BarTHelona Part Uno

From as far back as I can remember my mom has always referred to Barcelona as BarTHelona and always emphasized the "th" sound.  I didn't actually believe that's how people pronounced it, I just thought it was another one of her exaggerated accents on key foreign words such as german with "avil strruuuudel" or "viener snitchzel" (note: I'm writing these phonetically since I'm not even sure how to spell them) and her many different accents from the UK.  Oh and she does it with Italian, Spanish and French words too...so I guess basically all the major accents.  It's actually very entertaining now to hear them, but back in the German restaurant in Epcot as a teenager, hearing your mom speak with a heavy German accent to our actual German waitress did leave a bit of a scar in my memory.  (I love you mom and all your accents!)  Ok so I went off on a tangent...where was I?  Ah yes, BarTHelona.  The city of Joan Miro, Salvador Dali, and most importantly, Antoni Gaudi.  Seriously, this is his city and I've never been to a place that is so centered around one man and, thankfully so, since he was in fact a genius.

Barcelona was very surprising to me, although I'm not sure what I really expected when I went there.  I guess I just expect cities in Europe to be very old and have a lot of history from hundreds and hundreds of years ago, which I am sure that Barcelona has, but the focus of Barcelona is mainly on their more modern celebrities dating from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.  The buildings to see are mainly Gaudi's, some of the best art museums to see are of Miro and Picasso, there is the grand Olympic village from the '92 olympics...everything is just very modern.  I think I loved it more for that since it was unlike any other city I've ever seen and it seems to embrace the new fads of the time and run with it, while also keeping the old city charm.  It's a unique and eccentric city that I don't think I could ever see myself living in, but admire the ones who can!

Ok so here is a short run down on the biggest celebrity of the city, Gaudi.  He was born in Southern Catalonia in 1852 and was apparently victim to many bouts of fever, which caused him to spend a lot of time in isolation and with nature.  This is important since in most of his works he incorporated natural shapes and themes that he saw at this early age.  He moved to Barcelona to study architecture and his professor wasn't sure if his designs were the work of an insane person or a genius.  He was only one of four students in the school to be granted the title of architect when he graduated.  During the cultural and political renaissance that was taking place all over Europe at that time Gaudi's outlandish ideas were embraced more readily then I think if he were to try this any other time in history.  He had many wealthy patrons ask him to design their houses, offices, apartment complexes, parks, etc.  His most famous work is the Sagrada Familia, the cathedral he spent 42 years of his life on before his untimely death (by a tram).  It is still not finished and they hope to have it done 2026 - 100 years from his death.

Instead of attempting to explain his architectural style I think I should just post a few pics so you can get the idea...

The roof of Casa Mila - aka La Pedrera (stone quarry)

Inside of Casa Mila

Casa Battlo - representing St. George slaying the dragon

Inside the Sagrada Familia - the columns that support the roof look like trees

Ok so enough about Gaudi...for now.  I guess now would be a good time to go into our actual trip!

The first day, as I mentioned before in the previous post, we mainly focused on washing/drying our clothes to lessen the risk of BB's and then did a little exploring after a night of sangria and tapas hosted by our lovely hostel.  We decided to get to bed early since we wanted to have a big day of exploring the next day.  Saturday we went straight to Gaudi's Casa Mila (it was also called La Pedrera during it's construction because it looked like a quarry and the nickname has stuck to this day).  It was commissioned as an apartment complex on the Passeig de Gracia, one of the major avenues in Barcelona.  While most of the building is still being used as apartments, they have a museum at the top where you can also see the roof and a model apartment as it might have looked back in the early 1900's.  The audioguide tour was fantastic and we were able to see many of Gaudi's designs for other buildings, including the hanging model.  The roof was by far the star of the building (the first picture above).  There are many chimneys that look like warriors/ice cream cones and it's is sloped so you have to climb or descend stairs to get from one place to the next.

Next we headed to a cafe to replenish before our big walk up to Parc Guell, another of Gaudi's masterpieces.  But before we could make it to the park we passed by Gaudi's first commission of importance, Casa Vicens.  It is a private house so you could only get pictures from the outside and you can definitely tell that it was created before some of his more eccentric buildings.

Casa Vicens

On to Parc Guell...this was commissioned by one of Gaudi's biggest patrons.  It was meant to be a housing unit modeled after the English garden city movement.  The idea failed, however, because people didn't want to live so far away from the city center.  Only two houses were built on the property, one of which Gaudi bought and owned until his death.  A lot of the marketplace area was built up before realizing it wasn't going to catch on so it is a nice place to explore and see people selling their wares, playing music, walking around in stilts, etc.

Very crowded leading up to the marketplace

After the park we headed to La Sagrada Familia.  I forgot to mention before that the Pope was coming to Barcelona that night to consecrate the cathedral in the morning, so sadly it was closed and we would have to wait until Monday.  The Pope would come to Barcelona the one weekend we are there, since we can see him whenever we wanted in Italy.  Ah well, we went back to our hostel for a little break in the action before our spanish guitar concert we were going to later that night.

We headed out that night to stroll down Las Ramblas, the famous avenue, and check out the cute stores and restaurants.  We weren't expecting the absolute madhouse that was this avenue.  There were tons and tons of people and the concert we were going to was happening in a church where all the action was.  Now if you know me you know I HATE crowds.  Like really, really hate them and will have anxiety attacks if I'm in them for too long.  When I went on the tour of the Vatican museums I literally ran through the rooms, while my headphones were telling me the history on things I didn't even glance at on my run.  I think I was done about 20 minutes before I saw the rest of my group come out. So here I was on the brink of attack and we had to head right towards more crowds and I didn't know whether to run or to curl up in the fetal position on the side of the road (yea it gets THAT bad).  Well, we ran and the girls were great at handling my crampiness and we came to a semi open area to the side of a completely packed area full of ralliers and/or protesters for the Pope.  We had heard that there were going to be protests for his visit since apparently Spain leans a little too far on the liberal side for the Church's liking...  Spain's Catholic following has been going down steadily and they allow gay unions and abortions - for shame! (Sarcasm font would be super useful right now)  Anywho, we saw a lot of people chanting and cheering.  Since my nerves were still a little rattled we decided to go to a bar before the concert...not the best idea.  It was an Irish pub so Court and I got ciders (that came in bottles that were 2 pints worth - first bad decision of the night) and Caroline got a Long Island ice tea - no idea why she did that except her excuse of "it's only 1 euro more than a drink that doesn't have that much alcohol so I figured it would be worth the money."  That was the 2nd bad decision.  So we drank, but since we underestimated the size of the ciders it took a little longer than we anticipated and by the time we finished and got to the church we were at the BACK of the line and feeling a little tipsy.  This place was first come first serve so our seats kind of stunk and of course as soon as we sat down we got really tired.  The concert was pretty good, but would have been better had we not made those unfortunate decisions right before.  C'est la vie.

After the concert we had plans to go out, but we were tired and couldn't get the energy to go out.  Well, Caroline could, but Court and I were worn out.  I think I'm going to save the rest for another day since I am tired and need to get ready for our Thanksgiving festivities tonight!