Getting to know Gaudí

My luggage had so much of a good time in Barcelona it seems that it decided to stay there. I currently starting the beginning of what will be a 6 hour wait for it at Lisbon airport- good thing I bought a copy of The Corrections yesterday. The people who left it in Barcelona kindly offered to arrange for it to be send to my hostel but considering the line of people who were asking about lost luggage there was no way I was trusting them to get it to me- Groundforce Portugal...their promotional line “We handle, you fly”. I did my bit, what about you Groundforce! That said I can’t really blame them as it was the airline's fault not theirs.

While the wait does give me time to me to tell you all about my time in Barcelona, though I will eventually have to locate an internet connection to do so. In my last post, I mentioned the fact that I almost didn’t get to Barcelona. When I first arrived in Nice, people asked me at the hostel where I was off to next and I was like “Barcelona, I haven’t sorted out my seat reservation yet though” and they just laughed. The word on the streets was that there was no way to get between Nice and Barcelona by train until the tomorrow (5 Jan) at the earliest and my even suggesting that I could get there on the 1^st was pure insanity- two girls at my hostel changed departure dates and then decided to go to Madrid, several others were talking of taking similar action, and some people were riding trains without reservations (which will net you a hefty fine in France when you get caught and you would have got caught). So I’m thinking ‘yikes I didn’t even think that was a possibility’. I head to the station the next day and the guy there is happy to book me up to Montpellier- a route that was supposedly solidly booked in the second class but was pretty free in the first (thank goodness I bought a first class ticket) - but then I was stuck and would have to beg for a connection or to be permitted to ride without a reservation. I thought I’d try for optimism, especially after discovering that a flight from Nice to Barcelona would cost around 250 Euro or one from Montpellier to Barcelona would cost over 600 and in either case the flight would be an hideous hour. I was hoping that people had big New Years Eves and were too tired or hung over to travel. So after only getting to bed at 2.30 myself, I was up at 7.30, not in the mood to travel and hoping against hope that the trains would miraculously sort themselves out. Travelling to Montpellier through the south of France was very pretty but I slept through a few hours of it and was also close to being too stressed out to notice. I got to Montpellier and found the most lovely train ticket guy who, after an initial slight grimace at my request, found me tickets to Barcelona leaving four and a half hours later. Brilliant man, was quite a bit enamoured with him after that. So four hour and a half hours ended up being five and quarter thanks to delays (my new least favourite French word- retardé (delayed)) but most of one trashy book later (book finished on train), I was Barcelona bound arriving in city just before midnight. I even met up with some of the Canadians I had met in Nice (who had been smart enough to book seats further in advance) at the train change just over the Spanish border and again at Barcelona station.  HA to all you people in Nice who weren’t willing to pray for a train miracle!

Interior of the Sagrada Família

The next morning at the hostel, I was wondering what to with my Barcelona time and promising myself not to devote it entirely to the works of Antoni Gaudí. That morning the plan was Casa Batlló and then maybe the Picasso Museum. Well that plan was ultimately a complete failure. When I consulted my map, I discovered  that the stops for the public transport were not labelled and so getting to where I wanted to go would be hit and miss. I thought, forgetting it is still under construction and therefore not a working church with services on Sundays (it was Sunday), that I would get to the Sagrada Família and then walk as its metro stop was named after it so at least I could find it and maybe taking a few photos of the outside- I was actually planning to skip visiting it while in Barcelona. I got off the metro and looked up at the beautiful facade of the church and the line, the crazy long line. It was about 10.30am and it was then I remembered that there aren’t services in the Sagrada Família. I decided well I’m here, I might as well join the line and check it out- the line stretched around the block the church is located on but thankfully it moved pretty quickly so it was only about 30 minutes before I got in. So happy I joined that line as the Sagrada Família is without compare the most beautiful church or religious building of any kind that I have ever seen (St Paul’s was first but now it lags WAY behind). You can see why they have been constructing it for more than 100 years (it was started in 1880s and won’t be finished until around 2025 at current estimate) and how since his death the people working on it have tried to keep strictly true to Gaudí’s original vision for the church. It is full of light and stained glass at perfect proportions- there will be more stained glass but I was a bit of fan of the plain glass that is in some of it now- and the arch of the building and tree like design of the columns is just astounding. The sculpture on the Nativity facade is gorgeous with its myriad animals and plants, and on the Passion facade is suitably stark and harrowing. I had known very little about Gaudí  before coming to Barcelona- pretty much that he designed nice buildings and that was it- and was shocked to discover a man who I have a profound new respect for. As I have now discovered and will report for your info, Antoni Gaudí was a strict Catholic whose faith so overwhelmed his life that for the last years of it he refused secular work and devoted himself to creating the Sagrada Família, his designs for the Sagrada Família’s glory facade (still under construction) show that he had a genuine devotion to his faith and to strengthening the community of Christian believers (it will include the Apostle’s Creed in massive letters and the Lord’s Prayer in many languages and will represent Christ returning in glory), he had a massive respect for God’s creation and took many of his designs' structures and motifs from the natural world, and finally, scoring him big points with me, he was a vegetarian. I can’t wait to go back in 15 years or so and see the finished product of the Sagrada Família but it is definitely worth the visit while still under construction.

