Barcelona

Day 2 and we decided to walk to the Park Güell.  It is probably the only place of note in Barcelona that the hotel is genuinely close to. It is surrounded by 'woodland' and tracing the roads on the map was an interesting experience.  We were walking through the 'back streets' not in the tourist areas.  It is a very different Barcelona, not nearly so clean - lots of graffiti and with frequent wafts of unpleasant odours (sewage?).

The park has many items of Antoni Gaudi's architecture, and is something that must not be missed, if you can get out of the city centre. Jo and I are standing at one of the gates to the park with Barcelona in the background. We 'swapped' pictures here with another couple, I hope theirs came out as well. The building to the left of my head is the Sagrada Família, another of Gaudi's famous works.  We wandered around the park for a long time looking at the various works.  Here all the tourist notices include English language translations, so we could understand them.  Here are some more pictures, but there are also some at the bottom of the page above, about the park. We went in Gaudi's House Museum, where the officials are very concerned about flash photography and we learnt that Gaudi was the first person to design ergonomic furniture - it looked really uncomfortable, but ergonomic furniture often is!

Gaudi, I believe is only famous because a lot of his work survives. He had a rich patron Eusebi Güell without whom it is likely he would have been a struggling artist - like so many others.  Personally, I find the work repulsive, but fascinating at the same time.

In Barcelona there are a number of tourist buses. Some are very expensive, none are cheap. The official bus Barcelona bus Touristic allows you to jump on and off as you please.  We bought a 2 day ticket, and set off on top of the bus to view the city.  There are two routes red and blue, and in the summer a third - green.  This way we get a sense of what's available and what we would like to visit.

Back in the Place de Catalunia we wandered down 'La Rambla', the long wide avenue that goes down to the sea.  It is very busy here - all the time.  However we found a restaurant with seats (that never seemed to be a problem) and settled down to eat and drink. A large beer is very large indeed.  The service was initially very good, but later slow and the bill was wrong, she seemed annoyed when I asked for all the meal to be included(!?).  The toilets there were somewhat unpleasant - smelly and inadequate - but that was preparing me for later.

Then back onto the Blue Route. It gets dark very quickly in Barcelona, from 5:15 to 5:50, from daylight to full night.  After that the bus is less useful.  It was also very blowey and cold on Mont Juic. On returning to the Place de Catalunia we found a fish restaurant slightly off the square, where again the food was very nice, and the service prompt until the end of the meal, when I had to ask another waiter for the bill.

Back to the hotel on the underground, for another good nights sleep.