Barcelona was a whirlwind 4 days that seemed to go faster than any other part of the trip. With the finish line in range (we have 10 days to go), I imagine this will continue until we land in Philly next Sunday.
For the first time on this trip, we spent time in a city I had previously visited. It had been 5 years since Barcelona captured my imagination with its perfect weather, vibrant nightlife, and breathtaking architecture. Architecture is far and away my favorite form of artwork and expression, and I've spent many hours this trip with my head in the sky staring at magnificent structures. If you've ever been to Barcelona, you know that the architecture scene starts and ends with Antoni Gaudi. The best way I can describe Gaudi's architecture is that it's a cross between Salvador Dali's surrealist painting and a Tim Burton fantasy world. Gaudi created his most famous works in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and even though most of them are over 100 years old, they still look and feel very modern.
Since Rachel had never been to Barcelona, I planned most of the itinerary here, which was heavily slanted towards finding and admiring Gaudi's most famous structures. This involved lots of walking (over 40 miles in 4 days) but was a great way to explore the city. In the end, we visited almost 10 Gaudi structures and explored the inside of 3. Rachel was a trooper and didn't complain about the crazy demands placed on her feet.
The first on the list was Gaudi's home of 20 years in Guell Park, a large park he designed in the far northern section of the city. His home was only mildly impressive, but we would find out later this was a mere appetizer on the larger Gaudi menu. The best part of Guell Park was the Flamenco/Spanish band (Tablao Sur) we found playing live music. These 4 guys were amazing and drew a sizable crowd. They threw in a few Beatles covers with a Spanish twist and were a blast to watch. We even spent the 10€ and bought a CD - well worth it. If you ever spend a dinner at our home, expect to hear the sweet sounds of Tablao Sur playing in the background.
After Guell Park, we took a cab down to the waterfront and experienced the sights and sounds at the end of La Rambla, Barcelona's most famous pedestrian street/park. It's extremely crowded and touristy, so we ducked out quickly to the Gothic Quarter, which houses Barcelona's Old City. We found a little place, La Fabrica, selling Argentinian empanadas, which are by far the best type of empanadas. Spain's empanada game up to this point was extremely weak and disappointing, but La Fabrica more than made up for it. When all was said and done, we visited La Fabrica 3 times in 4 days and tried about 8 different types of empanadas. Surprisingly, the best one was not with beef or chicken, but an eggplant and provolone masterpiece.
After walking through the Gothic Quarter, we walked up the Passeig de Gracia, Barcelona's 5th Ave, and visited the Casa Batllo, an apartment building Gaudi created around the turn of the century. I'll let the pictures do most of the explaining, but visiting this structure and learning about it really helped my appreciation for the man's work. There are almost no straight lines in the entire building, every piece of the building has a specific function (including the door handles), and Gaudi took all of his inspiration from nature. It's not surprising then, that Casa Batllo has an ocean like feel to it. Pretty incredible structure, but just a warmup for what was to come next.
The next night, we decided to check out the Sagrada Familia, the church that Gaudi designed and has been under construction for 133 years and counting - and no, that's not a typo. When I heard about Sagrada Familia, I was skeptical - how could a building take almost 150 years to complete? After we took a look inside, I was a believer. Let's start with the outside, which is all we saw on the first night. You immediately notice two things when looking at the church, the amount of detail adorning the facade and the brightly colored crosses and fruit bowls (yes, fruit bowls) topping the towers of the church. You could stare at the church for hours and you wouldn't come close to picking up all of the detail. Each side has a different theme, focusing on the birth, life, and death of Christ. After taking in the church (it's actually a basilica now, as Pope Benedict consecrated it as such in 2010) for about an hour, we walked home in amazement. We only had 1 more day in Barcelona, and with a tour of Montserrat planned, we weren't sure if a tour of the inside of the Sagrada Familia would fit into the schedule. I asked Rachel to look at some pictures on Google of the inside to see if it was as impressive as the outside. She told me that it looked "pretty amazing" and we should try to go. When she told me she'd be willing to miss a beach day to go, I knew we were in for something incredible.
We walked through the doors and took our first look at what I can only describe as the most impressive structure I've ever laid eyes on. The inside of the church climbs to about 250 feet and is adorned with pristine artwork and bright stained glass. It doesn't look like most churches - dark, gloomy, depressing, and instead gives a welcoming and cheerful feeling. The columns which support most of the weight of the structure look like giant trees reaching up to the sky. Each "tree" has "branches" that provide additional support. The stained glass is green and blue on one side of the church and red and yellow on the other. The doors state the Lord's Prayer in 50 different languages. The stairs look...unique. I could go on and on, but I'll let the pictures tell some of the story. Seriously though, they don't do it justice. Go see the Sagrada Familia. By the way, it's expected completion date is 2026...and the tallest tower isn't even raised yet. I can't wait to see what it looks like when completed.
With all this talk about Gaudi, I almost forgot about our adventure to Montserrat, a mountain range about 25 miles northwest of Barcelona. Rachel and I wanted to visit Montserrat mostly for its "Stairway to Heaven," a sculpture of 8 rotating steps on the edge of a cliff that overlook the villages below. We were planning to take our Barcelona YOLO picture from the top of the structure...but it wasn't meant to be. First, we thought Montserrat was in Barcelona, not far outside the city so that pushed us back a day. Then, the night before we planned to go up there, we found out the workers who operate the funicular and the train (the only 2 ways up besides driving) would be striking the next 3 days. Then we called a tour company to take us up, but they were sold out of group tours for the day we wanted to go up, our last day in Barcelona. With renting a car completely out of the question after my last driving fiasco in Barcelona, we resorted to plan Z, a private tour up to Montserrat. Sure, it was expensive and more than we wanted to pay, but we were going to get the BEST YOLO picture ever. Our driver, Armando, an extremely knowledgeable and borderline nationalistic Catalonian picked us up at 8:30AM for our journey up to Montserrat. After an hour of back and forth with me asking Armando why Catalonia wanted to secede from Spain and Armando asking me questions about America to understand my level of American ignorance (I felt like I was a contestant on a bizarre game show at times), we arrived at Montserrat.
Armando insisted that we see the church at Montserrat before doing anything else. We waited in line, touched the Lady of Montserrat's hand (it's supposed to be good luck) and moved on to the Stairway to Heaven. We got there and found a giant moose with a sign that said "Wally World Closed 2 Weeks to Repair America's Favorite Family Fun Park." Then I punched the moose in the face and picked up a BB gun from a sporting goods store and forced my way up the stairs. Ok, so it wasn't exactly like Vacation, but the structure was closed. Apparently, some kid fell off the stairs a few months ago, had to be rescued by a helicopter, and the authorities decided to no longer allow tourists to climb the structure. No wonder Armando was quizzing me during the ride out to Montserrat, it was probably an American who ruined the party for everyone. So much for our YOLO picture.
In all seriousness though, the views from Montserrat were amazing and the mountain range is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Apparently, the entire range was underwater millions of years ago and rose up from the ocean when the plates shifted, creating the Montserrat of today. Despite the disappointment of not being able to climb the Stairway to Heaven, we still had a great time.
Barcelona was amazing and still ranks as one of my favorite cities in the world. It's a bit touristy, but it's understandable why the region gets so many tourists. We definitely enjoyed ourselves.
Now, onward to Dublin!
Jeff
PS - Vueling was 75 minutes delayed on the way out today. That puts them at a grand total of 5+ hours of delays for 4 hours of flying (2 flights). The rest of the trip we've flown about 40 hours and experienced maybe 2 hours of delays (6 flights). They suck.
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