Showing posts with label barcelona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label barcelona. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Uno, dos, tres
On our third and last day of our trip we woke up to bright sunshine and blue skies - hooray!!
Thank goodness, because we were scheduled to go on a four hour bike tour and doing so in the pouring rain would be - how do you say - no bueno.
The bike tour started in Sant Juame Square. We broke in to smaller (and by smaller I mean 20 people) groups (apparently bike tours are popular on sunny days) and headed out.
We saw City Hall...
The Barcelona Cathedral...
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| notice the scaffolding that graces many of our photos |
the Arc de Triumf (Spanish style)...
and the Parc de la Ciutadella...
Brian got a little fancy with his camera...
and then I got a little fancy with mine...
We saw Sagrada Familia and learned more about Antoni Gaudi...
And then.
And then - we went to heaven
A little place I like to call, the beach.
*cue angels*
Man, I love the beach.
If you find yourself in Barcelona I highly recommend the Fat Tire Bike Tour that we took. The city is relatively easy to navigate on bikes, the city is extremely bike friendly (bike lanes on most roads and sidewalks) and the guides are witty and knowledgable about the city.
Next up, Project 52 week 11 and later next week - Paris!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Hola Barcelona
Just kidding - I still love you guys!
Especially since you let us stay with you for three days and took us to lots of yummy tapas bars and showed us around Barcelona.
Thanks guys!
Right - back to the trip. We landed around lunch time on Friday and the sun was shining! Don't worry, it promptly hid behind clouds less than 60 minutes after touchdown, but we sure did enjoy those first 58 sunny minutes of being in Spain.
First order of business - TAPAS!
Ok, glad we got that out of our system.
(above tapas can be found at Tapas 24)
(I highly recommend them)
Next - we were off to Casa Batllo, the house without any straight lines by Antoni Gaudi.
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| this is actually a close up of the wall |
I had never seen any of Gaudi's work before. Casa Batllo (pronounced 'by-yo') is very colorful and curvaceous, almost mystical (sometimes in a magic mushroom kind of way). There are many of Gaudi's famous works in Barcelona - Casa Batllo, Casa Mila, Sagrada Familia, Park Guell - among many others. In additional to having a very fluid and magical element to most of his works, they typically are very colorful and have a lot of mosaics that add to the magical element.
We decided to keep with the Gaudi theme and walk over to probably Gaudi's most famous work of art - Sagrada Familia (sacred family)
As you can see, the cathedral isn't finished yet. Construction with Gaudi started in 1883, and was only a quarter finished by the time he died in 1926. People predict it will take another 15 years to complete the cathedral, just in time for the 100 year anniversary of Gaudis death. Although some believe that the Sagrada Familia will never be finished, partly due to the fact that a high speed rail station is being built underneath the foundation of the church. I guess only time will tell!
We walked all the way to the cathedral but only got to see the outside. By the time we arrived it was almost closing time...things we should have checked before trekking all the way there.
The second day of our trip was really something special.
So special I haven't even seen anything like it in London in a really long time.
Rain.
Sure, it rains in London all the time. But usually its a slow, damp, cold drizzle that sort of hangs around like a creepy guy at the pub.
This, was something different.
This was pouring, pissing down, chucking, cats and dogs rain.
All. Day.
We tried going to Sagrada Familia again, suspecting no person in their right mind would stand in line in this terrible weather.
Oh Barcelona tourists - your commitment astounds me.
We rolled up to the cathedral to find a hundred people waiting in line. We high-tailed it to the Picasso Museum (pretty original idea wasn't it, go to a museum on a rainy day??), and again - a big long line. At this point we figured we might as well stay and wait in line - it was clear this was becoming a pattern.
A couple of hours later (and a tiny bit drier) we headed back out in to the monsoon.
And then...a ray of sunshine...
...in the form of chocolate.
These were literally the only photos I took all day with my camera.
Sad?
Ambitious?
Delightful for sure.
The rest of the day was spent tapas bar hopping (thanks to Cerveceria Catalana) and ended with a bottle of cava and dinner at Hotel Omm. Not too shabby for a rainy day.
Stay tuned for day three in Barcelona - the day the sun returned.
For now, here is the link to our photos!
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