The Gaudi City (Barcelona)

Barcelona was one of the places we were most looking forward to. We'd assigned ourselves a four night stay here allowing us time to take in all the sights and even fit in a daytrip or two. Its one of those places that really stands out when you're researching and reading up on cities in Spain. Its also a huge place with loads of colour and weird and wonderful architecture. I'd also read Carlos Ruiz Zafón's excellent novel, "The Shadow of the Wind", before we set off on our trip and was looking forward to seeing and visiting some of the places that were in the book. Tina's blog also informed us about Barcelona's most famous architect, Antoni Gaudi. We hadn't heard of him before, but anyone who has been to Barcelona or knows a bit about architecture will know who he is.

This is Gaudi's Casa Batlló near where our hostel was. We were staying in the L'Eixample district, which is a cool chequerboard pattern area of square (cushion)-shaped blocks.


We got the audio guide and explored the insides. It's a pretty cool place to live in, if you're lucky enough. It's supposed to be about the battle between St George and the dragon. Up on the roof of Casa Batlló you can see St George's lance (the cross) in the dragon's back.


Lots of cool buildings everywhere.


This is another of Gaudi's buildings near our hostel. This is Casa Mila (aka La Pedrera). We didn't do this one straight away as the queue to get in was ginormous.


So we then headed over to the Ramblas, a long and famous street full of street performers, pet shops, and many other weird things. It's also apparently full of pickpockets so you gotta be on your guard. The street performers are very fun to watch. They'll be still as statues waiting for someone to drop a coin in their box or tin and then they'll be as animated as anything. However, there was this one guy who did not move at all, no matter how much money people were dropping in.












The Mercat de Sant Josep (La Boqueria), which was not opened that day (All Saints Day).




A friendly lady I met...










We also headed out to Park Güell, another Gaudi creation, which was located sort of out of town a bit and up a big hill. It's a huge public park area where he had free rein to do whatever he wanted and he unleashed.


This is the view of town from there. That's his famous (still under construction) La Sagrada Familia cathedral on the right and the distinctive "Spanish Gherkin" (Torre Agbar).










Like most of the touristy places in Barcelona, this place was packed. We weren't as lucky as Tina was to have some area's cordoned off and be able to take some lovely photos. Managed to get a few decent ones though.


We did end up doing Gaudi's La Pedrera building one morning. We got there before they opened but there was still already a queue waiting.


We also didn't realise, but they've got renovations going on, so that sucked a bit. We didn't manage to see all of his buildings as a few we searched out were closed for complete renovations.






One evening, probably the Friday, we headed over to the Plaça d'Espanya for some photos of the Venetian Towers and also to catch the Magic Fountain show at Montjuic. This was also the place of another failed pickpocket attempt. As I've said before, we read about all the local scams and tricks they do so we weren't fooled. We were in the middle of a pedestrian crossing taking a photo of the Palace of Montjuic and this guy came up behind us pretending to take photos too. We finished up and were walking away when he called out to us and told us we had all bird shit on our backs. We checked and there was all this foul-smelling yellow stuff on our bags, and some on our jeans. He then asked if we had any tissues to clean it off and then promptly produced a fresh packet from his pocket as if offering to clean it off for us. There was not a bird in the clear blue skies and we waved him off and started to clean ourselves off. Tam said that she saw him and a lady jump into a car after we told them to go away. We figured that they squirt stuff on your back and on your jeans (especially around the pocket areas) then help you wipe it off while helping themselves to your wallet at the same time. The yellow stuff turned out to be some kind of mustard sauce and we couldn't get the smell off and smelt like hotdogs for a couple of days. Bastards!


To make things worse, the famed Magic Fountain show never happened. We sat and waited in the cold night air from 6:30 to 9pm, and unless it was an invisible and silent magic show, nothing happened. They did turn on the lights of the Palace around 8pm, but us and the rest of the huge throng of tourists left disappointed and bitter.


So we made our way back into the main bit of town, found a tapas bar, and had some nice beer and tapas.


We eventually headed over to experience Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia. We were a bit Gaudi'd out by this time, so we just snapped some shots of the exterior and skipped the tour inside. Some people say that its not really a temple of God but a temple of Gaudi. It's strange that it probably will take another century to be completed.










We then visited the Cathedral de la Seu, where they keep 13 geese in the inner courtyard. Cute and vicious things.


We caught the elevator up to the top for some choice views of the city.




We also bumped into Mr Salvador Dali and arranged a rendez-vous with him later on in our trip.