Hej from the Tennessee Swedes: Barcelona: the city

I love Spain. I love the people, the culture, the food, the way Spaniards speak English, I just love Spain. Which meant that I was so looking forward to our week in Barcelona. Unfortunately it didn't start off great. When we woke up the last morning on the ship. I wasn't feeling great and pretty quickly that turned into a stomach bug, so for the first two days I was out of commission. The third morning was great and we had a really good day on a hop on hop off bus. But tragedy struck again when Chris got a stomach bug and then he was stuck in the room. While I was sick Chris did some roaming and while he was sick I did some shopping, but finally we got it together for the last two days and really enjoyed our time in Barcelona.

Hop on hop off bus

The city is beautiful. There are a lot of fountains, sculptures and art installations. Most everything that is built has had an architect commissioned to do it, even the communications tower.

Communications tower

Church in the Gothic Quarter

We saw this building on the hop on hop off tour. We learned that it was built super eco friendly and that at night it was lit up by some thousands of lights. So we went back. It did not disappoint.

The streets are very wide and the sidewalks are the size of streets. The cars and pedestrians are very well separated (completely opposite from Amsterdam). There are some parts of the city that have small ally like streets, of course, but much of the city has large medians and sidewalks.

The weather was perfect and Barcelona, like most cities in Spain is very alive all the time. We found a spot on the beach with concrete lounge chairs. A few nights in a row we sat there and watched the beach and listened to the ocean. Families are out late, most people eat dinner around 10 PM; the restaurants don't open till 8 PM. One night while we sat watching the night go by, I watched small kids climbing on this rope structure. It's maybe 15 feet tall. They would just scramble right up to the top. Recently a friend of mine was telling me about a book he had been reading on physical activity. About how as we get older we have set ways of doing and thinking of things, but kids don't have that yet. They accomplish things by instinct. I decided I was going to climb this thing too. On my first attempt, I only made it half way up. I got back down and went back to my lounge chair and started studying how the kids did it. About 30 minutes later I was ready to try again. Straight to the top I went!

There's me on the top

A better view in the day time

Barcelona is well known for an architect named Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926). He was born in Catalonia, the northeast region of Spain. Most of his works are found in Barcelona. He is known for modern architecture and the use of many types of media, most notably for trencadís, which is using scrap or waste ceramic pieces. This makes his work easy to spot and very colorful. Seven of his works have been named UNESCO world heritage sites. He was commissioned to refurbish the cathedral we saw in Palma de Mallorca.

Two of his works are Sagrada Família (a Roman Catholic basilica) and Park Güell (his home for a time). The Sagrada Família is a monstrosity. Everyone goes on and on about this church. I wasn't so impressed. The inside is suppose to be amazing, but we had no interest in standing in a queue for 2 hours to see it. Maybe another time. It was such an enormous undertaking for Gaudí and he was commissioned to do so many things, that he never finished it. In fact when he passed away, it was only about a quarter complete. In 2010 they thought to be midway through the construction, and now the estimated completion date is 2026.

It takes up one city block and is so tall that it is hard to get a picture it. Park Güell on the other hand was very unique and worth the hike up the hill to see.

The curvy part at the top of this structure is one long bench.

The view from up there is stunning. You can see the Mediterranean and all of Barcelona, including the Sagrada Família (well, of course you can that thing, it is enormous).

The park is huge. It is located on Carmen Hill on the north face of the Collserola Mountain range. Eusebi Güell commissioned Gaudí to create this park with urbanization in mind. It was completed in 1914. There are a number of houses in the park as well as walking paths.

Under the bench looks like this.