Barcelona Day 2: Architecture and Tapas
Thankfully, we awoke refreshed and ready for our first full day in Barcelona, during which we would focus first on Gaudi up north and then on food down south. We filled up on a delicious hotel breakfast buffet that featured yogurt parfaits with honey, a fresh fruit bar, artisanal bread with jam, chocolate croissants, and almond cake. The melted mozzarella tomatoes along with roasted potatoes and chorizo left nothing to be desired (aside from a larger appetite to taste even more!)
Casa Batllo
We set off west and took in the stunning beauty of Casa Batllo in the early morning rays. The exterior reminded me of the sea with its coral-like balconies that also resembled bones or masks. The blue tile and window shutters invited the eye to linger and wonder what beauty lay within. We first entered through a basement room and stood on a moving sidewalk that circled around a sleeping figure depicting the architect Gaudi. Meanwhile, lights and projected images flashed and swept around the room on curved exterior screens and an inner natural habitat that transformed from an ocean floor to a wooded sanctuary of blossoming flowers and mushrooms. The exhibit successfully illustrated the various natural elements that captured Gaudi’s imagination and inspired his architecture.
The entire house echoed the sea, whether the banister that appeared like the spine of a sea creature, the skylights that suggested the shape and pattern of turtle shells, the air ventilating window shade system that called to mind a fish's gills, the ocean blue tiles that transitioned from light to dark as we ascended the central staircase to extend light throughout the floors, or the attic arches that surrounded us as if inside the rib cage of a whale. The exquisitely molded wooden doors carved like driftwood with scrolled letters marked off the apartments with their porthole-like windows. Most stunning was the Batllo family’s three-sectioned living room with its bubbled panorama windows looking out over the Passeig de Gracia. This was equaled only by the fantastic rooftop with its garden plants, ornate bulbous cross, and an undulating crest reminiscent of the spine of a sea dragon. We exited through the Gaudi Cube, a 3D AI-generated amalgamation of Gaudi’s natural inspiration, signature shapes and patterns, and architectural output. I sat for a few moments on a beautifully carved wooden chair absorbing and processing everything we had seen, dizzy with the brilliance of it all.
La Sagrada Familia
Our next stop, La Sagrada Familia, was at the tip of everyone's tongue when I asked for Barcelona recommendations. I now understand why. This beast of a basilica looms over the city, visible from any vista, a curiosity beckoning both the religious devout and run-of-the-mill tourists from around the world, making it the most popular destination in Spain. We approached the church from the southwest, zigzagging our way through a colorful fresh produce and meat market. We caught sight of the colossal towers from a couple blocks away and first faced the more modern Passion Facade, which features angular statues designed by an artist who took up the reins and made the project his own after Gaudi's untimely death by a passing tram. The angled, stretched columns that force the eye up to the cross and ascended Christ reflect the tension of the events of Holy Week, depicted in an S-shaped sequence along the facade.
Below, from this initial approach view, the seemingly random blotches of color along the tower tops and the words scrawled across various parts of the building seemed gaudy and out of place. I'm accustomed to European churches being somewhat bland from the outside, aside from some muted stained glass windows. The colors of La Sagrada Familia grew on me, however, once we rounded the cathedral to take in the view of the Nativity Facade, saw the towers up close and as a collection, and witnessed the glorious interior lit through vibrant stained glass.
We ascended via the lift in one of the hollow cylinders,
emerging onto a bridge between the towers with a breathtaking view of the
entire city–from the waterfront where we spotted the fin-shaped W hotel, to the
Montjuic hill we planned to explore Monday, to the St. Francis de Sales Church
and park area we passed that morning during our approach to La Sagrada Familia.
From our vantage point criss crossing bridges and spiraling down the staircase,
I could better appreciate the building’s exterior color. What I had at first
assumed was somewhat tacky paint on otherwise beautiful natural stone turned
out to be tile mosaics. What first appeared to be giant globs of bubble gum or
bananas along the rooftop, I soon learned to be bunches of grapes topped with a
cup and bundles of wheat topped with a circle of bread–the elements of the Last
Supper. In addition, seeing the workers and building equipment up close made me
appreciate the ongoing construction and look forward to the completion of the
remaining middle tower, which was half assembled and had rough underlying
sections exposed as it waited for tile to be added. I even better appreciated
the angular statues of the Passion Facade once I saw them and their rough
texture up close while descending the stairs. The dizzying curvature of the
ceiling skylight holes was also intriguing, with their geometrical patterns and
engineering genius which, along with the arches, made me truly admire this
passion project of Gaudi’s.
Parc Guell
Our descent back to the hotel proved much easier than our
previous uphill climb, so we skipped the bus and walked 40 minutes home,
grateful to have worn comfortable shoes! We found some narrow streets here and
there that avoided the cut-off corners characteristic of major intersections in
L’Eixample. (While they make for charming corner buildings, all those
switchback sidewalks make for a much longer walk.) We also happened upon a
shady plaza; a lovely promenade with spacious sidewalks; and an astonishingly
large number of barber shops, salons, and tattoo parlors–which we forewent in
interest of having a precious 45 minutes of phone charging and feet resting
time at our hotel before it was time for our evening tapas tour.
Tapas Tour
En route to our tapas tour meeting spot, we passed the Placa
Catalunya (where locals were gearing up for a Formula One car racing festival)
and strolled down a major shopping street. We caught sight of the main
cathedral and a section of original Roman wall with accompanying archway and
aqueduct, walked under an ornate bridge that was added later to connect the
government building to the church (useful for traveling to secret meetings
without officials being spotted on the public streets), and spilled out onto
the Placa Sant Jaume, where we met our friendly tour guide and new friends from
Oregon, Brazil, Australia, and the Philippines.
Our first stop included paper thin Iberian ham, slivers of
assorted sausages plated according to increasing intensity, and wedges of
purple and white cheese. We sipped red wine and learned about the pigs that had
feasted on acorns to cultivate the Iberian ham delicacy. Their preserved legs
bedecked the bar and hung from the ceiling, wrapped in black paper and labeled
by farm to declare their worth.
Next, we wound our way through the narrow passages of the Barri Gotic to a cobblestone street corner for a “snack and an experience,” which turned out to be crunching down on boquerones (bite-sized fried anchovies with heads and tails intact) that were surprisingly delicious, especially when washed down with a swig of white wine from a unique glass bottle with a spout designed for sharing. Apparently this communal drinking style was an effective way for ancient farmers to offer hospitality to travelers passing through their lands. Because everyone (including the traveler) drank from the same bottle, the farmer host didn’t have to worry that the stranger would poison his drink to steal his land, house, or wife.
For our third stop, we walked down to a waterfront bar to
sample vermouth, salt-dried tuna with a ham-like texture, salty cilantro
potatoes, traditional pan con tomate, egg and potato tortilla, and a pastry
shell filled with marinated mushrooms. We wound our way through El Born to a
tapas restaurant across from an old market building where workers dug during
renovations and discovered a sunken street from the 1700s. There we tasted
squid ink rice with shrimp (I opted out of the invitation to suck its head for
extra seafood flavor), croquettes, potato squares filled with chocolate cream
and topped with blue cheese, and a flaky meringue dessert perched on a square
of thin pastry.
We left the tour stuffed and grateful for the city bus that arrived with perfect timing to whisk us past the Parc de la Ciutadella and the Arc de Triomf (celebrating Art and Science rather than any military battle) all the way to within a block of our hotel, where we collapsed in happy exhaustion.
Read the full series here:
Spend More Time Doing What You Love (in Barcelona!)
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