European Vacation - Barcelona (Day 2 and 3)

All right, readers… here are days two and three. This ended up being really long (16k words), so pull up a comfy chair!

Barcelona:

We started our first real day in Barcelona with a quick breakfast at our hotel (two thumbs up for free 24-hour buffet!) before heading to the metro (subway) station a few blocks away. The information in our guide book said the metro was the fastest and cheapest way to get around Barcelona. They were right! We got a metro map from our hotel and a 10-ride card at the station and never looked back.

Our first stop of the day was the Sagrada Familia (Sacred Family) church. Upon arrival, we realized that we had a problem. One Saturday a month is a free entrance day, and this was one of those Saturdays. We knew this going in but never anticipated that the line would wind around the church and up and down the street for a block in every direction. By noon, messages were being displayed in the metro stations indicating that no more tickets would be given out that day (the church closes at 6pm). So, we decided to swap around some of our plans and try again the next day.

We hopped back on the metro and headed for the Ribera district and the Picasso Museum. We wondered through the neighborhood past small boutique shops and cafes before stumbling upon the entrance to the museum. It’s not well marked, nor is it in a very obvious location. The museum was a comprehensive look at the work of Pablo Picasso from his first days in a Barcelona art school at age 12, all the way through his death in 1973. The works of art are amazing, and it’s fascinating to see how he progressed from very realistic portraits to the crazy colors and shapes for which he is most well-known.

After the Picasso Museum, we walked farther into the Ribera district toward the Church of Santa Maria del Mar. This church was built by wealthy shipping merchants in the mid 1300’s. The columns in this church were inspirational to Gaudi’s design of the columns in the Sagrada Familia Church.

By this time, we needed lunch, so we took the metro back to the hotel for some food. We started our afternoon with a leisurely stroll down Las Ramblas. And by leisurely, I mean as slowly as we could stand to go considering it was FREEZING outside. We had been watching the weather forecast for about two weeks prior to our trip. Sixty degree temperatures were forecast for the majority of the trip. Imagine our surprise when it was only 38 degrees in Barcelona! Anyway, back to Las Ramblas…

Las Ramblas is a street with a large pedestrian area in between two roads. The pedestrian area is home to a variety of street shops selling everything from post cards to flowers to pet birds. There were also a large variety of street performers along the way. One particularly notable performer was painted completely silver and was seated on a toilet up on a platform. All sorts of ridiculous bathroom humor followed when someone put a Euro in his bucket. We ended our walk down Las Ramblas with a stop at the Christopher Columbus statue.

From the bottom of Las Ramblas, we took the metro to the Montjuic Funicular. The Funicular was basically like riding a metro car up the first hill on a roller coaster! Thankfully, there was no terrifying drop at the end of this trip. From the Funicular, we took a cable car the final distance to the very top of Montjuic. Why did we go to all this effort to get to the top of this particular hill? To see a castle, of course! The castle was built in the 1700’s to keep an eye on the pesky Catalonians, as they had a tendency to revolt from time to time.  We walked around the castle for a while, found some big cannons for Chris to take pictures by, and then took the cable car back down to lower ground.

The next stop on our list was the Catalan Art Museum, housed in the former National Palace. The museum is home to what were told is a, “world-class collection of Romanesque art.” We have no idea what that means, so we’ll take Mr. Rick Steves at his word! As impressive as the art collection was, and it really did have some beautiful works of art, the palace building itself was equally impressive both inside and out.

By this part of our day, we were exhausted and had very, very tired feet, so we took a break inside the museum to wait for the Magic Fountains in Placa d’ Espanya to come to life. The light show at the fountains was set to music, and was really fun to watch. We rounded out our evening as the only patrons in the museum’s restaurant. Apparently, 7:30pm is too early for the Spanish to even think about eating dinner, but we were starving!! The restaurant overlooked the fountains, so we watched the second show of the evening while we ate.

Day two started with a second attempt at the Sagrada Familia, but first we had to have a little fun on the metro. As you can see from the picture, our attempt at out-smarting the system was thoroughly thwarted. However, all our efforts to get inside the Sagrada Familia were well worth it! The exterior of the building is massive and overpowering, but the interior of the building almost seems to float away from you. The entire building is truly breathtaking.

Here’s a little history of the Sagrada Familia because I think it’s interesting and because you’ll read whatever I write: The design of the Sagrada Familia Church is credited to the renowned Modernista architect Antoni Gaudi. He began his work on the project in 1883 and continued until his death in 1926. Prior to his death, work was competed (or nearly so) on only one of the three major façades of the church – the Nativity façade. In addition to the Nativity façade, the final plans call for two additional facades, the Passion façade and the Glory façade. Each of these facades will be marked by four bell towers (330-feet hight) dedicated to the twelve apostles. Four additional, central towers will be dedicated to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The church will be crowned by a 400-foot tower dedicated to Mary, and a 550-foot tower dedicated to Jesus. At the present time, only the Nativity and Passion facades are complete. It is estimated to take another 25 years or more to complete the construction.

Okay, back to our trip… We started at the Passion façade, because that’s where they sell the tickets (logical place to start, I know). The Passion façade is a depiction of the Stations of the Cross, although in a form and at a scale unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Each hand-carved figure is sunken, hallow, and haunting. We entered the church through massive bronze doors inscribed with words from the New Testament and proceeded to an elevator which took us up into one of the Passion bell towers. Then we climbed a stair case just wide enough for one person (and a relatively thin person at that) up higher into the tower. The views of the city and the on-going construction of the church were amazing. We also got to see the detailed mosaic work present on each of the towers – no paint on this building – all the color is mosaic tile. We (meaning Chris) thought it would be fun to take the stairs all the way down to the tower. What no one told me was that about half the stairs were a crazy spiral stair case with no rail in the center. Needless to say, I was glued to the outer wall the whole way down!

After coming back down to earth, we entered the interior of the church. Breathtaking. The columns in the building are design to look like trees, and they really do. It’s like you’re standing in a forest with the trees lifting the roof above your head. Natural light filters in from hundreds of windows around the church furthering the canopy effect. We wandered around in awe for over an hour trying and failing to capture the sheer magnitude of the space on film. It is really something you have to experience in person to truly appreciate.  The video here shows most of the interior space and includes music that was being performed while we were there.

Next, we headed outside again to the Nativity façade. In complete contrast to the simple, clean lines of the Passion façade, every inch of the Nativity façade is covered in decoration of some kind. Various scenes from the birth and early life of Jesus are depicted here. However, it’s the “blank” space that makes the building come to life. Seriously, it looks like the building is going to come alive and eat you for lunch! It reminded both Chris and me of a sea creature from Pirates of the Caribbean – creepy! Our tour finished with a look into at the history of the building’s construction in basement of the church.

We rounded out our afternoon with a metro ride to the Casa Mila (an apartment complex designed by Gaudi) and the Block of Discord (another building designed by Gaudi and two buildings designed in response by his competitors). And, since neither of us had had a decent hamburger and french fries since we moved to Lajes, we stopped at the Hard Rock Café for lunch before grabbing our bags and heading to the cruise ship. We spent the rest of the evening participating in a safety drill, unpacking our bags (hurray for only having to do this once!), and figuring out the layout of the ship.