Wow. Its been over a week since the last post, and not for want of things to write about. On the contrary quite the opposite is true. I've had a very busy week! For starters, I actually finally felt like I had some real and moderately interesting things to do for my internship. I sent out some emails to promote an event that the foundation is putting on and then I translated some documents form Spanish to English. Also, I stayed later than usual at intercambio on Tuesday because they had free paella!! Free paella means I didn't have to cook myself dinner OR pay for someone to cook for me. Score! but since this is Spain, it wasn't served until 10/ 10:30, so I had to stay later if I wanted my free dinner. It was a fun night though, and definitely worth it! More exciting than real work and free paella, though, was my trip two weekends ago to Barcelona.
(warning: this post is long!)
Over the course of the past eight weeks I've had the good fortune of being able to visit diverse and exciting cities all over Spain. With so many interesting places, all with their own quirks and history, its been difficult to choose a definitive favorite. That is, until two weekends ago.
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| Panoramic view of La Sagrada Familia form a park across a pond |
Now, I had exceptionally high expectations for Barcelona before visiting. Thanks to fantastic images of Antoni Gaudi's whimsical architecture in Parc Guell and the Sagrada Familia, movies like Vicky, Christina, Barcelona which depict the city as vibrant and full of energy, and stories from friends about wonderful times spent there, I had already fallen in love well before I stepped out of the metro on Friday evening into Plaza Catalunya. Barcelona was so built up in my mind, not unlike the way people romanticize Paris and New York, that had the city not been what it was, I could have been in for a huge disappointment. And while it wouldn't be fair to say that the weekend went perfectly smooth, I absolutely have no qualms with the way things went because just being in the city-- wandering down the streets, sitting by the pier, picnicking in the park-- was mesmerizing in and of itself, and that left no cause to get upset, even when things didn't work out quite as planned.
The trip itself was rather spontaneously planned. I knew I wanted to go to Barcelona one of my weekends in Valencia, but I had not yet made any plans. Actually, I had just told my mom a day or two before that I didn't know if I would realistically make it up there at all, when Thursday afternoon I checked train times and hostel availabilities and decided what the hell, let's just do it. I booked my hostel around midnight, and despite the short notice I found a clean, safe, and fun one located in the center of the city, beds available all three nights I was staying.
The plan was to leave Friday afternoon right after work, and to return early Monday morning in time for work, that way I would have just over two full days to explore the city. Luckily, the train schedules were accommodating. It was about a three hour train ride between Valencia and Barcelona, and a good part of it went right up the coast providing a lovely view of the Mediterranean from out the window. I arrived at Barcelona Sants station around 6:15, and I would have been at the hostel before 7 if I had just taken the metro from the start. Unfortunately I wasted about an hour because I was initially set on walking to the hostel. I ended up essentially walking in circles around the station trying to orient myself in the direction of the city center, before finally admitting defeat.
My friend Hyland-- who if you remember, visited me in Salamanca at the beginning of her two month backpacking tour around Spain-- was also in Barcelona last weekend, so we were able to spend the whole weekend together. As an added bonus, she lived there last year as part of an exchange program, so I not only had a friend to run around the city with, but I also had a fantastic personal tour guide.
Friday night we strolled down La Rambla, a famous street in Barcelona lined with flower vendors, ice cream stands, and street art (along with junky tourist traps). We followed La Rambla from the top at Plaza Catalunya, which happened to be very near my hostel, past the tall, iconic monument to Columbus, and down to the pier. After, we grabbed dinner at one of Hyland's favorite restaurants, where I had the most delicious sangria and ravioli (Not paella. I know, I know, I should have had something more Spanish). That put an end to a very pleasant first evening in the city, and set the tone for the rest of the weekend.
Saturday was pretty relaxed. I decided I wanted to save all the Gaudi stuff for Sunday, so there was no obligations to be anywhere at a specific time on Saturday. We started off the day walking down La Rambla to the Boqueria, which is Barcelona's large, famous food market. We browsed around the market maneuvering through the hoards of people (because it was very crowded! Much more so than the Mercado Central in Valencia). The Boqueria sold everything from bright, ripe fruits and vegetables, to local cheese and meat, to delicious baked goods, to fresh seafood straight out of the sea, eyes and all. I bought a delicious smoothie for one euro, as well as an empanada and some pineapple for breakfast, and we proceeded to take our food down by the pier to eat. It was just as beautiful by day as it was by night, although the overwhelming number of pigeons was a little annoying.
