A Gaudí City

Pictures from an impromptu trip to Barcelona; part 1 and part 2. The vast majority of photos were taken with the Lomo LC-A since it isn't an expensive looking camera and I didn't really want to get mugged like a friend of mine had only a week earlier in Madrid. I was aiming for fun and random holiday snapshots that would be a bit more unusual than the average. Hopefully they'll also be a pleasant memento for Jessica in the years to come. :)

It all started so innocently as a Sunday outing to see Return of the King for the umpteenth time which led to a few drinks afterwards to ponder the dreamy Aragorn and Legolas. Jessica talked about going back home and lamenting she didn't travel more while she was here. In particular, she had wanted to see the Temple de la Sagrada Família before heading home. After a couple of beers my guard was down and somehow between then and the next afternoon, we had cheap tickets to Barcelona departing the following Monday. It seemed like a crazy thing to do, but without a compelling reason not to go the 'why not?' directive was applied.

As a seasoned traveller, I tend to judge cities/places by two things; food and restrooms. Barcelona wasn't exceptional in either food or restrooms but were mostly agreeable. I had been to Madeira only a few weeks earlier which was exceptionally good on both counts and may have coloured my judgement. We spent the week wandering around La Rambla, going to architectural gems designed by Antoni Gaudí and eating. At some point we went shopping for a few things in a local grocery and I had to stare at the selection of wines which ranged from 1.50 euro to 6 euro. I bought a bottle of the 1.50 wine just to determine if it was drinkable and it was quite pleasant. I don't know what would happen in Finland if there were shelves full of 1.50 euro bottles of wine in the grocery stores. We went out to find the nightlife one evening and discovered the one bar in the entire city of Barcelona that had Helsinki drink prices just because I think we were missing home so much. :)

La Rambla is the center of town where there are purveyors of magazines, newspapers, porn, flowers for any occasion including for the departed, chickens, roosters, bunny rabbits, fish, lizards, roosters, pigeons, and parakeets, along with buskers, street artists and touristy crap to suit any taste or fetish. La Rambla was named after a seasonal stream [from the Arabic 'raml'] that used to flow there which seems appropriate with the seasonal ebb and flow of tourists. I took a number of photos on La Rambla and in the Mercat de la Boqueria since they were vibrant places of people and activity. Markets fascinate me since you can learn a lot about a culture from looking at the kinds of food they have available since food is at the center of daily life and culture.

Barcelona is the nucleus for the architectural movement called 'Modernisme' and those who practised it were the 'Modernistas'. It was a form of Art Nouveau and it is quite amazing. We spent most of the week visiting the works of Antoni Gaudí. The most impressive of his works is not yet finished, The Temple de la Sagrada Família. It is projected that it will be finished by 2048 and, by the looks of the construction, it will be worth the wait. Gaudí clearly loved trees and the pillars inside form a canopy which will be tiled and gilded to complement all the other organic forms all around the temple. We went up into the tower and my vertigo provided some entertainment for Jessica. Park Güell was designed to be a modern utopia, but it was never finished. What does exist is intriguing in it's planning and implementation of public space and walkways. Casa Battló, La Predrera and Palau Güell were all amazingly different and inviting. The apartment in La Predrera was nice enough that I'd move in tomorrow. In particular, Gaudí's innovation in introducing natural light into all parts of a living space and organic forms was outstanding. His work makes me wish that such care and consideration of the natural forms were more common in modern buildings.

The tourist bus was amusing as, when we got on the bus after a few dull and desolate hours at Poble Espanyol, there was an American couple reading out of a guide book about how the place wasn't really worth going to, which we were able to confirm. :) As the neverending bus tour continued, the woman was clearly not very entertained. At the Palau Güell, there was a perky American college girl [with the accent and the attitude I will guess Vassar] leading her parents around the tour to show off her edumacation [sic]. It was bad enough to hear her loudly say "y'all", but when she and her parents exclaimed, "Your English is so good!", in a tone of amazement to the tour guide, Jessica had an epiphany as to why I never travel as, nor admit to being, an American anymore except to those who need to see my passport.

In late January, the number of tourists was at a low point and many of the attractions were being repaired for the high season, but we still had a good time visiting a city with so much history. I could have been entertained by sitting in the market or hanging out on La Rambla for a week as well.