A grand Gaudi day in Barcelona

It was our first full day in Barcelona, and there was heaps to explore.

First we walked to a nearby market to find some fresh fruit, bread and cheese. These had been plentiful everywhere we went in France, especially the bread and cheese. The market was good, had plenty of stalls and a wide range.

Our one mistake was looking for an ATM first because we thought maybe the market stallholders would need cash. We needn’t have bothered. Everyone takes cards.

After dropping the market shopping at the flat, we went to the nearby Metro station to buy public transport tickets from the vending machine. These are reusable cardboard tickets that let you load fares onto them, and work on the Metro and buses (and trams, though we didn’t use those).

Barcelona seems to be part the way through getting contactless tap and go bankcard fare payments – they work on the buses but not the Metro. They also have separate ticketing for the suburban/regional trains vs the Metro.

We hopped onto bus 24 to Park Güell – this route is frequent, about every 6 minutes all day, and is a bit slow in the traffic, but avoids a long walk up the hill.

I noticed as we tapped our tickets on the bus that the card reader responded in English for us, but not for most others. It appears the vending machine encoded the tickets with English as the chosen language, and the card readers used this. Neat.

Park Güell was originally created as a gated community, with lots of Antoni Gaudí-designed genius. Gaudí’s style is distinctive, and rightly hailed in this part of the world. It’s got a kind of organic quality to it, and sometimes is highly decorative, often quite stunning.

On arrival at the Park, we joined a guided tour. They run different tours at different times in different languages, which is handy for us foreigners. It provided a really interesting introduction to the Park, how it came to be… and of course touched on the sad end to Gaudí – he died after being hit by a tram. And of course we got to see many of the architectural highlights.

The tour finished at Nature Square, a kind of plaza with a spectacular view over the city.

I was left a bit grumpy by a couple who took their sweet time taking many photos of themselves in a prime corner bench spot, then decided to sit and eat lunch there rather than make space for others trying to take photos… as well as putting their feet on the bench when signs and attendants asked people not to.

But gosh, it really is spectacular up there.

We explored the Park a bit more – as the day went on it was warming up, especially in the sun.

I noticed an alert about bus disruptions, so we decided to walk down the hill to the Metro. It was a bit of a hike, but pleasant enough and we got to see more of the city this way.

The Metro whisked us back to the apartment where we had some lunch. As in Paris, they use line numbers, and I came to really appreciate the excellent clear signage, as well as the high frequency of trains.

The platform countdown timers go to seconds when the train is less than five minutes away – the one below shows the next train in 3 minutes 42 seconds. Also note the narrow platforms – many of the stations look superficially modern but are over 100 years old, and constrained for space.

For the afternoon, it was more Gaudí: Casa Batlló, the town house he designed, which is only about a block from where we were staying.

This was very busy – it’s timed entry bookings, with a complicated queuing system to get in. But it’s nicely organised – once you start walking through, it’s busy but didn’t seem overly crowded.

You gradually make your way up to the roof. The whole place is beautiful, in that Gaudí style.

This corridor reminded me of the corridors on Skaro, the planet of the Daleks from Doctor Who.

The tour ends with a special room with video display shown on the walls, ceiling and floor, very surreal. And a gift shop, of course.

After that we walked a couple of blocks to admire another Gaudí creation, La Pedrera – Casa Milà.

Back to the flat for a cuppa and a rest, then we explored the local area a bit more and found a tapas restaurant for dinner. Yum!

More exploring tomorrow.