The McKenneys: Barcelona

Barcelona is one of the bigger (if not the biggest) cities in Spain. Even for a "laid back" country like Spain, Barcelona seems to have a big city feel - so many people, restaurants, Las Ramblas (Barcelona 5th Avenue), Theater District, etc. In looking at the map, the city was too big for us to cover on foot, so we explored the area around our hotel (which was connected to a huge shopping mall) and agreed to sign up for a bus tour the next day. That night we saw on the news that there was a transit workers strike taking place in the country. They caught on camera many disgruntled transit workers dumping trash, painting graffiti, and creating slippery surfaces in the metro stations, which explains the metro conditions we experienced in Madrid (forgot to mention that, but the subway stations in Madrid were absolutely littered with garbage). We got up the next morning and went to the tour bus stop down the street from our hotel, only to find that the tour buses were also affected by the strike and would not be in operation for the duration of our time in Barcelona. As traffic and parking are difficult, our only option was to explore the city on foot, making use of the subway where possible. We started in the northeast quadrant of the city where the architect Antoni Gaudi performed most of his work. Gaudi lived from the mid 1800's to early 1900's and the buildings he designed were way ahead of his time. The first building we saw was an apartment building called La Pedrera (which means abandoned stoned quarry, a name given by critics of the structure). Gaudi tended to use distorted geometries to give his buildings a very wavy, non-linear look. Imagine looking at the facade of an apartment building where every unit is noticeably different – window size, size of balcony, depth of unit with in the building…its difficult to explain in words, maybe the picture can do a better job. The next building we looked at was the Sacred Family church (La Sagrada Familia). This is an amazing structure which has three facades (depicting the birth, passion, and resurrection of Jesus) and 18 steeples honoring the 12 apostles, 4 evangelists, the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. At this time, only two of the facades are complete and 8 of the steeples. The project is funded by private donation from those that appreciate the work of Gaudi. It is scheduled for completion in 30 years. We next saw the House of Spikes (very Gothic looking building). We decided to take the metro down to the waterfront for lunch. When we got there, it started to rain and we forgot our umbrella, so quickly picked a spot and had a nice relaxing lunch. This time, we sampled the Barcelona paella (a seafood paella), which we definitely thought to be the best. After lunch, we took the metro back to the hotel. As it was still raining, we decided to hop in the car and sightsee with our last couple hours of daylight. We drove up to the Park Guell, which was a park designed by Gaudi. Again, we were absolutely amazed. It is not your typical park. Two pavilions (for use by the gatekeeper) stand at the entrance way into the park, which look like something out of the Hans and Gretel fairytale. A staircase leads up to a spectacular dragon fountain, and past that, a very deep cavernous area (Hypostyle Hall) which has numerous posts for support. The ceiling of this area is wavy and decorated with the fragments of broken glass and plates. Another stairway leads to the area above the cavern, which is just an open, dirt covered square, surrounded by a continuous wavy bench that, given the elevated height of this area, also serves as a guard rail. Like the ceiling in the cavern below, each small segment of the bench was decorated in a different design with the fragments of broken glass and plates. As this park is at the top of a hill, this particular area provided a beautiful viewing platform over the rest of the city. We figured we had seen enough for the day and headed back to the hotel for dinner and rest. The next day, we decided to explore the Montjuic Park area which is in the Southwest quadrant of the city. From one of the metro stops, we took a funicular to the base of the park. From there, we took a gondola up to the highest point of the park, where sits Montjuic castle. The castle was fairly unimpressive, probably due to the fact that it was not built to defend the city, but to overlook it. From that standpoint, it did offer some spectacular views. We continued our tour and saw the Olympic Stadium, National Museum, Magic Fountain, and Plaza Espanya. Having fully explored this part of the city, we decided to explore a bit of the South East quadrant, known as the Gothic Quarter. In this section of town lies the Cathedral (with an impressive outdoor courtyard), Barcelona Town Hall, and headquarters of the Generalitat autonomous government as well as the remains of some buildings built by the Romans. The next day was Saturday, the eve of Three Kings Day. This is a big day in Spain. They celebrate when the Three Kings brought gifts to Jesus and is also a big present day for the kids. We heard that later in the day, the Three Kings would arrive by boat to Barcelona and they would lead a parade through town. So we decided to be around the port area in the late afternoon, which is also home to a shopping mall and an aquarium (the second largest in Europe, the first being Genoa which we saw last year). We started the morning at the Palace of Music - a fantastically designed building. We were unable to visit the inside as all the tours were sold out for the day. Therefore, we proceeded directly to the port via a short walk along the Ramblas. This is a very wide street lined with shops and restaurants. A very generous median is home to numerous street performers and souvenir stands. The volume of people on this street leads me to believe that this is the heart of the city. We eventually made our way to the port and proceeded directly to the shopping mall. The mall did not have much to offer, so we had lunch and made our way to the aquarium. The kids once again had a blast exploring all the underwater creatures. As we were finishing up our tour, we heard fireworks and concluded that the Three Kings must be arriving. We quickly got outside and made our way to the area where probably 10s of thousands of people were congregating. We saw a small parade of people in costume but could not see what was happening from our vantage point. We got closer and eventually got close enough to see the Three Kings on a stage receiving the key to the city from the mayor. One of the kings (Balthazar I believe) made a speech and then they continued their procession along the parade route. The kids (all the kids, not just ours) were cheering, shouting, and just going nuts at the sight of the Kings!!! Sandy and I are currently debating whether the Three Kings or Santa Clause has higher stature in Spain. After that, we fought the crowds back to the hotel. We discovered a mini outdoor funpark a couple of nights prior and decided that with the volume of people checking out the Three Kings, we might have the funpark to ourselves. We were wrong, however, the kids did not have to wait long to get into the bouncy bounch, funhouse, or on the merry go round. The next day was our travel day back to Switzerland. The flight was not until the afternoon, so we took advantage of the morning to pack our bags and headed back to the funpark one last time.

This seafood paella looked and tasted yummy!