About a week before, I started thinking that it was silly of us to drive all the way to Spain for only two nights in Pamplona and I had seen some pictures of Barcelona and adjusted our schedule for three nights there as well, before the Running of the Bulls. I'm so glad I did--Barcelona (the capital of Spain's Catalan region) was amazing. To try to make the 10 hour drive as painless as possible for the boys, we decided to drive overnight. We arrived in Barcelona at about 7 am, found both a McDonalds and a parking garage (parking was horrible), changed diapers, clothes, got some breakfast, then headed straight for the beach. It was cloudy and completely deserted, so we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves and could just relax and stretch out after the long drive.
After some time at the beach, we went and found our hotel--it was probably the tiniest little room for three people I have ever seen. Though, oddly, the bathroom was nearly as big as the room itself. It was a little cramped, but we figured we shouldn't be spending too much time in the hotel room anyway.
 |
| Our little hotel room--with Michael running around with a blanket on his head |
We dropped off our stuff and set off for a walk, where we ran across one of the main things to do on my list: Casa Batllo! So many of Barcelona's most famous sites were designed by one modernist architect, Antoni Gaudi, who lived from 1852-1926. It was all of Gaudi's works that I was most excited to see. They are all so colorful and unique and all his designs are inspired by nature. I would have loved to go inside too, but the boys (especially Michael) weren't really up to more structured activities than we already had planned. So we did lots of admiring from the outside.
The front is decorated with mosaics of broken ceramic tiles.
The roof is theorized to be that of a dragon or dinosaur, with the lance of Saint George (the patron saint of Catalonia) stabbed into its back.
This one, right next door, was designed by a different architect and was beautiful too, but I think just about everything gets overshadowed by Gaudi!
We continued our walk and saw lots of cool looking buildings and fountains.
We wandered into Plaza Catalan in the middle of Barcelona, which had a few fountains and more importantly, a huge open space full of pigeons for Michael to chase! There were also guys out there selling birdseed, so we got some and spent a few minutes feeding the birds,
Just at the opposite end of the plaza was another fountain. It was pretty hot so we went and sat by it and let Michael splash in it a little bit.
Then this guy started wading through and picking all of the money out of it while yelling about how wonderful the tourists are and how everyone is welcome in Spain. It was a little funny. Maybe he thought if he attracted as much attention to himself as possible nobody would stop him from taking all the money out?
From here, we could have taken several streets and we picked a lucky one because it took us right into the gothic quarter and to Barcelona's cathedral.
Visiting the churches is kind of my thing, and it was 5 euros each to get inside, so I went in by myself while the boys stayed outside and ran around the plaza. It was beautiful, as all the cathedrals are. It was very ornate and had a little outdoor courtyard with a fountain and some ducks which was unique. The architecture was similar to most of the other cathedrals we've seen in Italy and it was lovely.
After that, we went and got some lunch at Burger King (because when you're traveling with a toddler and an 11 year old you can't always sit down at local restaurants and try the local cusine, as much as we would have enjoyed that). But this was definitely the best view I've ever seen from a Burger King:
We kept walking and saw more interesting artwork and unique buildings.
Poor Michael was just spent at this point. And Robbie too, as he hadn't slept the night before since he did all the driving. We went back to the hotel room so everyone could get a little sleep.
Once we all woke up, I had read about a water show at the Font de Montjuic that was supposed to be really cool as well. We somehow found another parking garage and found a huge crowd all waiting for the show to start.
It was pretty neat--the fountain was synchronized to music and there were lights as well. We hung out and watched the show, then walked around a little bit. It repeated every 30 minutes so we got to see if from a few different angles.
After all that, we were all pretty tired and went back to the hotel to try to get some sleep--I had booked more Gaudi awesomeness for the next day!
First thing in the morning we got up, grabbed some breakfast quick, and headed down to what may be my favorite place ever: the Sagrada Familia Basilica. This church was designed by Gaudi and it was his magnum opus. He dedicated the final years of his life to the project and it was less than 1/4 of the way completed when he died. It is still under construction, with completion anticipated in 2026 to coincide with the 100 year anniversary of Gaudi's death. I don't think words or pictures could convey how beautiful and spectacular this church is. It is, even though incomplete, the most amazing combination of building and art. The detail is like nothing I've ever seen on a building before, the colors from the stained glass windows make you feel like you're in a fantasy land and the ceilings seem impossibly high.
Outside was a model of what the outside of the church will look like when it is completed. When doing my research for the trip, I also found this video, which shows what it looks like now, then a computer progression of what is still left to be built that gives you an idea of the scale of this thing.
The interior of the church is completed, and like the rest of it, completely spectacular. Gaudi took a lot of his designs from nature, and the columns in the church are meant to look like trees.
There are stained glass windows along the sides of the church and while they're all multi-colored, the light they give off in the sanctuary goes by colors of the rainbow so you walk through sections glowing green, blue, yellow, orange, and red. This picture gives you some idea for the scale--how tiny the people look, and this wasn't even the highest part of the ceiling.
Detail on the columns. they look like bug eyes to me.
