Having learned our lesson regarding the unpleasantness of buses, Danny and I flew out Wednesday morning. We had to spend the night in the airport because Madrid’s metros shut down from 1 to 6 AM, and the flight was at 6. We camped out on the pews of the airport chapel.
Once in Barcelona, we caught a bus to the Gothic quarter, where our hostel was located. After checking out some of the shopping along the waterfront we got a stellar lunch in the Royal Plaza. Then we went back to the waterfront to peruse the aquarium, which is supposed to be one of the better ones in Europe, but didn’t quite live up to its hype (Danny felt Chicago’s was far superior, and I think I agree).
We walked around a bit through the central area to get a feel for the city. It had the same sort of feeling as Lisbon; it struck me as smaller than Madrid, although thankfully was far more navigable with a significantly less random street layout. We were pretty much spent after the uncomfortable night in the airport, but we met a trio of girls from Washington DC in the hostel, and the five of us eventually talked ourselves into hitting up a couple Irish bars that were decked out for Halloween.
Nevertheless, we got a decent amount of sleep before getting up the next day to meet Meghan and Melissa, the other half of our group for the weekend. They had taken the overnight bus after being unable to get plane tickets. We visited the cathedral in the Gothic quarter, which was impressive despite its façade being largely covered up by scaffolding in what I assume was a maintenance/restoration project.
Between the periods of wandering and eating at overpriced restaurants with rude waiting staff, we managed a hike up one of the city’s hills to a park designed by Gaudí. It was pretty neat, and we could see most of the city from its various observation patios. The city seemed pretty hazy at its clearest, and throughout the weekend I had the impression that the air pollution was substantially worse than Madrid’s, which is more than twice as large and situated in a more mountainous region. Even so, the view was nice.
After spending most of the afternoon in the park, we walked back down to the city and took a tour of an apartment building Gaudí designed, La Pedrera. It was pretty remarkable, but unfortunately few of my pictures turned out because the sun goes down so early here. The EU time zones strike me as pretty goofy, with sunset at about 6 PM after the clocks were set back last week for daylight savings. It seems to me that there’s plenty of room to scoot the clocks a bit for a little extra evening sunlight and economic activity, especially since they still don’t eat until 9 or 10 at night. It’s one of those little things about Europe that still seem somewhat odd to me.
We had a go at seeing Gaudí’s Temple of the Holy Family, the cathedral that’s been under construction for 125 years and is far from complete. Something of a wrench was thrown into the construction works when Gaudí was struck by a tram in 1926. The tram driver thought he was a hobo, and simply moved him from the tram’s path and continued on his route, leaving one of Spain’s most brilliant artists on the side of the road, where he died. I’ve heard that the final plans for the cathedral were in Gaudí’s head, and the work that’s carried on since then has been more or less a best guess sort of thing. Regardless, it’s pretty spectacular, and when it’s finished it’ll be a behemoth. Unfortunately they only turn on the exterior lights on certain days, so the journey was in vain (except for some excellent smoothies we got next door.) We came back the next night for photos. For some reason we didn’t try to go during the day, although I don’t see where we would have had time.
That night we went to a flamenco show before supper, and the next day we went to the chocolate museum. Apparently Barcelona was the city through which chocolate was introduced to Europe. Later that afternoon we visited another apartment building designed by Gaudí. Although not nearly as spectacular as La Pedrera, it was still pretty impressive. I didn’t realize until writing this presently what a prevalent theme Gaudí was for the weekend. At some point we also met up with Goshen College friends Lindsy Glick and Karla Maust and went out for drinks.
The bulk of Saturday afternoon was devoted to the Labyrinth Garden at the foot of the mountains on the west side of the city. Its serene and pensive atmosphere was very welcome after the exhausting pace of our tour of the city below. Also, the hedge maze in its center was pretty fun.
One of my favorite stops on the trip was to the City History Museum, which chronicled the two-thousand-year past of Barcelona. Unfortunately we were pressed for time and could not complete the entire experience, but what we saw was pretty incredible. Underneath the museum is a 43,000 square foot excavation of the original Roman settlement, with suspended walkways over the ruins of the buildings buried under Barcelona. I tried to sneak a few photos of the ruins, but, as flash photography was forbidden, few turned out.
Afterward we went to the beach and took a ride on the gondola over the harbor. This was definitely a letdown, as they cram as many people as possible into the little cars and I could see little more than the back of people’s heads throughout the journey. On the other side, on the top of a hill with cliffs on the Mediterranean Sea, was a stone fort that once defended the city from naval attacks. From here we watched the sunset and walked around the once-castle now-military museum (we didn’t have time to go in). Then we caught a light and music and fountain show, which was more loud than anything else. We had just enough time to snag a quick supper at Pita Hut before catching the last bus to the airport, where again we had to spend the night due to the early morning flight the next day. This day. I got back to Madrid early this morning and took an extensive nap.
So that was that. Barcelona was pretty nice, and there’s still plenty left to do if I ever get back, which isn’t unlikely since it’s only an hour away by air and will be 2½ hours by high-speed rail when the line opens later this year. I was surprised by how difficult communication was, since Barcelona, being the capital of the Catalonian province, speaks first Catalan and then Spanish. Sometimes the people there were a bit snooty about it. That more than anything makes me glad to be back in Madrid.
I’ll be holding off on travel now for a bit to conserve my dollars and their ever-dwindling buying power in the EU. Excepting a visit to Cordoba in two weeks on a trip with my program (which is paying for most of the weekend, hoorah). Immediately following that, I’m excited that Grandma and Grandpa Murto are visiting me in Madrid, something that I highly recommend of all of you.
Photos forthcoming.
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