Right off the bat I headed up to a place called Park Güell with my group of friends. This was one of my favorite spots in the whole city. It is a Gaudí creation that is situated more up on a mountain so it has great views of the city. It was originally supposed to be something like a housing community and it felt like I was walking around the game board of Candy Land!
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| Here are two of the houses and a view of Barcelona |
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| You could climb up and stand on the balcony too! |
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| Gaudí uses a lot of colorful mosaics |
After coming back from the park, we enjoyed a great tapas dinner and took it easy to get ready for a full day of sight seeing. There was rain on the forecast for Tuesday, so we had big plans for Monday to get everything in!
Monday morning was full of Gaudí. For those who are not familiar, Gaudí was an architect who did a lot of works in Barcelona and had a very distinct style. He was inspired a lot by nature and religion and used a lot of glass and ceramics. Just walking the streets of Barcelona you can pick out buildings that he designed because they are colorful and have a very different shape and form. First we walked by Sagrada Familia, his absolutely breath taking cathedral and after we went into one of the apartment buildings he was commissioned to design called La Pedrera. The roof of this building was very appealing to me because it is known for looking like it is full of melting ice cream cones! Admission let us get on top for more great views of Barça and later we got to see what an apartment was like.
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| Here is the outside of La Pedrera |
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| The roof of La Pedrera had a bunch of weird sculptures that looked like twist cones from Dairy Queen! |
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| Here I am wishing that I really was standing in front of that much ice cream! |
While waiting in line to get into the apartment building, we saw a little sign that looked like a cupcake, and thank goodness we decided to check it out afterwards! Sevilla and the rest of Spain has great pastries, but nothing that is really like cake. So of course I have been dying for a Sweet Impressions cupcake or something of the sorts. When we walked in I wasn't all that optimistic until I saw the sign for "Red Velvet" cupcakes. Wow was I excited and had my wallet out in about 2.5 seconds. It was only about 11 o'clock in the morning but I enjoyed that cupcake so much!
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| Jealous anyone?? The frosting was phenomenal. Actually the best I have ever had. I felt like I said that about a lot of the food I ate on the trip! |
The morning of sweets wasn't finished with the cupcake! My friend Martha's brilliant guide book insisted that we visit a chocolate shop called Cacao Sampaka that is owned by the brother of Ferran Adriá---world famous chef from the Basque country in Spain. The shop was fantastic. I am currently nibbling on some dark chocolate with sea salt from Ibiza. To die for! I also had a wafer-like chocolate bar during my picnic lunch which was by far the best Kit-Kat I have ever had! Spending the morning with Gaudí and sweets was definitely a good start to the day.
For our afternoon activity, my friend Martha and I decided to grab some sandwiches and have a picnic up on Montjuic. Basically Montjuic is a beautiful park complex on a mountain in the city that has a castle on top. We spent hours walking around under the sun---perfect way to spend the afternoon!
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| Here is the entrance to the castle that is on the top of the mountain. We had to take a cable car ride to get to the top! The castle looked out over the Mediterranean on one side, and over the city on the other. |
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| We decided to walk down instead of taking another cable car ride. While walking we came across the "Mirador" which had great views of the water |
Montjuic also had some Olympic stadiums and art museums that we walked around until it started to get dark! After we took the metro back to the hostel and cooked dinner with the rest of our group of friends. We had a spaniard traveling with us and he made some fantastic fajitas! That and a couple of bottles of wine provided a great time for laughs and food while saving us a bunch of money. The kitchen had a cool atmosphere in the hostel because it was full of people from all over the world cooking food, eating together and sharing experiences.
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| Here is a picture of our dinner in the hostel. The veggies were all fresh from the market down the street and it was delicious! |
The hostel had a bar in the basement, so we ended up hanging out there all night with our new friends from places like Australia, Germany and Canada! In the morning we went back to Sagrada Familia to beat the lines and actually get to see the inside. It was a great start to a rainy day!
Sagrada Familia is a basilica designed by Gaudí that still isn't completed. Despite lacking about ten towers, it was such a compelling building--like nothing I had ever seen before! I just couldn't believe that it was a church because it was so modern. Of all the places I have been to, this is the one that I really wasn't able to capture fully with my camera. Seriously people, put this on your list of things to see during your lifetime!
