Tuesday 22 March 2016

Barcelona!


Barcelona...


Vibrant and beautiful...


 colorful and sometimes quirky...


architecturally spectacular...


Prime real estate sitting right on the Mediterranean with plenty of parking for cruise ships and some super yachts (man would I like to know who sailed into town on that boat!)...


Good food accompanied by a pitcher of sangria...


 Lots of tourists, just like us...


 but still plenty of space for locals.


This is Barcelona!  


We spent a couple of days in this bustling city in Spain at the end of our week in southern France, not nearly enough time to see all of it, but we hit the highlights.  


We stayed in a cute modern apartment down a narrow tree-lined side street where we could sit on the little balcony and watch the world go by below us.  


A walk around the block got us everything we needed as far as food for a few days...


including this delicious Catalana ice cream from a dairy store that we thought by appearance was carmel swirl but ended up being a flavor we still haven't figured out - sort of a gingerbread flavor, that's as close as a description I can come up with anyway, but whatever it was, it was delicious!  


A little farther afield we found a charming little shop filled with chocolates and other regional specialties.  


We bought a variety of treats, not really knowing what it was we were choosing, but that's the fun of it.  In the beautiful little tin are some of the chocolates I mentioned above.


Our first stop was perhaps the most well recognized building in Barcelona - the Basilica designed by Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi.  It's a spectacular sight, there is no doubt about that, it's gothic spires rising high up towards the sky are unlike anything I've seen before, well anything but this particular church, which I did actually see once before.  


Twenty-five years ago I stood in this exact spot during a school trip to Spain.  I never thought I would see it again, but here I was years later but with my family this time.  More of the Basilica is completed now than it was when I visited at the age of 17, but there are still cranes overhead and signs of construction everywhere.  You would think than in 25 years, this building would have been completed, but actually, it is expected to take a total of 144 years to complete.  Crazy, isn't it!  


The Basilica was started in 1882, Gaudi died in 1926, and it's estimated completion date is 2026, exactly 100 years after Gaudi's death.  It really is hard to fathom that a building today could possibly take that long to construct, but when you this marvel of design and architecture, it's not hard to figure out why it will take so long.  The details, the artwork, the size - it's all just so incredible! 


We've seen many, many churches, all beautiful and some quite unique, but nothing even remotely like this one.  


Gaudi's design stands alone. 


We spent most of the two days just wandering the city, looking up and down and all around because you never knew what you would spot and you didn't want to miss anything.  There is just so much to see in Barcelona.  


We wandered the narrow streets of the gothic quarter...


And squeezed through the crowded aisles of La Boqueria, the huge well-known public market that's been operating on this site since 1840.  


We saw all many of food being sold by the vendors.  


I highly recommend trying some of the freshly squeezed fruit juices that are sold in all combinations of fruit you can imagine.  The strawberry-coconut is heavenly!   


We strolled through a couple of lovely parks.  


Even the street lights are gorgeous in Barcelona.


The other park we found had a playground, much to the girls' delight, and maybe mine too.  It gave me a chance to rest my aching feet because I cannot tell you how many miles we walked over our two days in Barcelona.  But there was just so much to see...


We spent one evening waiting patiently for a hour and a half with a few hundred other people by the Magic Fountain for a water and light show that is suppose to be quite spectacular... 


only it never happened.  Disappointed, we trudged back to our cozy apartment where there was ice cream waiting, so the night was not a complete flop.  


And we even found some time one afternoon to relax on our little balcony while enjoying a cold beer from the little bar across the street...


 
Cheers to Barcelona!  What an amazing city.  But I'm not quite done yet.  I have a few more photos to share.  You see, when I visited Barcelona 25 years ago, we did not get to go inside of the great Basilica designed by Gaudi.  I'm not sure it was even open to visitors back then.  It is now though, but sadly, I didn't get to see the inside on this trip either.  We hadn't realized that you need to buy tickets in advance online and when we arrived early in the morning thinking we would beat the crowd, instead we were told the tickets were sold out for the day and for the following day as well.  We would have to come back Monday, only we wouldn't be in Barcelona that long.  So instead, we found an alternative and visited a house that Gaudi designed, and you know what, it was pretty amazing too, unlike anything we've seen.  This is Casa Batllo...


It was an existing home that the Battlo family hired Gaudi to renovate, giving him free reign to design something creative and over the top for them.  


That he did, for Casa Batllo is truly unique both inside and out...


with a roof that looks like a sleeping dragon...


wonky doors beautifully crafted out of wood...


and crazy nooks and crannies.  It all makes you feel as if you are walking through the pages of a Dr. Seuss book.  Gaudi had a great imagination, colorful and quirky, but from a designing and engineering perspective, extremely impressive and inventive.  A truly unique style that is all his own and what a fun place to visit.  So I leave you today with a few more photos of Casa Ballto and the beautiful city of Barcelona.