Parc Guell photos

Here they are some more photos of the park. Enjoy!

Photo on left: The 'gingerbread' style gate houses. Now housing a bookstore and a museum...I think. We didn't go into either one. The right photo is one of the very cool stone arch colonnades, the road is on top of it! I want one my next estate.


Here is a close up of Gaudi's house. Also used as
a model home when they were trying to sell the idea of a gated community.



The terrace atop the area that was designed to be a market. Yep, all those columns were part of the market. Again, I'll have one on my next estate and hold a farmer's market every week. Those curve benches everyone's sitting on were designed by Gaudi to be ergonomically correct (is that how you phrase that?) For being what seems to be tiled cement they were mighty comfy...perhaps that was just because my feet hurt.

These guys were jammin' out and swinging their hat tassels in time to the music. Every time I tried to get a good picture someone stepped in my way. Cursed tourists. hee, hee, hee I hope you appreciate the irony in that statement. I have tons more photos of the park but I can't be bothered to post them right now and I'm sure you're bored with it anyways. It's much better in person. So go on, get to Spain.

Once we were done lazing about the park we hopped back on the trusty bus and settled in to have it take us around the outskirts of town and give a history lesson. We didn't learn much, but it seems that there is something designed/made by Gaudi everywhere you look! We hopped off because, once again I was desperate for the toilet and we needed to change to the red line bus to go up to Montjuic (the mount of the Jews) which was something DH wanted to do. As soon as we stepped off the bus two young girls asked us if we spoke English and if we could help them with their English assignment by answering some questions. I can't imagine how they knew we were Americans (dripping with sarcasm here). They were lovely girls and spoke amazingly good English asking us about the sights we saw and if we knew Spanish or Catalan (um...no). They were slightly amused by our list of Spanish phrases which consisted of 'I don't speak Spanish', 'Hello', 'Check please' and most importantly 'Where is the bathroom?' Are we prepared tourists or what (I think we fall into the 'or what' category).

Speaking of the bathroom that's the very next place we headed. Luckily, there was a Starbucks on the corner and these are perfect places to sneak and use the bathroom without having to buy anything. There are always lines of people and there is no key code to get into the bathroom (like there is at many McDonald's here) so it's perfect! The only problem for me is that once I'm inside a Starbucks I really don't want to leave unless I have a Mocha in my hand...so we split one. That problem solved we went to wait for the red line bus to show us more of the city.

That evening after a full day of tourist stuff, we headed to the Barcelonetta area right down by the harbor to get some paella. We were told this was the place to go, no matter what restaurant you went to if it was here the paella would be good. And it was. Not liking seafood all that much the hubby opted for the chicken option - we read the menus first to make sure there was more than one choice of paella. I went for the more traditional fisherman's paella and it was delicious. The white sangria was not to my taste -too citrusy - but it was still nice. There was a guy playing a guitar and singing and 2 very drunk young women singing along with him and being a bit obnoxious. Thankfully, they left shortly after the musician left after getting advice from the waiter on where to go for some entertainment.

And once we walked back to the hotel after dinner that concluded our 2nd day. Our 3rd day consisted of checking out La Boqueria market which was just around the corner from our hotel, trying out the crazy juices they sell their, popping into souvenir shops, buying chocolates, and eating tapas and sangria before catching the train to the airport and home.

There, it's done and in only 3 blog posts. Did anyone actually make it through all this twaddle? Well, congratulations if you did and better luck next time. Thanks for playing!

Día dos en Barcelona hermosa

Day Two in Beautiful Barcelona ~ Antoni Gaudi's Creations

One of the best parts of going on vacation is the ability to sleep as late as you'd like. No dogs cuddling up to you demanding you arise at 6:00 and take her for a walk. No alarm clocks screaming at you that you better get out of bed immediately or be late for work. Ah, vacation. The Hotel Curious, our nice little hotel just a block from La Ramblas had a decent little continental breakfast with lots of different breads, toast, cheese, meat, yogurt, cereal, fresh fruit, etc. A good way to start off a day in Barcelona.