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| Here is the outside of the Sagrada Familia. The cranes are there because they are constantly working on finishing it. |
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| The ceiling was so incredibly cool that I couldn't stop looking up! I felt like I was in the middle of a forrest. |
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| This is the piece hanging over the main altar |
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| The stained glass was gorgeous, and there were many windows that still needed to be completed. |
One thing that really struck me about Sagrada Familia was just how different it was from all of the other churches I have seen so far. There were even turtles at the bottom of some of the columns. It almost felt refreshing because of its modern interpretation of what a cathedral should look like. It had so many places set aside for prayer and encouraged all of the visitors to take a moment and pray. 2 years ago the Pope came to Sagrada Familia and consecrated it as a minor basilica. Really there is nothing "minor" about it! It has an estimation completion date of 2026...do you think I can book my flights for a return visit now??
After getting in and out of the Sagrada Familia early in the morning, Martha and I took shelter for a bit while we waited to meet up with our tour guide for the day: mi amigo Karl from high school! Karl and I took spanish together for all four years and he is studying abroad in Barcelona this semester. After seeing most of the sights in preparation for the rain, it was great to have someone who knew the city just walk us around for the day---and that is exactly what we did! Meeting up with Karl started a day that wasn't anything like what I expected, and still one of my favorite days in Spain.
We started our rainy tour while walking around the Gothic district of Barcelona which has the Cathedral and a bunch of cute little streets. One of my favorite places that we visited was the Mercat de la Boqueria. I have visited a lot of markets in Spain and this one was by far my favorite! Probably because it had a lot of sweets including chocolate, gelato, and a ton of fruit!
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| Everything in the market was so colorful! It was also indoors which made it the perfect stop on a rainy day. |
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| Here is a picture of the cactus fruit that I tried! It was just too bright and fun to resist! |
The market is located on the Ramblas which is a main street that goes all the way to the beach so we walked down to check out that neighborhood. Karl told us that a lot of it was man-made for the Olympics in 1992. It is also where a lot of the clubs in Barcelona are located. They have little buildings on the sidewalk and then you walk down and parts are on the sand. On our way to the beach we stopped at a little sandwich place for lunch called Bo de B. The sandwiches were similar to a chipotle burrito, but with fresh bread instead of a tortilla. The meat was cooked right there for you and all of the vegetables were so fresh. I had chicken, feta cheese, tomatoes, corn, rice, peppers, avocado y más!
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| Here I am holding the best sandwich I have ever had in all of my life. No exaggeration. |
To continue our tour we walked back up to the Parc de la Ciutadella where the Arc de Triomf is located. The parc was right by our hostel and it was gorgeous. Unfortunately because of the rain and the sandy dirt paths, it felt like we were sinking while we walked around, but that didn't stop us!
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| Here is the wonderful fountain in the park. The statue on top was bright gold, and you could see it from far away. |
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| Martha and I by the Arc de Triomf |
With Karl as our guide, we were able to explore more of Barcelona that I ever could have with a map! After our six hour walking tour, we took a break to prepare for a night of watching FC Barcelona vs. AC Milan in a Champion's League quarter final match---aka I was in heaven! Karl took us to a cool bar with tons of screens to watch and a menu full of greasy game-watching food. Nachos, wings, pizza...We even met up with a couple more friends from Sevilla who had gotten to Barça that day. It was a great game and a great win for Barça
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| Here I am with the group watching the fútbol game. It was a great mix of new and old friends in a perfect game environment. |
After the game was over was the beginning of the most unexpected and fantastic night I could have asked for. My friend Michael wanted to go to a fountain on the Ramblas because his professor told him that all of the Barça fans went to drink from it after a victory. Well, Michael was misinformed and we were the only ones there, but it led us to this little Irish bar that said they were having live music at midnight. I couldn't have been happier with the style of music. The musician whose name was Kal reminded me so much of my favorite Rich Larson, just with a spanish accent! In Spain, a lot of the music is played with classical guitar, so it was fun to see a guy get up and play the acoustic to songs that I was familiar with. He also encouraged the people in the audience to come up and play with him, and finally Karl's friend Charles got up to play a song. This spiraled into basically a duet show with Charles and Kal playing great music for hours. To cap off the night, Charles asked Kal to play a chord progression on the guitar, Karl to "drop a beat," and the tree of them together improvised a song! They were incredible and I had so much fun sitting and watching them play from the front row all night!
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| Here is the wonderful and talented trio playing the best song of the night! |
Overall my trip to Barcelona capped off such a memorable spring break. It was so fun to meet up with an old friend--we hadn't seen each other since graduation---and the week was full of wonderful surprises! On the way back from Barcelona, while looking out onto the cloudy sky, I once again had the feeling that I was so ready to return "home." I loved Barcelona and Valencia, but Sevilla still feels like the best fit for me. All of my travels have blessed me with this realization.
I'll leave you with some musical entertainment!
Unfortunately my battery was running low and I couldn't record the whole song
It was so impressive that these guys could throw this together after just having met!
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