Today is the start of another half-day of GaudÃ. Yesterday it was his buildings downtown in the morning and his cathedral in the afternoon. This morning it is his park up the hill from the old town area quite a ways, Guell Park. I had a hard time discerning just exactly what it was we were going to see from what I had read. We allowed a full morning for our visit. A couple things that had not occurred to me that came as a surprise were (1) it is on quite a hillside, (2) there isn’t really much there except some for a terrace and some footpaths and a couple houses that look like something Hansel and Gretel would try to eat and (3) how many people come to view this place. Gaudi was wildly successful in nearly all he did, but I guess everyone has a failure. This was a housing development he was creating for society (rich) people to get out of the stuffy cramped old town Barcelona. But, it was too far out of town putting the ladies too distant from shopping and restaurants and they would have to walk up and down hills if they built homes here. The literature blames its failure to attract new house construction on the outbreak of WWI, but I think it might have been the gaudy elements Gaudi created that were a turnoff to the prospective home owners. Anyway, it wasn’t much to visit in my opinion, but it was educational and instructive.
We arrived about 9:00am by bus, wanting to avoid the metro so we could see the city as we traveled through it rather than slithering underground and popping out somewhere new. We had to walk about 4 or 5 blocks uphill and then wait half an hour for the park to open. We were the first ones there and it appeared as if not to many people visited. However, by 9:30am there was quite a line at the gate. We wandered around the park, climbing up to the “patio” area twice, once from each side, encouraged by one of the many docents guarding the area. By the time we left at about 11:00am the place was packed with people. Massive crowds filling every trail and path.
We walked back down and caught the bus back to our apartment for lunch. The bus ride was very slow as the traffic was thick. Now we remembered why the metro is so amazing. It doesn’t have to deal with traffic.
After our lunch of sandwiches we took the L2 Green line back to the Ramblas and walked through town to the Picasso Museum. Picasso grew up in Barcelona, the son of an art teacher. This museum displays his early work.
We walked the back streets to get to the museum, a fun way to go as the streets are too narrow for a car to fit and the buildings are about 3 to 4 stories high. Like walking in the canyons of the desert southwest.
Somehow we just walked into the museum without being noticed by the people taking tickets. We started looking at the exhibits and then realized we had paid for an audio tour when we bought our tickets online so we went out to find how to get our handheld audio devices and then reentered again without our tickets being scanned. The organization of the museum was pretty poor. Between the audio tour and Rick Steves’ written summaries we got a lot from the visit and gained an appreciation of Picasso, but also felt like some of the audio descriptions of the interpretations of his works was like a Monte Python parody sketch about stuffy art critics.
We finished the museum and stopped in a square for a beer and a soda (€8-almost US prices). Then we remembered we needed to go to the Sweet Lima coffee shop a few blocks away and see if the item Mike Morgan had left us about a month ago was still there. We walked in and asked for a coffee from Mike Morgan. The attendant just gave us a blank stare. We showed him Mike's text describing what he had left and how he was supposed to give it to us. He said he didn’t know anything about it. Bummer. But they did have outrageously good brownies and chocolate cake which we devoured.
From here we walked down to the waterfront and the beach to check it out for our planned swim for tomorrow. As we wove our way down sidewalks through town a dad with his little girl on his shoulders passed us. She had a clear plastic backpack on with toys inside. I was staring at the toys and not watching where I was walking. Yep, you guessed it. I stepped into the well around a tree in the sidewalk, about 4” deep and fell flat on my face. Luckily, I caught myself with my cat line reflexes (hah!) and didn’t face plant. I didn’t hurt myself-no broken ribs or torn rotator cuff this time, no sprained ankle, just bruised pride.
Once at the beach we walked the length of it, enjoyed people watching and the breeze (85° and partially sunny). At the other end of the beach we caught a bus back to where we started our beach walk, then transferred to another bus that dropped us a block from our apartment. We had dinner in our apartment, cup of noodles, and then we planned to go checkout the bullfighting stadium that has been turned into a shopping mall. We rested a few minutes, which turned into a couple hours. I was in the living room vegging on my phone waiting for Sally to come out of the bedroom to go. Next thing I knew it was 10:00pm and when I went in to check on Sally, she was in bed asleep. I crawled in and was quickly asleep. I guess we wore ourselves out. But what a great day.
Tile sign at Guell Park
Staircase and two Gaudi buildings at Guell Park
Some of the path structures at the park
Tile mosaic seats on the edge of the raised plaza overlooking the city
More of the seating along the edge of the raised “deck”
Forest of pillars that hold up the park's main square
Morgan had hid something here for us a month ago. The attendant knew nothing about it.
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