Once our bellies were full we were ready to start our day of exploring Gaudi's many creations spread about the city. We convinced ourselves the hop on hop off bus tour would be a good idea - it would take us to the sites, we'd see some of the city AND get some useful information about Barcelona! Bad idea. It was so crowded at the first bus stop we walked to our first destination - La Pedrera, aka Casa Mila. La Pedrera (meaning "The Quarry") was REALLY cool! A 40 minute wait was worth it.

Perhaps I should pause for a moment just give a quick run down of who Antoni Gaudi was. Gaudi was born in 1852 (died 1926) and is Barcelona's most famous Modernista Architects. La Pedrera was Gaudi's last major work before devoting himself to the La Sagrada Familia (coming up next) and was built between 1906-1910 commissioned by Pere Milà to be an apartment complex where Pere Milà and his family would live along with renting apartments out. It is considered by many to be Barcelona's quintessential Modernista building. Gaudi was had an organic style that was inspired by nature combining function and form. OK, architectural lesson over. Let's look at some photos, shall we? I thought the terrace or rooftop was completely awesome. That's where the tour started us off.
There are 3 different types of structures on the roof: the badalots (staircases) like seen at right; the ventilation towers and the chimneys. The undulating balustrades conform to the shape of the facade, as Gaudi sought a harmonic solution between the rhythms of the facade and the roof (thank you Casa Mila audio and paper guide). Wouldn't it just be amazing to have an apartment in this building and sit up on the roof terrace enjoying an evening glass of wine? I think so. Amazingly, people do live in the apartments as well as there being some offices here. I might not like having the tourists around all day long, but after closing hours it must be nice.
I didn't find the apartment terribly interesting so I don't have many pictures of it. It has been recreated as an apartment of a Barcelona bourgeois family during the first decades of the 20th century and decorated with period furnishing and household appliances. It was neat, but nothing overly exciting. We did get to sit in some Gaudi designed ergonomic chairs. They didn't look like they would be but they were surprisingly comfortable.


Now, onto our next stop! We did actually manage to take the Hop On Hop Off bus and sit on top. We hopped off at la Sagrada Família Gaudi's most famous and persistent work. He began work on this famous church in 1883 and continued until his death in 1926. It has been progressing in fits and starts ever since. Even today, the half-finished church is not expected to be finished for another quarter century! (again thanks for the info Rick Steves).

When we first got off the bus there was a line around the block waiting to go into the church! "Holy moly!" I thought, "I'm not so sure I even care about going in...I mean it's just another church, right?" But another woman who was on the bus assured me that it really was worth going in to see. Since I was starving (and BOY do I get cranky when I'm hungry) we decided to hold off making a decision about the church until after we had some food in our bellies. We were going to have lunch on the cheap, so we strolled around looking for a place to grab a sandwich or something. Just across from the church was this little hole in the wall that had these pizza like things so we thought, OK this will do. My pizza thing was still cold in the center, but I was hungry so it tasted good enough for me. Naturally, we didn't actually check the price before we ordered and we ended up paying way more for a crappy lunch than we should have. Oh well, live and learn. In retrospect we were across the street from one of Barcelona's major tourist attractions - we should have known prices would be jacked up. And second when you don't see the price listed on the board...that's another indication you are about to be screwed. Granted, being able to actually read the language helps with this second one. Anyways, after lunch there was hardly any line at all and bought our tickets and went right in.

This is the Passion facade built by Josep Maria Subirachs. There is controversy over this facade as some think that it does not fit with Gaudi's vision. Personally, I think it fits in very well. Gaudi also built a school on site for the children of the workers - you can see the roof of it in the above picture. It's the undulating rooftop in the lower right corner. Even his school houses are interesting to look at!
Inside the church is awe inspiring. I may have become desensitized to Gothic cathedrals but this is like nothing I've ever seen before. Do to the fact many of the windows do not have stained glass in them yet the interior is so bright and airy. I wish they would leave it like this, but there are plans to put in all stained glass. I'm sure that will look beautiful as well. The pillars look like towering trees supporting the roof. If I remember correctly this is what Gaudi intended.

Look how detailed the ceiling is. Wow, imagine being the workman up there completing that work.