The massive iron doors have, I think, the Lord's Prayer written in them in the Catalan languge in the big letters down the middle, then in several other languages in smaller letters on the rest of the door.
Here's a close-up of the words on the iron doors. There are 2 or 3 sets of these doors in the church at the different entrances.
Spiral staircase. Looks like it would make you dizzy!
More of the interior of the church:
We paid a few euros extra to take the elevators up several stories to one of the spires, which gave us really good views of the city, and some of the outside details and construction work. We took the stairs back down, and this was the view down the loooooooong spiral staircase.
A view of Barcelona from the top of the spire.
This was on one of the exterior doors--it looked like a very complicated schematic drawing of something with all sorts of different symbology. This was only a small part of it I took a picture of to try to see the detail.
Some sculpure on the outside of the church.
After being dazzled at the basilica, we finally found a local restaurant that had what we wanted to try for a reasonable price, sangria and paella!
Both were great!
After lunch we had to make it back to the hotel for nap time... Saw some more cool buildings (everything in Barcelona was cool!)
After naps I had made reservations to see Park Guell, a whole park designed by Gaudi. I think the original idea was that this area would be for really expensive houses for the Barcelona big-wigs back in the early 1900s, and Park Guell was to be the common area for those living there. But only a couple of the houses sold and the whole idea was kind of a bust, so there's just this awesome park full of Gaudi's artwork and mosaics that everyone can enjoy.
I think one of the things I liked most about Spain, and about Gaudi's designs was how colorful everything was. Park Guell was covered in mosaics, and all the structures had very interesting shapes to them. Gaudi didn't like straight lines, so everything was curved and colorful.
This salamander at Park Guell is one of the most well known pieces of Gaudi's work and you could find it all over gift shops as a symbol of his designs. We waited in line and shoved past several other tourists to get this picture. It's brutal out there!
These houses reminded me of gingerbread houses, or like what Hansel and Gretel found when they came upon the witch's house.
The benches were all tiled and different sections had different color patterns. The seat part was tiled in white, and there were park staff milling about making sure that nobody stood on them.
We walked along through this weird, slanted tunnel. Very Alice in Wonderland.
The cross, like at the top of this building is another of Gaudi's signature designs, it's on Casa Batllo and all over the Sagrada Familia as well.
Panoramic view of Park Guell, with the city and ocean in the background:
After the park we were hot and the boys needed something with a little less structure, so we went back to the beach for the late afternoon. It was sunny and beautiful, and also completely packed. It was hard to find a place to put our towels! Barcelona also has a reputation for pick-pocketing, so I was really paranoid about our bags and Robbie's fancy camera just sitting there on the beach in the big crowd. Michael wasn't too interested in swimming, even though the water was gorgeous, so it worked that one of us could swim while the other sat back and built sand castles and watched our stuff.
He did go in the water a little bit--he thought it was fun to get his toes wet, but that was about it. Robbie was in spashing around, jumping waves, and body surfing back in the whole time we were there. He even made an American friend from the East Coast.
It was a really beautiful day for swimming!
We had dinner at one of the seaside restaurants that evening, then went back to the hotel for bed.
The next day, I wanted to see Gaudi's other famous house, Casa Mila, but unfortunately it was all covered up and under renovation for all of 2014. There was a Starbucks right across the street and we really miss Starbucks, so we got breakfast and drinks (to go!) there before heading back down to Plaza Catalan.
Robbie got really brave with the pigeons this time and had quite a crowd gathered. He would put the birdseed in his hands, let the birds climb on, then raise his arms up and at one point had four of five pigeons on his arms! It was fun, and both boys thought it was pretty great.
The last thing I had in mind for our trip was to walk down La Rambla street, which started right at Plaza Catalan. La Rambla is the famous tree-lined street full of shops and restaurants. I mostly just wanted to experience it, but we popped into a couple stores here and there, then ate lunch at one of the restaurants.
There were some pretty good performance artists towards the end of the street that were fun to watch.
I thought her costume was really cute. When you gave her money she pretended like she was losing her balance.
This statue is at the end of La Rambla street, and it's hard to see, but at the top is Christopher Columbus pointing the way to the New World.
And to close it out, another panoramic view of the inside of the Sagrada Familia.
Barcelona was so beautiful and there was so much to do there. I feel like we saw and did a lot, but barely scratched the surface in three days of all the city had to offer. It was one city where I felt like there was a little bit of everything-- a beach, a gothic quarter, art, great food and shopping, parks, city life, and some very unique architecture. I would love to go back. We probably won't have the chance before we leave Europe this time, but maybe in 15 years we'll travel back to see the finished Sagrada Familia Basilica and take a road trip around Spain to visit other cities like Madrid and Seville.
On another note, a couple of weeks ago the Catalan region of Spain held a non-binding vote (Madrid called it illegal) for independence from Spain and nearly 81% of the voters in Catalonia voted in favor of independence with about 40% of those who were eligible casting votes. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds in the future and if Catalonia does become its own state apart from Spain.
I think Barcelona bumped Spain up to my favorite country we've visited so far. I highly recommend putting it on your European travel bucket list!
