Barcelona, part VII - La Pedrera - Casa Mila and Barcelona Royal Shipyard

I mentioned in my last entry that the Big Three Gaudi buildings were (are?) the Sagrada Familia, which I already discussed at length, the Casa Batllo, which unfortunately I was unable to get any pictures of as its exterior was undergoing massive reconstruction, and the Casa Mila. The House of Mila, so to speak. Ha - wonder if that was the name of Garak and Enabran Tain's house? Casa Mila.

I'm sure lots had been said on the subject by people much more qualified (and interested, I'm sorry to say) than myself, so I'll just say here that Casa Mila really stood out. It's located on one of those typical Barcelonan boulevards, one of those large, straight, sunny and spacey ones - rather aptly named Diagonal. There's another one called Parallel which was not too far away. Anyway, Casa Mila was located somewhere between the metro stations Diagonal (Green Line, L3) and Passeig de Gracia, which I think is a lovely name. Then again I think most of the street and metro stations in Barcelona have wonderful names. I mentioned this in a very early entry I wrote early this year or late last year. Drassanes, Catalunya, Ciutadella, La Rambla.

I didn't take the metro though, since I found that one of the buses next to the hostel went straight there, so I buckled down. As it turned out the bus took more than an hour to get there, which would have bored me under normal circumstances, but it was nice to see more of Barcelona's hot, dusty, straight roads. I realise this is not the most flattering of descriptions but that's how I felt about Barcelona. "Fair enough," I'll say when asked about how I liked Barcelona. "Overrated," I'll say when asked about Germany. Oh, but I loved Frankfurt, and I have a soft spot for some of the Bavarian towns - Nuremburg comes to mind. I loved Nuremburg for two reasons: the gorgeously quaint Christmassy town centre, and the fact that it was freezing and poured, and that I got to take a piping hot shower after being soaked chill to the skin. Strange sort of person I am; there are some sensations and experiences that I will never forget, and that is one of them. It's been almost a year and I can still feel Nurnberg's chill rainwater freezing me to the marrow, returning to that hotel/hostel and finding no one else in the room, getting into the ridiculously luxurious shower and turning the hot water on full pelt and gasping for joy and singing, even, as I washed, then coming out and settling down happily onto my lovely proper HOTEL BED.

I need to stop writing and postulating and get back there and do this again. If nothing else happens, I still have this.

I'm ashamed to say it but it's really been too long since continental #1 happened, and after that there was Romania, Gdansk, Copenhagen and continental #4, so I think I'll make this a picture entry. Casa Mila, though very picturesque, cost a staggering 16.5 euro to get in. No thanks. I'll just stand around outside like countless other tourists and take photos of the outer facade and call it a day. Actually, I could fleeting catch glimpses of the interior, and see tourists milling around in it, and... it didn't excite me that much, to be honest, so I have no regrets.

Next day. Headed down to Barceloneta sans #gang. I went to Barceloneta quite a lot as I remember, not so much because it was pretty - it wasn't, not particularly - but because it was the Mediterranean after all, and also because it was quite close to everything else - La Rambla, the city centre, the cathedrals and so forth. There was a Maritime museum located quite close to the sea, and this one was very much affordable - can't remember the exact cost but nothing over 5 euros, plus it included a visit to a skiff.

More pictures, and remember that this country was once the native land of the Invincible Armada, and that the Spaniards set sail and travelled halfway across the world four hundred years ago to colonise my ow country.

Barcelona, part VI - Basilica of the Sagrada Familia, part ii

I've been revisiting a lot of my old blogs recently. Partly inspiration, a lot of escapism, and an attempt to recapture that which has been all but lost. I noticed that I tended to skim a lot over the pictures and focus on the words - partly because I usually read my blogs in a place with zero privacy, but also because words are the soul of wit. Next time I really, really should type up my stuff when I'm still fresh.

Sagrada. Not much I can remember from that morning. I do remember sleeping slightly fitfully that night though, because the person who slept in the bunk above me, kept on tossing and turning, and everytime he did that the bunk would shake as well and it was rather annoying. He told me that he was going to the Sagrada today as well but we were going at very different times - I wasn't leaving till about 8:30 but he was up at six and planned to go there at like 8. Oh well.

Sagrada was located fairly closely to my hostel, and I chatted with the lovely hostel owners before I left as I always do. They told me to walk there - "it's only a 20 minute walk!" and even gave me a map, but I took one look out at the scorching sun, another look at my ride-all-you-can Hola Bon travelcard, and decided I'd be better off taking the metro, nohow.

Sagrada Familia has a metro station all to itself (unsurprisingly) and is located on both the blue line (L5) and the purple line (L2).

Anyway, picking up from last entry, there was a nice little museum right next to the Basilica which was dedicated to Gaudi and the process of the construction of the Sagrada, so I grandly present another medley of pictures.

A photograph of a photograph of the great man himself, Antoni Gaudi

Included in my preordered tickets were a trip up one of the Facades, the Nativity Facade, which is 50 metres high. I was scheduled (people numbers restrictions again) for a 12:00 entry and went up with a lovely English family who had two adorable little boys. Cute as the kids were and much as I was looking up to going to the facade, something pretty disgusting happened whilst we were going up in the elevator - it lurched and stopped, and the elevator lady was just as freaked out as any of us, saying extremely unhelpfully, "Well THAT'S never happened before!" and looking rather scared. We stayed in limbo for the longest 10 seconds of my life before the lift groaned back into life again and went up. The English family and actually all of the other lift passengers looked just as rattled as I felt, and one of the little boys said to me, "I think I'll be taking the stairs when I go down!"

A nice view of the city from one of the peepholes in the Nativity facade.

And, true to my word, I'm taking the stairs.

More stairs.

Some sort of architecture sticking out from the Facade.

And more pictures of the Sagrada Familia before I say adios.

The Sagrada Familia entries ended up being splitted into two entries after all, not three. Oh well, I still have heaps of pictures left for them, will do a picture recap if I ever get round to it somehow.

Barcelona, part V - Basilica of the Sagrada Familia, part i

This entry is going to be mostly pictures because I have a slew of them, and I divided them up into ... three entries, I think. I have a veritable barrage of pictures on the Sagrada Familia, which was strictly speaking the highlight of the tourist spots I had for my Barcelonan round.

Sagrada Familia, which is still currently under construction, was designed by the famous Gothic architect Antoni Gaudí in the early 1880s, and is one of the famous "three" buildings that he built, the other two being the Casa Batllo and la Pedrera - Casa Mila. Incidentally, the Sagrada is also the largest, most famous and the only one that I actually paid to go into. The other two ones will come in later entries, but I didn't go into either of them - I just stood in front of them and took pictures of their exterior facades and called it a day. I don't regret that choice, since every single tourist spot in Barcelona was extraordinarily overpriced. I would have gone broke if I'd gone to each and every one of them.

Anyway, I had the foresight to buy my tickets for the Sagrada online. We're allowed to choose what time we want to enter because of people restrictions, and once I'd gotten there I saw their point. It was about 9:30 am when I arrived, and already there was a huge queue in front of the ticket booth. I squashed my way to the entrance and showed the guard my ticket which I'd printed out in Guy's Library back in London, and he nodded and waved me in. I can't describe how gleeful I felt when I sailed in, whilst all those poor people queuing mopped their red sweaty faces and looked at me in envy. It was sweltering - must have been 32 degrees at the very least.

First glimpse of the Sagrada, and you can see the construction cranes which are a real photo bomber.

Edged myself in - 10 o'clock and it was already filled with people. From this point on I'll just let the pictures speak for themselves.