so he didn get to finish it. Its been taking forever... In part it was hampered by the Spanish Civil War. One of the building caught fire, where all his drawings and models were. So they lost a lot of his original work. And being dead, he wasnt much help anymore... So they have had to redesign a lot of it in the way that they think he would have done so. I imagine something like that could take awhile. Anyway, they are slightly over 50% of the way done, and I believe they hope to finish in the next 20 years or so. They only have 4 of the 20 something (?) towers they intend to build. They have completed the Passion Facade, which depicts the Passion
Sagrada La Familia
lol, the COOLEST gargoyles ever! SNAILS!!!of the Chris in blocky modernism (really neat!), and the Nativity Facade, which shows the birth of Christ in a super fluffy, angels, children, flowers, turkeys, you name it.... its all there. Also really cool looking, though. The inside is one of the best parts. The columns were designed after trees... So as they rise, they split into multiple parts, like the branches of trees. Oh oh! And another neat detail... the gargoyles on the outside of the cathedral are based on the animals he found in the area... so theres lizards, snakes, and SNAILS! I LOVE THE SNAILS! The tops of the towers have fruit on top of them... representing the fruit of the spirit. Man. Its just so freakin awesome.
The cathedral killed a lot of our budget for the day... We decided to save the rest of the money for food. But we did walk down the Avenue de la Discordia, where some of Gaudis other work is. The houses look so awesome from the outside. We then walked down Las Ramblas, the main thoroughfare. You know those weird silver and gold guys you always see in San Francisco at Pier 39... the ones that stand really still
Sagrada La Familia
The Passion Facade like statues for tips? This street was chock full of them in all shapes and sizes... There were women in fancy dresses, an angel, a pirate, a rastafarian dude with a giant blunt, a guy in a stroller like a baby, guys with their heads chopped off, guys poking out of toilets, etc. etc. It was ridiculous. The huge market was closed since it was a Sunday but we are going back there tomorrow to check it out. We kept walking down Las Ramblas until we hit the ocean, and then we just walked along the beach. Again, the weather was not what I expected for Spain. I was all ready for it... dressed in shorts and a tank top... and I froze my ass off! Lame.
Today Chris and I took a train out to Montserrat, which is a monastary in the mountains about an hour outside of Barcelona. This was another one of those things I absolutely had to do on this trip. So Im glad we were able to figure out the logistics of getting there. Anyway, so its a monastary... but its also sort of become a tourist trap, lol. Old people on tour buses go up
Sagrada La Familia
This is the inside.. I love the columns- theyre trees! there. Theres hotels and restaraunts and shops... theres even a bar. WEIRD... Anyway, it was still utterly awesome. We took this funicular thing (its like a giant ski lift tram) up to the top from the train station. It was a lil freaky but all good. We made it. Alive. We wandered around the grounds of the monastary. The Basilica itself was pretty neat. They had all the candles you usually find in a Catholic church, except they were lining these stone walls on the outside- very pretty. At 1pm, the boys choir did a small performance inside the basilica. That was so freakin awesome! lol, you hear them sing all the time in the background in movies and on tv in those church scenes... but never have I gotten the chance to see it in real life. They sound amazing, especially when they weave their voices in and out in the various pitches, all singing different parts but the whole itself is beautiful. I loved it.
After that, we ate lunch in the cafeteria and then set out to go hiking (there are some really neat trails up there; rock climbing is also very big). Three hours in the blistering
sun it was... Again, I was dressed inappropriately. It was freezing yesterday, ok? I was in the mountains today, so I thought I made the right choice by picking jeans and a t shirt. Wrong again. Argh. So, as soon as we got a little distance from us and the main part of the monastary (cause we were the only awesome people hiking) the shirts came off. Yes, mine, too. I may have earned a place in hell hiking topless on Gods property... but damn... did it feel good. =) The hike went really well for the most part... except for one insanely steep section. I think we about died, lol. We were running low on water, and this section had barely any shade and just kept climbing up and up and up. The worst part was we werent entirely sure we were headed the right way for awhile there (turns out we were). And thankfully once we made it up that part, the rest of the hike was flat and downhill. I enjoyed a big cup of Sprite at the cafeteria after our hike. lol, we both nodded off on the train ride back home, too. Worked off a
lot of energy! But damn, was it awesome to be outside... in nature... not in the city. I loved the scenery too. It was just like hiking The Pinnacles back home (nix the caves).
Anyway, tomorrow we are going to hit up Park Guell, another of Gaudis creations, and then head back over to Las Ramblas to check out the huge market and get my last dish of paella. We leave Spain tomorrow night and should be in Milan midmorning the next day. Then we just gotta catch a local train to Riomaggiore, one of the smal five fishing villages in Cinque Terre. Im so excited for my Italian food. You have no idea. Cinque Terre is known for its pesto. =)!!!
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Diana Boggs
non-member comment
You know that Gaudi is where we get the word gaudy from. Because of all his detail in his work. Now it means kind of tacky or overdone. I can see the overdone part...he really put everything in his stuff.