Barcelona!

In Barcelona we stayed in a modern apartment building in the Eixample district, the early 20th century "extension" to the original old walled city. With two bedrooms and two bathrooms there was plenty of room to spread out. The view was of a central courtyard backed onto by other hotels and apartments so we could get some sense of how people in that area live.




One of our first activities was a walking/tasting tour of the "village" of Gracia, once a separate village one the outskirts of Barcelona but now part of the city albeit with it's own strong identity. Beautiful orange trees, in full fruit, lined many streets of Gracia. There were nine stops on the tour which lasted for four hours - four hours of almost constant eating with walking in between. We visited markets with meat, olive and cheese sellers; an elegant olive oil store; a local "homemade" food kitchen; a typical neighborhood bar for vermouth and snacks and a pastry store for a unique take on Creme Caramel. We also stopped in at the town hall to see some parade characters two of which were giant figures that were carried on the backs of local people during their annual parade. We were also surprised to see Gerry Brownlee included among the caricatures.

Sagrada Familia - by Bea
It's difficult to describe this incredible structure.  The most popular of Gaudi's works in Barcelona, it was very popular and crowded and that was in the off season!
These days it's a well organised money maker, with online ticket bookings and QR code scanning at the gate.  The place is a hive of activity with tours and construction going on together.
Most of you will know something about it or will have visited yourself. In a nutshell, the local community decided to build a cathedral and commissioned architect Del Villar to design it. He commenced work but left the project a year later.  Antonio Gaudi took over in 1884 with quite a different vision! It is still under construction, but Gaudi would not have been surprised.  After all his famous quote was: 'My client is not in a hurry'!!
Things have sped up massively since Pope Benedict consecrated the place in 2010.  There is an estimate that it will be completed in 20 years, in time for the commemoration of Gaudi death.
We met tourists who had last visited 16 years ago. They said they hardly recognized the place.  All those years ago the roof was open to the weather and they only saw two workmen on site.
It's terrific to see the cathedral itself of course, but it was very interesting to also see the models that Gaudi made - he tended to do 3D models instead of drawings - and an onsite workshop with many staff working with new technology, which is something that Gaudi would have totally supported as he was into new ideas.
We took a guided tour, which was the best decision as the place is massive and the ideas behind it are even bigger.
There are several ideas and inspirations that were unique to Gaudi and are seen in almost all his work: religion, humanism, nature and technology/geometric shapes.  The cathedral is packed full of figures and animals in every nook and cranny.  And the catenary curve (a natural curve formed by a weighted string loop) as well as hyperboloid structures (look them up!) were used everywhere.  The enormous columns inside are intended to look like a massive forest and the stained glass windows have been coloured to indicate sunrise/birth and sunset/death, with the different sides of the cathedral also indicating the cycle of life and the bible stories that illustrate them.
The Passion Facade was controversially completed by Josep Subirachs and his team in the 1980's and seems to differ quite radically from Gaudi's style, although it succeeds in creating the stark almost scary effect that Gaudi wanted. Subirachs included a statue based on the last known photo of Gaudi himself.
Declan thought:  'Massively structured and if you looked closely there was lots of detail, like statues and carvings.  Especially of nature'
Afterwards, in the park across the road we had lunch and then spotted a group of local seniors playing what we thought was bowls. On closer inspection it turned out to be 'bitles' where a wooden pin is tossed into the air with the aim of knocking down all the other pins, bar ONE!  They were incredibly good at it.

A Bicycle Tour

The weather was generally mild and with the traffic fairly manageable Barcelona is in the process of becoming more friendly for cyclists. We did a private tour with a guide who took us on a loop tour of some areas of Barcelona we had not yet seen and filled us in on some history we would have not otherwise realised. It was a beautiful day, although a little cold by the end of the tour.



On the tour we saw a magnificent fountain which had actually been one of Gaudi's university projects.





Park Guell

This park, which is on a hill overlooking Barcelona, has many examples of Gaudi's work created for the wealthy industrialist Guell. We pre-booked to avoid the crowds - you are given an appointed time as they only let in 400 people each 30 minute period. Even so on a sunny Sunday afternoon it was very busy.




FC Barcelona and Camp Nou!
By Declan

The highlight of the trip was probably the chance to see Barcelona FC play AC Bilbao at the famous Camp Nou stadium. We saw Messi, Suarez and Neymar Jr play. Each one of them scored one or more goals which ended up a final score of 6-0. The fans were completely crazy and there was a big group of people chanting behind Barcelona FC's goal. Near the start a big banner was pulled down on of the top stands to congratulate Messi for his "Balloon D'Or" award. It was easy to get there since we were early but near the end it was chaos because all of the people were trying to get out at once and the subway train was completely full if you were in there you couldn't move a muscle.




We liked it so much the next day we went back for an exclusive Camp Nou museum and stadium tour. We got to see lots of trophies and the changing rooms, press rooms and manager's boxes of the stadium.