Thursday, April 13, 2023
We are in love! Of course with each other, but also with Barcelona. This lovely, quirky, artful city has won our hearts to the very core.
We had scheduled our excursion for 8:45 AM, but it was changed to 2:30 P.M. So in the morning, we decided to go on our own into the city. The line for the shuttle bus was so long, that we took a taxi. For the short distance it took us, we thought that 20 Euros was a bit high. However, the port area and bridge are too long to walk into the city, especially since we had no idea where we were going.
The taxi let us out at the beginning of Las Ramblas, a lovely long street that runs from near the waterfront and the high statue of Columbus, toward the heart of the city. Las Rambles is absolutely pure magic! It is broad and very walkable, and lined with booths selling souvenirs and little outdoor restaurants. Roads run along each side, and across the street on each side are more shops and restaurants. Gorgeous trees and flowers made the walk even more glorious.
Spain cities are starkly different from those in France and Italy, because the streets are so clean, and there is quite a bit less graffiti. Not only are people hired to keep the streets clean in Barcelona, but shop and restaurant owners sweep around the outside of their establishments. You can feel the pride that residents take in their lovely city, and it is gorgeous because of them.
About halfway down, we noticed a huge covered food market the size of a mall. We entered into a maze of the most fabulous Spanish food you can possibly imagine. Fresh strawberries beckoned at the first booth. I picked up a container for 6 euros of perfect strawberries. Now here is the thing about Barcelona that we discovered. There is absolutely no consistency in pricing! As we moved deeper into the market, the strawberries became less expensive. One booth had a 12 inch by 6 inch wooden crate of them for 4.50 Euros. I purchased a large cup of cut up strawberries for 3 Euros that I ate right there in the market. The cured ham, breads, seafood — everything was picture perfect fabulous. What a feast for the eyes and nose!
We found huge discrepancies in souvenir prices as well. I purchased ornaments in a lovely shop along Las Ramblas for 3.50 each. The next shop where I saw them priced them at 6.50. Another had them for 10. Inside the port shop, they were 15! I saw acloth shopping bag that I now wish I had purchased, along Las Ramblas, for 6 Euros. It was 10 in a shop in Old Town and 20 in the shop in the port terminal.
After roaming a while, we headed back down Las Rambles to find gelato, and had the best flavor yet — Snickers! It was so fantastic. We had to search, ask directions, and walk quite a while to find the shuttle bus back to the ship, but when we returned, we had plenty of time to rest up and have a bit to eat. The port in Barcelona is huge and spread out — there were at least seven cruise ships there that day.
The tour bus met us just outside of the beautiful, sleek terminal building. The tour, Gaudi’s Barcelona, scheduled for four hours, was to focus mainly on Sagrada Familia (the Holy Family Church). We were very fortunate to get one of the best guides we had during our entire cruise. While she was gregarious, had a strong accent and never stopped talking, we could understand her, and the earbuds and listening device on a lanyard actually worked. She was incredibly thoughtful to look out for our safety the entire time, telling us where to watch our step repeatedly, checking on those who walked with a cane, and waiting for those of us who fell behind. She must have counted our group 25 times. She never lost any of us, and we learned a great deal.
The only issue is that in Barcelona, the buses can park only in certain places, and cannot let us out on the street close to the sites we would visit. This resulted in our walking many blocks to get to each location. First the bus drove along the Passeig de Gracia, another gorgeous promenade and fashionable boulevard. It had many chic boutiques, high class hotels and modernist architecture, including famous structures by Gaudi.
For our first stop, we walked about a mile to see Casa Batllo, built in 1877, and known locally as the House of Bones because of its skeletal appearance. On the outside of front of the building are balconies that look like mascarade masks. The building has irregular oval windows, intricate mosaics, sculpted stonework, iridescent windows, and a colorful facade with sea blue and purple tiles and wavy-shaped balconies. The arched roof is reminiscent of the back of a dragon with scales that appear to change colors as you walk past them. The pavement below is carved with starfish and octopi.
We walked back to focus on a building we had passed, Casa Mila (La Pedrera), one of Saudi’s most accomplished words. The iron work is gnarled and wavy, reminiscent of bones and plants.
By the time we made the long walk to the bus, we were already tired. Next, we stopped a long way from Sagrada Familia. One of the most visited monuments in Spain, it is Saudi’s unfinished Gothic-inspired masterpiece that towers over Barcelona. Construction began in 1882, and Gaudi devoted himself entirely to the church starting in 1911, working on it for 40 years. He actually lived on site. Gaudi hired the finest craftsmen from the country to work on the church, explaining his vision and then entrusting the artists to carry it out. Completely devoted to the work, he did not think about how he looked, as in his older years, appeared to be a homeless man. When he was hit by a tram and lay dying in the streets, no one realized who he was. The church is set to be completed in 2026, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Gaudi’s death. The church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The outside of the church is fascinating and mesmerizing, depicting numerous scenes from the Bible, including a Roman soldier killing the male babies by order of Herod when he learned Jesus had been born and did not know which child Jesus was.
We visited the inside of the church at the perfect time of day, when the afternoon sun transformed the magnificent stained glass windows into a kaleidoscope reflections on the walls.
Then we stepped to the. Back side of the church, where the statues on the outside were carved in modernistic or cubic style.
We also had time to visit the museum and shop outside of the church.
While we saw only a small fraction of Barcelona and of Gaudi’s work, we were completely enthralled and fascinated by all of it. We definitely want to make our way back to Barcelona. Not only is there so much more to see, but we loved the city itself. It was immaculate. The streets were clean (kept so by shop owners themselves as well as people hired as street cleaners). Cliff and I agreed as we made our way back to the ship that, of all the big cities we visited on this cruise, Barcelona was our favorite.
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