Up at the reasonably humane hour

of 8.00am,(with a throat as dry as a nuns….sorry) my head wasn’t hurting as much as I expected from previous experience night. That was fortunate for me since we had a day waiting to be filled with Barcelona city. Roger was ok too. Just felt a little sluggish. The hotel provided us with a breakfast, mostly croissants, muffins and pastries which were lovely and a great coffee and orange juice.
We needed a way to see Barcelona. There’s the metro, buses, taxis or our old friend, walking. I had heard about a bus tour that the city does, in open air buses too. I had picked a leaflet up at breakfast. 17 Euros for a day or 21 Euros for 2 days. The main sights were all on the route, like Parc Guell, Sagrada Familia, Casa Batllo, MNAC and Port vell among the many attractions to see. There’s far too much to see in 4 days than possible. It is possible to see a lot though and feel like you’ve done most of the essentials in Barca.

We opted for the 2 day pass. On to the bus we jumped, which allows you to hop on and off at the stops as often as you want. Roger would have stayed on the bus going round and round all day if I’d let him. But I wanted to see Park Guell at least. As we left the Placa Catalunya we came to Casa Batllo. This jewel of a building was designed by Mr Gaudi, in typical Gaudi fashion, with elaborate detail.
The Great Casa Batllo

This building looks like something out of a fairytale, and you wonder why so many buildings aren’t designed with a little more eccentricity. Probably profit comes over as the main reason into why so many buildings are dull. Maybe I’m generalising too much and my example of Casa Batllo is a extreme one. But I think In mainstream society in the UK anyway there lacks a creative side where people are willing to experiment. The architecture in the UK is so dull. Arrive by plane and you would think you were arriving on the Moon
Atlanta ,Georgia is another dull city. There is virtually no eye candy of the architecture type in the city except if you go into the poorer part of town near Martin Luther Kings memorial. That’s a reason why Barcelona is so fabulous. It’s like one huge art museum. A walking, talking breathing artistic masterpiece of a city. Its location as a port city climbing inland onto the slopes of the mountains add to the character.
Barcelona in late February has a dodgy climate. We were blessed with crystal blue skies yet a strikingly cold wind. Sunstroke and hypothermia at the same time wasn’t out of the question if you don’t wrap up. Up on the open top Double Deckers this magnifies greatly. Passing the Disneyland looking Passeig de Graia we went on to the equally gaudy Sagrada Familia. This is a cathedral which still under construction since Guadi’s 1926 death. Only one tower had been completed then, a few more added since.
As we approached Park Guell (http://www.op.net/~jmeltzer/Gaudi/parkgell.html) I managed to usher Roger off the bus to see the park. The walk up warmed us slightly. The park is supposed to have been designed in the style of an English garden and looks anything but Hyde park. Thank god the project was ‘unsuccessful’ because what has been created is a blend of nature into Guadi’s work.
We saw among the excited crowd ‘that lizard thing’, you know., the one in all the brochures.

Cute thing. Basically the park is well worth a visit and if the climb which isn’t too bad doesn’t put you off you can see the whole of Barcelona. What a wonderful horizon!

Another nice feature of the park are the numerous vendors of small crafts and paintings dotted about the place. If you are extremely lucky you may be treated to this dude playing a Digery-Do!! (The Australian instruments)

The bus was already at the stop as we left the park, on we went……

The bus went by a monastery, tram station and around the Barcelona Football clubs stadium which isn’t very exciting on the outside, but one on the finer stadiums on the football circuit.

Back in Placa de Catalunya, we searched for a restaurant. This part is a little embarrassing because we had said we wanted to find a good Spanish restaurant to sample the cuisine. We ended up in KFC. The chicken was of the type I had never eaten before. When you bite into it, the dam thing sprayed a greasy liquid out. I suggest you do research before your hungry on where to eat because we walked miles before settling for KFC.
That night was basically spent resting the feet and taking a hot shower to relax. A night one the town would have nailed us.