Barcelona: Day 2

On our second day in Barcelona, we headed out and ate some pastries at the bakery on the corner of our block. We then took the advice of our host, who had advised us to take the metro to the Joanic station, then catch the #116 bus to Park Guell. I was a bit wary initially, as this was a different route than even the official Park Guell website suggests. Then we got on a rather short bus (only about 5 or 6 rows of seats) -- turns out the shortness was necessary to negotiate some of the tight street corners on the way up the hill to the Park. We made it there with plenty of time before our 11:00 am admission time and had about 45 minutes to explore.

Park Guell was designed by Gaudi (are you sensing a theme?) to be an upper class housing development, and was started to plan. However, WWI got in the way, and the project was never continued and was turned into a public park. 3 years ago, the city realized that their tax dollars to fund the park could be better spent elsewhere, and they started charging admission to the "Monument" section of the park -- where all the best artwork and design are. We definitely enjoyed seeing it, and I felt the price (about 7 euros/person) was worth it.

The highlights for me were seeing the beautiful mosaic work, the famous "wavy" benches, and the "leaning archway." It was also fun watching Charlotte run around in the open covered columns area, which was originally intended to be an open market for the residents of the housing development. She loves to run and chase these days! It was fairly crowded there, but Paul did a great job of getting some photos while the other tourists were out of the way :)

"Park Guell" at the entrance

Two entry buildings -- somewhat gingerbread-y

At the side entrance, where you now go to enter the park with your tickets in hand

Found a playground (actually two!) to kill a little time before entering the Monument section

Beautiful tiles on the staircase up toward the covered market space

Charlotte was very excited to see the "Gaudi dragon," as it was one of the sites mentioned in her "Bella & Harry" book about Barcelona. She was excited to see that it was a fountain, dripping water from its mouth as though it had just taken a drink (a detail not mentioned in the book). When we got back to England and re-read the Barcelona book, she was able to describe the water dripping without any cuing. So fun to see that she made the connection between the book's illustration and what we saw in real life.

The columned marketplace

"I run so fast!"

"Wavy benches" of Park Guell

Overlooking Barcelona from Park Guell

Exterior view of the leaning archway

All this art, and she loves the tiny rocks in the dirt!

The leaning archway -- much like a frozen wave!

Great place to run, too

After leaving Park Guell, we took the metro back to the Eixample neighborhood and found lunch items at Market Concepcio, which was located right across the street from our apartment! We picked up some fruit, Spanish hams and cheeses, a baguette, and a Peppa Pig shaped cookie for you-know-who. (She was ecstatic and thought it was hilarious to bite off bits of Peppa's head!) They also had blended fruit drinks, which Charlotte calls "Smoogies" [smoothies] and I just can't bring myself to correct her pronunciation. We took the food back to the apartment, ate, and Charlotte napped.

When she woke up, we headed out again toward Plaza de Catalunya. This time, we headed down the famous Las Ramblas street toward the waterfront. Las Ramblas is a broad street lined with restaurants, flower stands, and usually some street performers. We didn't really see many performers when we were there, perhaps the time of year. At the end of Las Ramblas, we saw the Columbus monument, which commemorates that Columbus returned to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in Barcelona to report on his first journey to the Americas. Beyond that is the waterfront; we walked out along the relatively new pier toward a shopping mall at the end, but didn't go in -- just enjoyed the views briefly.

After heading back onto land, we stopped at one of the outdoor seating areas along Las Ramblas for some sangria and tapas. Charlotte was getting a little wild, since she hadn't gotten out of the stroller to run for awhile, so afterwards we stopped through the nearby Plaza Reial to let her run around the palm trees and lights. We then wandered through the Barri Gotic again, finding a great little shop with lots of pretty Barcelona artwork. We finished the evening off by taking the metro to Sagrada Familia to see the church lit up at night.

Looking down Las Ramblas

Columbus Monument

Looking back toward Montjuic (large hill) from the end of the pier into Barcelona's harbor

Running in Plaza Reial

Wandering Barri Gotic in the early evening

Sagrada Familia at night

Our last day of the trip felt like a long day of travel! We had planned to hop right onto the airport train at Passeig de Gracia, but the station guard told me to go to Estacio Sants (a different metro station). When we got there, we learned that the train to the airport was not running because of a fire on the tracks (!). Cue a bit of panic about how we would get to the airport -- after asking at two separate desks, we learned they were running a shuttle bus in place of the train. Luckily we found the bus quickly (there wasn't much direction for where to go at the large metro station) and it was a straight shot from there. After a long wait to board the airplane, we finally were England-bound. Charlotte was very good on the flight and watched Peppa Pig episodes almost the whole time. I would love to go back to Spain -- perhaps Madrid is in the cards!