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| The entrance to the Bull Ring in Barcelona |
| Erin's Barcelona Journals 5-30-02 Having now seen some of the city on our bike tour the previous day, we decided to take in a couple of the sights in more detail, as well as going to Park Guell, which was recommended to us by Andres & Sylvia, as well as Shayne. Since the park was furthest away, we planned to take the metro there and walk back the rest of the way, seeing other sights as we went. Park Guell is a large park celebrated for its many monuments to Gaudi and colorful design. We arrived at the closest metro station and followed signs for the park to a series of steep staircases. Luckily, there were escalators for the most part. One section was being worked on, so we did a couple of flights of steps under our own power, and that was enough to make us grateful for the escalators the rest of the way! Finally we reached the park, and wandered around some of its paths, getting some good views of the city, but not seeing any Gaudi ornamentation. We started seeing large school groups of kids, and followed some to the center of the park, where - Bingo! - Gaudi central. There were a couple of really playful houses in a square, surrounded by patchwork mosaic walls, fronted by a staircase with three fountains. At the bottom, a lush ferny fish pond; in the middle, a dragon's head spouted water instead of flame; and at the top, the famed mosaic gecko. The school groups were in raptures over these fountains and paraded down the sides of the steps to touch each one, pose for class pictures, and splash each other. At the top of the steps was a large covered gallery area filled with pillars. Functionally, it supported the immense playground and snaking bench areas above. But artistically, even the ceiling was rigged to please. There were immense mosaic artworks, of great colorful variety and size, some of which had light bulbs hidden in among the colors. Unfortunately, they weren't lit up, but we imagined it would be a beautiful sight at night. Even the arches in the ceilings had a purpose, as the acoustics were wonderful. A lone guitar player had set up in the middle of the gallery, and his sound (very good playing) carried all over the gallery. We sat and listened for a while, as he was really good, and the mosaics provided plenty of musing material. Afterward we went up to the playground and watched the kids, sat on the colorful benches a little, and ate some of the fresh cherries and pistachios we'd purchased at the fresh market that morning. Yum! Then we headed on through the park, and eventually found our way back down into the city. Our next stop was also a Gaudi work, La Sagrada Familia. According to our guide of the day before, Gaudi had started the designs & construction while still sane, but due to fanaticism and opium, gradually fell to insanity and took to living in a shack in the middle of construction. Plans went from being on paper to being in his own mind, and strange things like lizards and snakes began to e the decorations he used to adorn the church walls. One morning he was walking across the street and was hit by a bus. Very injured, he was ignored by several passing cab drivers, as he was assumed to be a vagrant due to his unwashed and wild appearance. He was put in the charity ward of the hospital and left for dead for a few days, and by the time they realized who he was, it was too late. As a consequence, the old facade of the church looks very different from the ongoing work. It is an impressive structure, and can be seen from across the entire city. The plans for the completed building are even more outrageous, so we'll just wait and see if they really happen! We walked all around it and checked it out, then walked on to the Monumental Bull Ring. The tour for it was also over, so we didn't go in, just took pictures. By now, it was getting late in the afternoon, and we' been walking quite a long way. We still wanted to check out a local marketplace near the bullring where we'd been told we might find used books to trade ours in for. Both of us had finished our books and were looking for fresh material. So we searched around, but didn't see any activity. We agreed to check it out the next day and caught the metro back to La Rambla. |