My ticket to the Sagrada Família included a ticket to go and see the Gaudí House Museum in Park Güell so I looked at my map and thought it looked like only 15 or so blocks and decided I might walk. Now if you ever find yourself travelling with me and you hear me make a statement like this, please pull out your handy topographical map. It was a sunny day and I had forgotten that Barcelona is on some hills and that, as I have seen in films like Woody Allen’s brilliant Ricky Christina Barcelona, Park Güell is on one of the hills. The walk from the Sagrada Família is actually a bit of a hike as some of the streets are quite steep so I was a tad tried by the time I got up there. I was thinking Gaudí would have to work hard to wow me again as much as he just did but wow he did. Park Güell is actually a failed design for a residential, private park development- only two houses (one Gaudí ‘s own) and two guard/gate houses were ever built- which is now a public park. As I said it was sunny, it was in fact a perfect winter day (in the Australian sense) at about 12 degrees with a light breeze, and the park was packed with tourists and locals alike. When you arrive you see the famous Gaudí dragon and some of beautiful mosaic work (much like that at the Sagrada Família and the other Gaudí buildings) and you walk though a columned area which was originally designed to be the market place for the private park area. As you head up the stair, you encounter more mosaics, people pending tourist trinkets (lots of fake Murano glass for some reason- not sure what the connection is), buskers and a beautiful view of Barcelona. What with all the tourists around, you’d think that they would be no locals but there were tonnes of them sitting, talking, listening to the buskers (some of whom were very good) and soaking up the sun with beer and cigarette in hand. Lose the cigarette and I could have joined them- it looked like a lovely way to spend a sunny winter afternoon looking out as they were over the vista of Barcelona. The Gaudí House Museum in Güell Park isn’t hugely exciting but the park is picturesquely situated and in general just a beautiful place (it may be my favourite park now....watch out Sydney Botanic Gardens and Kensington Gardens you may have been overtaken).

Some fairly decent buskers playing Spanish classical guitar at Park Güell

Next morning, I was torn. Now that I was obsessed, did I need more Gaudí or should I look for something else to do? The answer was yes as I did both but sadly never got to the harbour area or Picasso Museum both of which I had wanted to look at. I’m a sucker for a bit of cable car action and there is a cable car up to Castell de Montjuïc on the peak of one of the hills. In the middle of an estate, you have to first catch a funicular (love that word) from one for the metro stops to get to the cable car station. The park of the estate is very nice (no Güell Park though) and the walk up the hill to Castle was a little steep but doable. That said who would walk when there is a cable car on offer? The cable car is 9.50 Euro return but access to Castle is free- it doesn’t have displays or anything but it is a great vantage point for photos of the city. After this I was off for more Gaudí at Casa Batlló (the most beautiful house ever) and Casa Milá or La Pedrera (the exterior of the building isn’t that great as people have installed hideous metal roller shutters on many of the windows on the lower floors (good work corrupting quality architecture people of Barcelona) but the attic, the open areas and the roof are lovely).

Roof of the Casa Batlló

Big pluses of Barcelona:

•  Increased admiration of Antoni Gaudí and his work. I have a bit of a crush on his architectural masterpieces.
• Paella- tasty!

Minuses:

• Brazilian insomniacs in my dorm. One of them was out all night the first night I was there and the other showed up and loudly woke me up at 7am (after my 12.30am arrival at the hostel I was none too impressed). The next day they both got in at around 6am (again loudly) and at about 8am (I was still trying to catch up on sleep), one of their boyfriends knocked on the door and was admitted to the room without question. I got my grumpy old lady on at that point and told them that I was trying to sleep and that he needed to get out (it wasn’t a mixed dorm and there were only three (the two Brazilians and me) of the seven people staying there in the room at the time (if it had been later in the day and the whole room had been there and OK-ed it that would be fine but seriously not cool otherwise). After that I got many an evil look cast at me and I’m not certain but I’m fairly sure bitching about me went on in Portuguese.
• The 3 day transport card in Barcelona. Be warned it is days as in days not as in 72 hours. I expected it to be 72 hours when I bought it at 11.45pm as I arrived in the city and it expired this morning (much less than 72 hours later) so the 15 minutes of the first day counted as a whole day as far as the card was concerned. What a rip!
•  Lines! Get in early and I mean REALLY early for anything Gaudí, except Güell Park, or you will be waiting for at least half an hour.

OK two hours until luggage gets here now (in theory). If the number of people at the groundforce lost and found past customs is anything to go by there are a LOT of people out there in Lisbon without their luggage. I’m flying with the same airline (TAP Portugal) in a few days so I hope the same thing doesn’t happen again on the way to Paris.