Barcelona

I was done with Paris, and France for that matter. I have had enough of the food, the prices, and the attitude (which wasn’t bad from most people, just a few outstandingly poor examples.) I was looking for a place to stop off and wait for my reservation in Pamplona to become available. I tried to find something in Switzerland, but nothing cheap was available. Then I looked at Barcelona and decided it would be a good for a four night stay. It was a good decision.

After finding my hostel and showering, I went downstairs with the intention of finding some food and get my bearings. I happened to meet an Australian who was just getting ready to do the same thing. We achieved our goal of food and then headed to Placa de Espanya. Turned out that the Font de Magica was having a show so that was really cool. Sorry, no pictures, it was night and had a lot of lights involved. I have yet to find a setting on my camera that can handle those problems.

The two of us decided to explore the rest of the city the next morning. We started with the Park Guell. The park is actually a complex blend of hillside, gardens, and architecture designed by Antoni Gaudi. It took 14 years to complete starting in 1900. Gaudi is a famous modernist architect from Catalonia. You cannot escape running into his unique style of architecture all over Barcelona.

Park Guell is a perfect example of his style. It is at the top of an enormous hill that took us a while to climb despite the escalators…

Eventually we reached the summit…

The view from the pinnacle is well worth the hike…

Here is what I meant by the complex and unique style of Gaudi…

This is probably the most famous elements of the park, in no small part due to the vandalism of the piece in 2007…

We then moved on to Gaudi’s masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia…

As you can see it is still under construction. That has been the case since 1882 when work began. It only has four of the planned 18 towers completed, and they are the little ones…

Gaudi himself was tormented in his later years by the lack of progress being made on the church. He was killed by a tram in 1926. Now work continues, and the scheduled date of completion is supposedly 2026, but could go on for another fifteen years. The building will officially be a catholic church once the pope consecrates it this November.

We stopped to take a look at Casa Batllo, another work by Gaudi. We didn’t want to spend the thirty euros though so we just took pictures from outside…

We were hungry again so we headed to La Rambla, the kilometer long pedestrian mall that is the center of Barcelona. It is really fun, but we had to watch out for pickpockets. My wallet was almost stolen immediately after coming up the stairs from the metro. I shoved him pretty good, which luckily for him didn’t send him down the stairs I had just come up. But enough of that, La Rambla is awesome!!!

You never know what you are going to find…

Right off the main drag is one of the most incredible open air markets I have ever been in. La Boqueria, the earliest mention of which is 1217. That actually probably isn’t too far off the mark, just look at the old columns…

Good food, amazing fresh fruit, and an epic overload of smells…

After that we got lost in the old city center, just wandering. Historically speaking, we know that the Romans built a military camp on the site of the town in 15 BCE, though I find the legend much more fun. It is said that Hamilcar Barca, father of the great Carthaginian general, founded the city and named it Barcino in honor of his family. It was cool to look at the Cathedral and know that part of the wall was of Roman design before even looking up that little fact on the internet…

The rest of Barcelona’s history is plagued by war. Catalunya is a border territory. What I mean by that is that with the fall of the Roman Empire, he piece of ground known as Catalunya has alternately been caught between the Franks and Visigoths, then the French and the Moors, and finally between France and Spain. It was under the rule of Charlemagne that the Spanish Marches, of which the region around Barcelona was a part, were given powerful noble lords. Eventually the Count of Barcelona merged with the House of Aragon. The subsequent Crown of Aragon, under Ferdinand II united with the Crown of Leon & Castile to form Spain in 1469. At least it would when Ferdinand, now the V, and his wife Isabella would succeed in driving out the last of the Moors in 1492. Then they sent a little voyage out which found a New World and launched Spain into the height of its power.

You get the idea. Barcelona is an incredibly important city and is incredibly rich, both in money and culture. It has always been a center for maritime trade…

I had an awesome time in this city. It included Spain winning the 2010 World Cup. Even the Catalans were ecstatic over the victory and it was a wild party!!