After La Sagrda we grabbed that trusty ole' tourist bus and went out to our last Gaudi stop of the day - La Parc Güell. This was totally cool. He designed it for Senor Güell to be a gated community for the hoity-toity outside of the city in a lovely green space. Naturally, all those posh ladies of the early 1900's didn't really want to be away from the city center, despite the promise of fresh, smog free air. So instead of 60 palatial residences being built, there were 2. Gaudi lived in one and Count Güell lived in the other. I would have lived there, hell I'd live there today if I could!

Once you enter the park, this is what you see. It would have been WAY cooler if there weren't all those damned tourists! hee, hee, hee

OK, well...I'm tired so I'm going to stop writing and maybe if I can work up the enthusiasm I'll post some pictures of the parc tomorrow.

Buenos Noches, y'all

Hola España!

I have been meaning to write some more blog posts for ages. Something happens in our Frenchified life and I think "I really should write a quick blog about that". Sometimes I even take pictures with my camera phone thinking, "This will be perfect for a blog post" but then life takes over and I forget or sit down and watch TV instead. I know, I know I'm such a lazy bum. But, FINALLY, we have done something exciting AND I have some time of from work...so I thought I'd try and put together a little post.

I was so excited to go to Barcelona, Spain. I have been hearing from everyone whose traveled there what a fantastic city it is and they were right. It is a great city. I have to say it is a truly unique European city. With all it's moderniste buildings mixed with Gothic cathedrals and typical narrow winding streets it is a city unlike any I've been to before.


La Ramblas, is the main street in the old part of town leading down to the port. This is like the nerve center of Barcelona tourism! The large walking mall down the center of the road is filled with street performers, people handing out flyers, souvenir kiosks, and much, much more. The tourist flow along stopping to drop coins in the street performers buckets, or to browse through tacky Barcelona souvenirs. The massive crowds make it easy for pickpockets to make a living. All guide books and even our hotel concierge warned of the prevalence of pickpockets, often pairs or groups of people working together. As the concierge said, "There is no need to worry about your safety, they will not be violent you won't even know it is happening." They are elegant thieves, not thugs. We ran into a group doing the shell game- you know where they have 3 boxes and a ball and you have to guess which box the ball is in after they've shuffled it around. We stopped to watch the action and, naturally, the guy running the game drops a 50 Euro bill on my purse and tells me to chose the box. He had of course just flipped the box up so everyone could see where it was. I wasn't exactly sure what to do. I said, no I don't want to play and tried to just put the money on his table. What I should have done was put the 50 in my pocket and walked away...not that they would have actually let me walk away. As soon as I stepped forward I was surrounded by people. All of them apparently in on this scheme. Some woman immediately went to the hubby and tried to engage him in conversation about where he was from, blah, blah, blah. As I tried to move away from the table they started saying "You won! Lady, you won! Show him your money" I was very confused. I hadn't even picked a box. Some man grabbed my arm and tried to pull me forward. My darling husband looked like he was about to punch the guy who grabbed me. I just pulled my hand away and said, "No thank you" and purposefully walked away leaving the man his 50 euros. I was a bit shaken, but they were just trying to get me to play their game and give up some money. I checked my purse and Josh checked his pockets all was still there. I did find the whole thing a bit confusing. Did that really work with people? You hand them 50 Euros and then tell them they've won, now show them your money? I mean if I had just won then shouldn't that 50 Euros be mine? Why would I have to get out any money at all if I had supposedly just won? Oh well, no harm done and it makes for an interesting story. My heart was slamming against my chest as I walked away. For a moment I had just felt surrounded and pressured and not entirely sure what was happening. Now that that was over we could concentrate on exploring Barcelona!

We headed down to the harbor, stopping to take some photos of the Columbus Monument along the way. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we wandered along the harbor enjoying the weather and the beautiful day. I loved the palm trees everywhere and as we started to feel a bit tired we sat down for a little rest to glance through our Rick Steve's 'Snapshot Barcelona' and decide what to do with the rest of our afternoon/evening. I laid down on the large stone steps with my head in DH's lap and closed my eyes for a mini siesta...when in Spain...