There was a little market with people selling antiques, jewelry, and other assorted items, so we walked through that briefly, and then made our way to the gothic quarter, an old, beautiful neighborhood in Barcelona conveniently located near La Rambla.
Two of the main attractions of the gothic quarter are the Basilica of Santa Maria del Mar and the Gothic Cathedral. Santa Maria del Mar was cool in comparison to most of the other churches/ cathedrals that I've seen during the trip because the interior was very simple. It lacked all the ornate gold decorations, large religious paintings, and all around opulence that most of the others had. Instead it had only the high crossed ceilings (I've already forgotten the name from my art class. Jesus would be so disappointed...) and stained glass windows characteristic of gothic architecture. I really appreciated the simplicity of the building. We then went to the cathedral. We didn't go inside the gothic cathedral because you couldn't go in wearing shorts, but at this point I've seen so many cathedrals that I was ok missing that one.
Another fun attraction located near the gothic quarter was Barcelona's Picasso Museum. The museum was cool because, even though it isn't necessarily the home of his most famous paintings, they have a lot from his early years as well as the collection of paintings he did as studies for his interpretation of Velazquez's Las Menians. They also have Picasso's Las Meninas. The museum was set up to take you through the different stages of his paining career leading up to the creation of Las Menians, so you got to see how his style progressed as you made your way through the museum. I even got to see a few paintings that we learned about in art, which is always fun!
One of the information plaques in the Picasso Museum mentioned a Barcelona café called Els Quatre Gats where Picasso, as well as many other modernism artists used to frequent. As the café was not too far from where we were, we decided to take a trip there for coffee. Even though it's pretty touristy now, it was neat to think that some of the great artists of the 20th century used to congregate there.
At this point it was only about two in the afternoon and we had already accomplished everything on my "must do" list for Saturday, except for one evening activity. This is where it came in handy to have Hyland as my tour guide. It was about lunch time so we decided to go back to the Boqueria to pick up picnic supplies. After she took me to a park with a large pool of fountains and lots of surrounding palm trees and greenery. One thing I liked a lot about Barcelona in general, was the amount of greenery that was incorporated into the city. I never felt lost in an urban jungle of concrete because there were always plants and trees around (plus, Barcelona isn't really a city of concrete skyscrapers to begin with, but that's beside the point). For lunch we bought a baguette, chorizo, cheese, and a tomato to make little sandwiches, as well as strawberries, stuffed dates, and a small bottle of cava, which is Spanish champagne. The dates were especially good because they were not to dry and they were stuffed with things like chocolate, cheese, Spanish ham, or nuts. They made for a unique and delicious dessert!
The last thing we were planning on doing on Saturday was going to see the Magic Fountain in Plaza España. The magic fountain is a fountain show with lights, music, and water formations and it was, as its name suggests, magical. However, since we had to wait for it to get dark to do the fountain, we decided to walk down by the beach and get a drink. We went to a little bar right on the beach and choose a table right next to the edge, as close to the sand and ocean as we could find. It turned out it was a little too close though because unbeknownst to me, one of the legs of my chair was dangling over the edge and as soon as I sat down I fell back, chair and all, into the sand.
After such a perfect Saturday I was even more excited about my plans for Sunday! I had tickets for Parc Guell, Casa Batllo, and Sagrada Familia, so the only major Gaudi work I wasn’t planning on seeing was La Padrera, and even that I planned on seeing from the outside. For years photos of Gaudi’s work drove Barcelona very close to the top of my “must visit” list. I was ecstatic over the fact that in less than 24 hours I was actually going to see them!
We visited Parc Guell in the morning to try and beat the crowds and the heat. We were successful with the crowds, but even though it was only nine in the morning, the weather was HOT. Still, it was worth the sweat because not only was the park incredible, but the view of Barcelona was amazing as well! Most of Parc Guell is free to the public. However, if you want to visit what they call the "monumental zone", which is the famous area with Antoi Gaudi’s quirky buildings, colorful tilework, and masterful blending of nature and architecture, then you had to buy tickets. In general, Parc Guell was filled with curved shapes and lots of color. I especially loved the tile work on the benches and the tile covered iguana statue. It absolutely lived up to expectations.
