Barcelona - episode 4

I've decided that I've got to condense my writing about Barcelona otherwise I'll be going for ever and time is going. On Friday I'm off to London woo hooo and maybe - just maybe - London will put on a white xmas for me this year.

So Barcelona and the 2nd day of our holiday. This day was another bright sun-shining, blue sky day (could I ever have enough of them) and we strode our way to the Plaza de Cataluña to get on a tourist bus ride. This time we got off the main road walk and instead meandered our way through the interesting narrow alleyways to get to the plaza - nope, didn't get lost. However,  finding our way to the right place to get on the right tourist bus once we got to the plaza was a different story. There are 3 tourist bus routes - red, blue and green - and each has it's own route and each one departs from a different place in the Plaza. It is a big plaza! The ticket lasts for 1 day, not for 24 hour period as in San Sebastian, and our plan was to get the red one first to have a city tour and then change to the blue one which would take us to the Park Geull, which was a good plan but first we had to find the right bus. After a visit to the tourist office and wandering around, becoming disoriented - both of us, not just me - some terse words, we got to the right bus and off we went. Tourist buses are such a good way to see a city, I think I've said this before, and from the top deck of the red bus we saw quite a lot of Barcelona. All of the streets we went along are lined with big trees which make for a lovely city but not for taking photos so not many photos at all from this trip but here is one of some of what seemed like hundreds of taxis waiting outside the main train station

  

don't know what this is about!!!

  

seems there always has to be one of these mmmm

  

our first look at the Sagrada Familia and a bit of an emotional moment for Barry. He has wanted to see this place for many years and here it was, right in front of him, well, at the side of the bus actually.

it is a very strange and gigantic construction, more on this later because to visit the Sagrada Familia is tomorrow's plan. 

 Here we are at Parque Guell, just inside actually. We successfully found our way from the red bus to the blue bus, got off at the right stop, turned the right street corners and into the park.

There is now an €8.00 charge which was introduced just 2 weeks before we got there. We thought it was a bit on the high side. Don't mind paying a reasonable price but ...

well. The entry price gave us admission into the Gaudi part of the park and into the little museum there and, as there was a mile long queue we gave the museum a miss. Also, by this time it was early afternoon and we wanted to have a decent wander around and that's just what we did and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It is a wonderful park. This park was to have had 60 luxury houses privately owned sitting in Gaudi designed grounds and features. It was apparently a dismal failure and only 2 houses got built. Gaudi didn't design the houses but did design the gardens and park features. I was blown away by some of his ideas of design, he was inspired by his observations of the natural world around him as he grew up and in adulthood. I don't have the time to  elaborate on this however for  those of you who are interested there is always 'Wiki' and/or 'google'. 

One of the houses

The pillars to the left of the photo support the flat area which is surrounded by Gaudi's ceramic tiled seating. This piece of flat ground is covered in coarse sand through which rain water is filtered into pipes running down inside the pillars and into huge underground water tanks. This would then have been the water supply for the housing complex and the gardens in the park. It was quite something to see and read about considering he was designing this in the early 1900s. It was impossible to get a photo underneath the pillars because the sheer size of them and the area as a whole. After wandering around under the pillars we made our way up to being on top of them.

Again, impossible to get a photo of the whole of it, or even enough to show the scale so here's this one

It was simply marvelous sitting up here in the sun looking at the people, the view and contemplating just what we were looking at/ sitting on. I found myself thinking about the possibility of building such a seat, albeit  on a much smaller scale, at home. The seat - all ceramic tiles, all curves - has drainage holes through which rainwater runs into spouting running along the other side as in the next photo

 

Somewhere here I read that most of the material he used was recycled material from demolition sites and unwanted factory lots, clay and rocks. the photo below is of a random photographer.

Just joking - random photographer because there's always one, it is of the rock and clay supports for the walkway which runs along the on top of them. Again, all curves. 

The first 3 supports on this stretch had fancy designs but after that time must have got short or maybe, after the woman what else was there! No more fancy designed supports to be seen.

From here we left the Gaudi stuff for a while and went out into the 'Park Ordinary' and on up to the top of the hill to get a panoramic view of the city.

Made it to the top of the hill and then to the top of the rock structure on top of the hill on top of which  stands the obligatory cross.  This is really high up and rather narrow so it took me a little while to stop clutching at the seat and get up for a decent look around. It's certainly a wonderful view.

 

 I think that the tree-lined street on the left is La Rambla where we walked the day before.

The Sagrada Familia in the centre - so, so huge and still not finished. The middle steeple will eventually be as high as the highest crane.

Finally, we made our way down from the top and ambled through the park to have a look at what this house was about

 The house wasn't about anything but the walk through the trees was lovely and we then found ourselves outside Gaudi's house. Not that it was his design but that he'd lived here and had designed what was in it. After some discussion we decided to go in so payed another entrance fee. Barry wasn't impressed by this but I was keen as having had a taste of his designs I was keen to see more. Well, it was certainly worth it and again, impossible to get on film. Everything he designed has curves, no sharp edges and is made to fit with the human form - furniture, door handles, toilet seats 

fancy furniture

We were ages in here and finally it was time to go. One last photo taken after we left the house and it was here we got an idea of what the gardens would have been like if they had been completed.

oops here's another. It's a little blurry, not your eyesight at all. 

after this we went out of the park and down through the streets to get the bus back to the plaza, 

from there we went wandered through the little streets back to the apartment to ditch some of our stuff and then to find somewhere to eat. This time we went in the opposite direction and after much deliberation, poking our noses into different places, reading their menus, moving onto the next place we decided to go back to the first place we'd looked at and had a really good dinner accompanied by a couple of beers. I know that we are not the only people who so this! 

Instead of just walking back to the apartment the way we'd come we decided to go a different way - just along a bit and turn a corner and then along and then .... well, where were we?? 

It's not often that Barry is unsure about the right way to go but lucky for him this time I had a good idea of which way to go which happily for us turned out to be correct. We were so relieved to be in familiar territory that we headed to our local for a nightcap and then to our home away from home, away from home, away from home.

 The next morning, Saturday, we woke up and got such a shock - it was absolutely pouring with rain, just bucketing down. Crikey it was wet.