After sunning ourselves for a while we felt refreshed and decided to wander up through La Ribera neighborhood and then head to the Parc de la Ciutadella. We stopped to have a look at the Church of Santa Maria del Mar in the Ribera district. A fine example of Catalan Gothic architecture, according to Rick Steves who also told us that "The proud shippers built this church in only 55 years, so that it has a harmonious style that is considered pure Catalan Gothic." I have to admit after seeing so many Gothic cathedrals all over Europe this one didn't really seem much different. I remember when I first came to Europe finding these churches overwhelmingly amazing - the size, the beauty, the age of them was awe inspiring. Now, it just seems like another church. Maybe I need to take a break from Gothic churches! Still, they are beautiful and it is amazing to think of the time and money people put into these monuments to their religion.
My favorite part to our first day in Barcelona (other than eating) was the Parc de la Ciutadella (Citadel Park). It's a huge green space with a fountain by Gaudi , a zoo, a triumphal arch, and museums to geology and zoology. There were people practicing tight rope walking - which was way cool. I so wanted to ask if I could try it, but I'm too much of a chicken. Rick Steves totally would have done it - that's why he's a travel writer and I'm not!
Not the best photos, but you can kind of see in the top one, the guy is bouncing off and below he's just gotten up on the rope and is starting to walk across.
We really wanted to go to the zoo but at nearly 20 Euros a ticket we decided that perhaps our money would be better spent elsewhere. I mean, you can go to a zoo anywhere in the world there's nothing particularly special about the animals in the Barcelona zoo. So we ambled around the park taking random pictures of each other and searching for a public bathroom. We have decided that our mission in life should be to record the locations of every public bathroom in every city we travel to. This would be a fantastic website, I think. And very useful. I find I spend half of every vacation wondering where on earth I can use a toilet and praying that it is 1) not a just a hole in the ground and 2) actually has a toilet seat. We could even have a rating system for the bathrooms. Let's see...the highest rating of 4 toilet bowls would mean, clean, with toilet paper, and an actual toilet with seat! What do you think? I think we have a winner on our hands. The one I found in Parc de la Ciutadella would probably be 2.5 toilet bowls. It had a flushing toilet, without a seat, and the toilet paper was out, but it did appear as though there normally was some. There was a sink to wash your hands and it was fairly clean. There was a hand dryer which means I only half dried my hands then dried them on my jeans because I can't be bothered to wait that long for my hands to be dry. Overall, when you are desperate for the toilet you could get stuck (and I have) with much worse options. Now that you are totally enthralled with my Barcelona bathroom experiences lets move on to some photos!
No, not photos of the bathrooms (although that would be key for my website).
This is my "don't mess with me" look

This is me being a spy running down the fountain steps, will I ever grow up?

Anyways, after the relaxing in the park we wandered through some of the Barri Gotic (Gothic Quarter). We stumbled upon the Cathedral of Barcelona and took a quick peak inside. Yep, another Gothic cathedral.
We headed back to our hotel so I could grab my sweatshirt and put on my jeans as the evening was getting chillier. The lovely concierge gave us some suggestions for dinner and we had a great meal at a little tapas restaurant called Taller Tapas. I can't believe we didn't take an photos of our tapas - they were SO good. In case you don't know tapas works like this. You order to or 3 tapas each and then share them. You can get vegetable, meat, seafood tapas, whatever. They come on small plates and you just have a sample of everything. We had these awesome fried artichoke hearts, asparagus and garlic, steamed mussels (I had these, DH tried one) lamb, and potatoes with garlic something or other. All of it was amazing. It's so much fun to order a bunch of different things and just have a little taste. I think you get the picture. They also had an amazing house red wine. Well, I couldn't have it because I was antibiotics, but I had a taste of the hubby's and I was SUPER jealous. I wish we knew what it was because I would buy it in a heart beat.

Well...so that was day 1 of our trip. Can you see why I don't blog anymore? I just get carried away. Our 2 night, 3 day trip should be covered in one short post but it will probably take me three. Which also means this will probably be it as I go back to work tomorrow. Oiy vay.