Tag: Gaudi

Another busy day….

Today started with more Gaudi and a trip to Park Guell. Eusebi Guell intended to create a garden city in the space, having been inspired by those in England. His plan failed because only three of the sixty available plots were sold, we were able to view the park that remains. Having expected a park to be free, we hadn’t bought tickets to the monuments and missed most of Gaudi’s work which was a disappointment.

However we did see a beautiful park with walkways suspended over intricate columns and fantastic views over the city to the sea….. and a small group of buskers playing jazz!

The next stop was another park, this time at Montjuic. This involved the metro, vernacular railway and cable car. The Barcelona Metro has been easy to use, clean and not too busy – a far cry from our experience in New York!

 

The park at Montjuic is huge. It has a fort at the top of the mountain, runs across to the Olympic Stadium, is home to several museums and Barcelona’s Botanic Gardens. It’s also a difficult place to find a public toilet and a cafe for a short break! The views across the docks were unexpected, you can’t see much from beach level but up high you get to see the scale of the working port.

We were only a few minutes from the Miro Foundation so we voted for more culture! Our highlights were the Mercury Fountain (we need one in the garden) and what can only be described as the biggest rug in world.

More Metro for us as we headed to the Las Arenas Shopping centre. The centre is housed in an old bullring and the top floor is a 360 terrace giving panoramic views around the city. I think we have probably seen more than enough panoramic views of the city!!

Finally, we were hoping to see the Magic Fountain of Montjuic this evening but we are weary and have booked dinner at a time that clashes with the show. Instead of music, lights and dancing fountains, we just walked up to look at pools of water and used our imagination.

Barcelona has been exhausting and we’re looking forward to our trip up the coast for a few days of peace and quiet.

Sagrada Familia and a new room…

A visit to Sagrada Familia was the reason for staying in Barcelona and we’ve ticked that off the list! It is difficult to describe the impact the building has, both inside and out so you’ll just have google it yourselves because ‘wow’ doesn’t do it justice.

 

 

We arrived just as a number or local choirs started to sing and the sound was wonderful. There was a real mixture of choirs, from adults to schoolchildren, taking the opportunity to sing for visitors.

The museum was an interesting history of the development of the cathedral with plaster models, original plans by Gaudi and a short film describing his philosophy and approach to design an-amazingly talented man.

We headed back to the hotel to a new room free from the odour of cigarettes and marginally more space, woohoo! The only downside is that we overlook a busy road – fingers crossed for a better nights sleep.

 

We ventured all the way to a restaurant next door for dinner which was a good choice. Lovely food in very pleasant surroundings at a reasonable price before finally calling it a night.

A day of culture or ‘what does a Spanish department store and St Pancras International have in common?’

Before you start reading, please excuse typos and poor editing, the technology (or its operative) isn’t working that well, 😡😡

After a fairly disturbed night we started late.

Matt went for a run along the beach while John and I took our time over a very basic breakfast and negotiated a new room. Tonight’s room is marginally bigger but overlooking the road rather than the internal courtyard. Fingers crossed that it’s not too noisy, two thirds of us don’t work well on disturbed sleep. We’ll leave you to decide which two!

Our first stop was Casa Battlo which we admired from the outside before heading round the corner to a brilliant craft/DIY store.

Over 6 floors, it had everything you could need including the biggest display of coloured  bubble wrap John had ever seen. We also found a terrace with sneaky views over the back of Casa Battlo.

Next on the list was Gaudi’s La Pedrera. What an amazing building!

 

Gaudi’s talent left us speechless and the furnished apartment reminded us of Bagnoles and how much we missed it.

 

Next stop, Sagrada Familia which is the reason we’re here.
To answer the question in the title – both have eco friendly escalators that speed up when you stand on them. We admit we’re easily entertained!