Eager to get going, I bundled up against the +1 degree morning and set out early. An easy Metro trip brought me to the foot of the steep hillside on top on which Park Guell sits. The uphill climb (which felt like a 45 degree angle) was eased by a series of escalators to the top.
In 1900, Count Guell hired Gaudi to design a miniature city of houses and landscaped grounds for the wealthy. He crafted a plaza, two gatehouses (in one of which Gaudi lived for the last 20 years of his life, and were the prototypes for the over 60 planned homes), roads and walkways that are intricate, curvaceous and colourful. But the development flopped, was eventually abandoned and then sold to the city to become a public park. With no admission fee, it is hugely popular with residents and tourists. By lunch time, there were so many people, I couldn’t take a decent photo.
Ringed with a continuous curving mosaic’d bench, the plaza is actually a roof holding 88 stone columns below. Standing in this pillared forest, with the morning sunlight filtering in, I looked up to see a white mosaic’d ceiling with colourful medallions of sea creatures and imagery. To the left curves a gallery of lumpy stone columns which seem like roots of trees holding up the hillside, and steps spill down from the plaza, guarded by a giant dragon.
Leaving the park, I walked down, down, into the Garcia neighbourhood, a maze of narrow streets like corridors which lead to little plazas full of locals drinking coffee at outdoor cafes. A glazed croissant with café con leche revived me, as I studied my map. Wrought iron balconies dripped from the tall buildings which curved with the lanes, and I allowed myself to get lost, following one intriguing passageway after another. At one time, each of Barcelona’s ten neighborhoods were separate villages, with its own character and history, which now run into one another. Continuing south, I was now in L’Eixample, its wide main drag Passeig de Garcia lined with fanciful buildings, once homes for the wealthy. More of Gaudi’s work can be found here, including Casa Battlo, with its scaly blue-green roof tiles inspired by a dragon, and balconies resembling jaw bones…bizarre and beautiful. I shall return for an inside tour another day.
Flagging by now, I ducked into the narrow door of a tapas bar to find its expansive interior jam-packed. Finding a seat at the bar, and realizing I couldn’t understand the Catalan menu, I opted for the Sopa Del Dia, which turned out to be a rather salty but delicious, dark fish soup, studded with rice and bits of squid. With it, came Pan Tumaca, a toasted flatbread scrubbed with garlic and the inside of a tomato and drizzled with olive oil.
Then down to Barri Gothic, the heart of Old Barcelona, along La Rambla, a wide parade of locals, tourists, buskers, pickpockets, flower and bird stalls, eateries and shops. Near the bottom of the strip, I found Mercat de la Boqueria, a riotous covered market overflowing with produce, anything with fins or feet, bread and cheeses. Hard to imagine that people have been shopping to fill their tummies there since the early 1200’s. With my shopping bag heavy with chicken, local mushrooms, onions and garlic, a potato, oranges, green beans and a bottle of wine, I happily headed back to the hostel to cook dinner. Esta buenisimo!