Barcelona

Alas poor Espana, I knew it well…. Ok well not really but I did rather enjoy it. It appears we have finished our time here in Spain, but not before a great time in Barcelona.

After a nice ride from Valencia we spent most of the rest of the first day walking around the port and beach area, which was actually not far from our hostel… damn if it was only warmer… that evening we went to La Ramblas, which is the major pedestrian promenade and shopping area. It may well be my favorite part of a city with many things to love.

On Sunday we spent most of our time wandering around the older and gothic parts of Barcelona. Again we spent a lot of our time in the La Ramblas area walking, shopping, and good ole people-watching. Really it was pretty uneventful and quite enjoyable.

The third day we did all of the Gaudi stuff. For those of you who don’t know Anton Gaudi was a late 19th-early 20th century architect who is famous for his unique style and forms. His work is similar to the works of surrealist artists like Salvador Dali… just in built form. Anyway so we saw Casa Batllo and Le Pedrare, which are a house and an apartment building, respectively. Both are known for their unique facades and Le Pedrare in particular is known for its roof garden (which was unfortunately under construction). Then we went to the Sangrata Familia…. Damn love that building every time I see it… The Sangrata Familia is considered to be Gaudi’s masterpiece, he worked on for the last 40 years of his and it will take at least another 15 or 20 to finish it. Everything is extremely intricate, and it is taking every ounce of available technology to just figure out how to build it… and this guy did all of this in the 1880’s with friggin sandbags…. Just unbelievable… ok moving on now.

The fourth day just kinda bummed out on us. We were going to see the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies van de Rowe…. But the whole entrance area to the Olympic Parks was under construction for another big festival there later this year… damn! So we walked up the street to go see the Joan Miro Park…..it was under construction…damn! So we decided to go to Parc Guell, which was again designed by Gaudi… well it was open… but it was up a giant hill… which did suck though. Again I am not that impressed by Guell but hey whatever floats your boat, right? It’s of course worth seeing… just don’t buy the café there… it’s really bad. So to close the day we again played on La Ramblas (of course).

Then on the last full day we went to the Parc Diagonal Mar and Forum area. While I enjoyed most of it… Jeanne-Marie was a little bored. I’m not a huge fan of the Forum building (which is a giant blue triangle, wait my bad a giant floating blue triangle… yes there that’s better) but I liked the design of the parks in the surrounding area. The Forum itself is not finished, so it is not really fair to judge, but it doesn’t feel successful yet… maybe when they finish everything it will… the Office Da park was cool though. Also the Parc Diagonal Mar was awesome… again, but maybe I just like gabian walls… So as we were closing our time in Barcelona we of course wandered La Ramblas again...

Now we are on our way to Nice (Neece), which according to Jeanne-Marie is very nice, sadly the pun is intended… no one said we are witty… well not very witty…