We arrived in Barcelona at around 8:00 pm, checked into our hotel, and then went to find a place to eat dinner. We ended up at this tapas place where we accidentally ordered sangria...not that there was anything wrong with that. It was very good sangria. The waiter was very proud of it. The next day, we had a guided tour of Parque Guëll, a "park" that was designed by Barcelona's world renown architect, Antoni Gaudi. Gaudi was commissioned by a guy named Guëll to construct a separate, elite city for Barcelona's wealthiest families. He started the construction in 1900, and by 1914, only a couple houses had been constructed, and at this point, people had lost interest, so the city was never finished.
Later that day, we visited La Sagrada Familia-the Eiffel Tower of Barcelona. It's a huge cathedral that is associated with Gaudi, even though he only actually was responsible for 10% of its construction. The cathedral is still under construction-maybe that is why I thought it was so ugly. Architects today are trying to complete the cathedral à la Gaudi, but it is very difficult because there is no one as creative or innovative as Gaudi. Nevertheless, architects are trying to complete the cathedral, but it is projected to take at least another 30 years. We did not get to go inside the cathedral, which was disappointing.
The next day, we had a lot of free time, so we got to make our own plans. We had a few things in mind that we wanted to see, so we set off on a very ambitious mission: taking the metro. This mission was mostly unsuccessful. When we got to the station nearest to our hotel, it didn't have the line that we were planning on taking to the Zoo. We got on a different train that we hoped would get us close to the zoo, but when we went 1 stop and had absolutely no idea where we were, we decided to get off the train. We ended up the exact opposite direction of where we wanted to be, but we realized that we were very close to La Pedrera, another one of Gaudi's masterpieces that we were planning on visiting that day. We left the metro station and started walking towards what we thought was La Pedrera. As it turns out, we were walking the wrong way, and if we hadn't realized it, we would have ended up back at the hotel. Luckily, we corrected our mistake and turned around to find La Pedrera. We first went to Casa Batlló, a building that Gaudi created for José Batlló. Gaudi's unique style is apparent in every aspect of this building. He was inspired by nature and used a lot of very bright colors. I would post pictures but it takes too long, so I will try to post them on facebook. After visiting Casa Batlló, we went to a really nice restaurant for lunch. I had a 3 chocolate mousse for dessert-it was delicious! After lunch, we finally made it to La Pedrera. The inside did not look like Gaudi's style as much as Casa Batlló, but then we went up on the roof. It's literally impossible to describe so I will post 1 picture. It just makes you wonder...what on earth was he thinking?
Anyway, after visiting La Pedrera we went back to the hotel, had a quick dinner, and then went to the train station for our overnight hotel train to Córdoba! This train was SO nice. Now I understand why they made us drive 8 hours from Madrid to Barcelona when we could have easily taken a train and gotten there in half the time. They spent all the money on first class tickets on the hotel train-for which I am very thankful. We got to wait in the VIP lounge before we got on board the train, which was a fun experience-free food and drinks! On the train, the cabins were REALLY nice. They had 2 beds (bunk beds) in each room, a T.V., and a bathroom complete with a full shower! I did not take a shower on the train because the trip was only about 8 hours, but I would have taken one if we had been on board longer. Well, that just about brings us to Córdoba. I will hopefully write another entry soon about my experience here-it has been great so far! Hasta pronto :)
No comments:
Post a Comment