Surprisingly, one of my favorite things I saw all weekend, if not the favorite thing I saw, was Casa Batllo, a house designed by Gaudi. The house is worth visiting for the façade alone as the outside is covered with what looks like colorful stones or flowers, balconies that resemble bones, and a colorful tile roof that brings to mind a fish, dragon, or any other number of things depending on your where your imagination wants to run. I think for many people, the façade is the most interesting part of Casa Batllo, but for me, even more incredible was the world you entered when you stepped into the house. The house gave off the feeling of being underwater, as if you stepped out off the streets and into the middle of the ocean. There were very few straight lines in the design of the house which gave a feeling of fluidity and constancy of motion. Every little detail in the architectural design seemed to add to the underwater theme: walls with turtle shell designs, swirled ceilings that gave the impression of a whirl pool or sea shell, ombre blue tile work surrounding the spiral stairs taking on the hue of the ocean, a ventilation system that bought to mind the gills of a fish, and even white ached hallways that made you feel like you could be in the ribcage of a whale. Theses details became even more impressive when I learned that many were not only for aesthetic, but were also purposeful and structurally significant, not to mention ahead of their time. The ombre blue tiles worked with the amount of light entering the house (the higher you go, the more light that enters) to brighten the hall, the fish gill provided a creative and innovative way to control air flow in the house, and the angle of the whales ribcage gave the narrow hallway a more spacious feel. Other highlights of the house included the back patio and the rooftop, where the chimneys also took on a fun and original shape. I visited Casa Batllo expecting it to be an interesting supplement to my Gaudi discovery, but I left having seen something more creative, innovative, and strange than I ever could have imagined. I wish Antoni Gaudi was still alive, because I wouldn't mind commissioning him to build me my own personal Casa Batllo.
When we bought the tickets for La Sagrada Familia the only times left were in the evening, and there were no tickets to see the tower. We showed up at our time, which was very near closing, but when we tried to enter the Cathedral, we got some unfortunate news. We had accidentally bought tickets for Saturday, not Sunday, which explained why there were so few tickets left when we bought them Saturday afternoon. To make the situation more frustrating, the ticket office closed before we could purchase tickets for Sunday. So there you are. The flaw in an otherwise flawless weekend. But even without going inside, I was able to enjoy Gaudi's masterpiece. La Sagrada Familia was staggeringly beautiful and incredibly unique. It had large words inscribed into the façade, clear enough to see from across the little pond that we sat by to view it and the tops of the pointed towers all had colorful crosses, although they were hard to see as they were covered for construction (La Sagrada Familia is still unfinished). It impressed me that one man could have all those ideas in his head to design such a complicated, beautiful, and one of a kind work of art. And even though I didn't get to see the inside, I now have something really spectacular to see the next time I visit! Because I will be coming back to Barcelona someday.
To cap off the weekend, Hyland and I had a very Spanish dinner at the same restaurant we went to Friday night. When I say it was a Spanish dinner, I don't mean traditional Spanish food-- we both had pasta. What I mean is we ate late. Like, we didn't leave the restaurant until well past midnight and the restaurant was preparing to close. Just as we kicked off the weekend at the dragon restaurant-- that's not the actual name, but there is a large paper dragon on the ceiling so they might as well call it that-- we finished the weekend there as well, a perfect way to bring things full circle. At five the next morning I woke up, headed to Sants, and boarded a train to go back to Valencia and straight to work.
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| Christopher Columbus at the top of the monument |
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| Gothic Cathedral in the gothic quarter |
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| The fountain in the park where we had our picnic on Saturday |
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| As you can see, the Magic Fountain draws quite a crowd! It was also Hyland's first time seeing this. |
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| Parc Guell |
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| The Façade of Casa Batllo. Unfortunately, I'm a poor photographer so you can't see the roof here |
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| The chimneys from the top of Casa Batllo |
So now what did I do this past weekend? I stayed in Valencia, walked the city some more, and went to the beach. I'm also officially into my last week of the Valencia program, which is just ridiculously hard to believe! On Saturday I'll be in Paris, and by next Thursday I'll be home sleeping in my own bed. Until then I'll try to stay a little more on top of the blog...
Hasta Luego!
Aubrey
